Quake Repair Delays Irk Van Nuys Court Officials

VAN NUYS — While much of the devastation from the Northridge earthquake has been repaired, officials at the Van Nuys Superior Courthouse are complaining that they are forced to work in a building with cracked and buttressed walls and smelly corridors.

“They did the Coliseum and every place else, and we’re still here waiting,” said Superior Court Judge Michael Farrell, who this year took over as supervising judge of the busiest San Fernando Valley courthouse. “Five years? Come on.”

He was so annoyed that he called a news conference Wednesday to call public attention to the damage.

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said that although the courthouse needs repairs, they aren’t the county’s biggest priority.

“Nobody likes to work in a building that’s full of cracks--I’m working in one right now,” Yaroslavsky said. “Life and livelihood come first. Aesthetics is a lower priority.”

He said he pushed hardest for repairs to the San Fernando Courthouse and the Mid Valley Comprehensive Health Care Clinic, because both were red-tagged with access prohibited. The closures had devastating effects on the local economy and health care of Valley residents.

Repairs have not always followed a firm priority list, however.

Some court workers point to the Santa Monica Courthouse, a building that was not red-tagged, but where repairs have begun.

A spokeswoman for the county chief administrator’s office, which oversees the work, acknowledged that the order of repairs has progressed “as things developed” and funding comes through. As such, timetables have also been “massaged” over and over again.

So far, 80% of the county’s 756 earthquake repair projects have been completed, said Carol Kindler of the county administrator’s office. All should be done by 2007.

One Van Nuys court manager said the last schedule she was given showed a completion date of March 2001 for the Van Nuys court building.

But construction is not set to begin until 2001, Kindler said.

Many of the repair delays across the county have been due to foot-dragging by insurance companies and negotiations with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, she said. It took years just to complete the architectural and engineering studies FEMA required to assess what repairs it would pay.

The county has had so many problems with insurance companies that it hired a law firm to do battle over the claims.

In the case of the San Fernando Courthouse, the county went to court before it could reach a settlement with the insurance companies, according to Yaroslavsky. That took more than two years.

Farrell, the Van Nuys supervising judge, said that while lawyers and court workers understand there are other priorities, the San Fernando Courthouse has been back in operation for a year and still there has been no word of repairs to Van Nuys, the second largest courthouse in the county.

“Frankly, it’s outrageous that our government agencies--and it’s a mixture of government agencies in this case--have allowed this to go on for so long,” Fred Gaines, president of the San Fernando Bar Assn., said at the news conference.

Gaines and Farrell said part of their frustration comes from not being apprised of the status of the repairs.

The supervising judge sent the Board of Supervisors a letter last year inquiring about courthouse repairs but never got a response, Gaines said.

Yaroslavsky said he never saw the letter.

Farrell said court staff would have valuable insight into repair plans. The 30-year-old building is in need of some improvements and, if construction is to be done, it would be foolish not to try to address those problems in the process, he said.

But Kindler said it is unusual for the county to begin coordination with the tenants of a building it is set to repair until the plans are made.

“Until that occurs, it’s very hard to discuss anything with anyone,” she said.