U.S. Court Plans Hit Snag Over Financing

Plans to finally bring a federal court to Orange County have been put on hold, federal officials said Wednesday, one day after county leaders thought they had an agreement to put the court in operation by spring.

Federal officials apparently planned to draw the $3 million needed to finance building of the court facility from the wrong fund and now may have to return to Congress for new financing, said Mary Filippini, spokeswoman for the federal General Services Administration (GSA) in San Francisco.

“How bad the news is, or how much it will delay things, we just don’t know yet,” Filippini said, adding that GSA’s legal department in Washington is still studying the matter.

Lease Agreement Approved

On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors approved a 10-year lease agreement with the federal government for two acres of county land for the new federal court branch, at the southwest corner of the Civic Center in Santa Ana.

The supervisors said they were led to believe that the lease agreement was the final problem to be worked out and that a modular building would be built in time for a court operation no later than June.

“My initial reaction may be unprintable,” Thomas F. Riley, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, said when he learned about the problem. “This is a cruel disappointment.”

Supervisor Roger Stanton, who has been the most active board member in trying to get the federal court branch for Orange County, was also concerned but said he needed to learn more about the problem. Stanton had not talked directly to GSA officials but said he has been told it could be “a verbiage problem, and some cautious bureaucrat in GSA has raised the issue.”

U.S. District Judge Laughlin E. Waters, who is overseeing the judges’ plans for the new branch, said Wednesday that he has been told by GSA officials in San Francisco that “funding for the project is dead.”

“I’m dismayed and disappointed,” Waters said. “The way GSA works continues to be a mystery to me.”

Filippini said she isn’t sure that funding is dead, as Judge Waters said he was told. But she did say, “I think it is fair to say we’re not optimistic.”

Duane Crumb, an aide to U.S. Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), called the news “ridiculous.” Crumb said Dannemeyer, who was unavailable for comment, will try to meet with GSA officials today to iron out the problem.

Aware of Funding Hitch

GSA officials acknowledged Wednesday that they knew about the funding hitch Tuesday, when the supervisors were approving the lease agreement. However, the supervisors said they were not told of the problem until Wednesday. GSA officials in San Francisco had refused public comment Tuesday on any aspect of the court project.

County officials and the Orange County Bar Assn. have been trying for years to get a federal court in Orange County.

Congress passed legislation in 1980 permitting the branch court, and money for the new court has been in the GSA budget for more than a year.

Work on the new court was progressing on three fronts: The federal judges in Los Angeles were planning how the court would operate, GSA and Orange County officials were working out a lease for the ground, and the GSA sought bids to have modular units built once the lease was signed.

Filippini told The Times last month that there was no problem with bids for the modular units and that everything would move quickly once the lease with the county was signed.

But “in the last day or so,” she said Wednesday, GSA’s legal department said there was a problem.

Filippini said the GSA had been ready this week to sign a contract with a bidder to put in the modular unit and the landscaping for the new court site. But the contract signing has been put off indefinitely until the funding question is resolved, she said.

‘61 Fund’

The $3 million for the modular units was in what GSA calls its “61 Fund,” which is essentially for personal property. GSA attorneys in Washington now say it looks like the law requires that the money come from the “construction fund.”

“We’re still looking into this, but it appears that we will have to go back to Congress for new legislation,” Filippini said.

Local officials wondered aloud Wednesday why the GSA did not iron out its funding problems before it put the contract for the modular units out to bid and before it agreed to lease the property from the county.

“Quite honestly, we really thought everything was in order,” Filippini said.

Filippini defended the GSA, saying it should not come as any surprise to government officials on the local level that “these things happen.”

But one high-level county staff member who has worked with the GSA on the project said Wednesday, “We’ve known from the beginning (the federal) GSA didn’t have its act together on this. I’m not really surprised at what’s happening.”

The modular units for the federal court would only be temporary. By the time the 10-year lease ends, the GSA expects to have a permanent home for the court. Plans for the modular units include room for two federal judges and a magistrate.

Long Negotiations

The lease agreement does not take effect until 45 days after the county receives notice from the GSA of its intent to occupy the premises. This enables the GSA to get out of the lease if the funding problem turns out to be serious, according to representatives of both sides.

The county and the federal GSA began negotiating a lease agreement more than a year ago. County officials said the federal GSA wanted them simply to give it the land, which they refused to do. The lease wasn’t worked out until last week, when Dannemeyer stepped in to try to bring the two sides together. His personal involvement was all the more reason why his office is upset about Wednesday’s news.

“Initially, GSA said fine, no problem (with the project),” said Crumb, Dannemeyer’s aide. “Now they’re saying funds are in the wrong category.”

Supervisor Stanton added that if the stumbling block proves serious, “it would be a crushing disappointment to everyone who has worked so hard.”