Supervisors Give OK to Relocating Children’s Courts

Los Angeles County supervisors, citing the need to separate innocent youngsters from hardened criminals, agreed Thursday to relocate some Dependency Courts from the downtown Criminal Courts Building to Van Nuys and to try to move others to more outlying areas.

The board voted 3 to 0 to shift as many as six Dependency Courts to trailers on the grounds of the Van Nuys Courthouse and agreed to consider sending more courts to Downey as the first steps of what could be an eventual exodus of all 15 Dependency Courts from the Criminal Courts Building.

The supervisors, who also agreed to use an East Los Angeles location for a future Juvenile Court, adopted the plan amid some uncertainty over whether the owners of one prospective site in Monrovia--which had been targeted for Dependency Courts--had already leased the building to another tenant.

Despite the confusion, the supervisors stressed that the court transfers were needed because, as it is, children and parents attending Dependency Court proceedings are forced to share elevators and hallways with suspected criminals.

“The children are now being brought into a Criminal Courts Building with all of the hardened criminals in the world,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman Deane Dana. “The children have done nothing wrong, and they should be treated in an atmosphere where they are not exposed to such a terrible situation.”

Besides the question of putting children among suspected criminals, others pointed out that moving dependency courtrooms out of the Criminal Courts Building will make way for more criminal trial courts.

“That’s the (primary) incentive: to free courtrooms for criminal court cases,” said Thomas Becket, a member of the county Commission for Children’s Services. “The side benefit is getting children out of that building.”

Becket said the commission supports the Van Nuys transfer but had urged the county to approve the possible shifts to Downey and Monrovia only after a full cost analysis is completed.

Chief Administrative Officer Richard B. Dixon had told board members that the one-time cost for shifting court facilities would be about $2.4 million and operating costs would add $4.7 million annually, although some have questioned whether the costs would be that low.

The board directed Dixon to negotiate with owners of the Monrovia site, but the question remains whether it will be available. One of the owners, Jim DiGiuseppe, had warned supervisors Tuesday that the facility would be leased to a private company if the board did not act quickly to approve the deal.

DiGiuseppe could not be reached Thursday.