County Seeks to Trim New Courthouse Construction : Revenue: Income from court fines, which pays for the projects, has declined. North Hollywood, Chatsworth and Lancaster plans could be affected.

Faced with dwindling revenues, Los Angeles County officials plan to recommend cutbacks in their program to build new courthouses and expand existing ones, setting the stage for a possible fight over which of 10 scheduled projects will be deferred.

Officials from the county administrative office said Friday they expect to release a report next week to the Board of Supervisors that concludes the county cannot afford to proceed with all of its planned courthouse projects. The report will cite falling court and parking ticket revenues that pay for the projects.

County officials would not confirm which or how many projects they will recommend be delayed. But there are indications an $80-million courthouse planned in Lancaster could get a higher priority to proceed along with or ahead of courthouses in North Hollywood and Chatsworth.

The re-evaluation of the courthouse construction program was ordered earlier this year by interim county Chief Administrative Officer Harry Hufford, aides said. The county’s budget forecast delays several courthouse projects that had been expected to proceed this year.

“In my opinion, the Antelope Valley ought to be the No. 1 priority” among Superior Court projects, said Judith Meisels Ashmann, one of the county’s supervising Superior Court judges who also sits on the judges’ facilities committee. “We understand the need that exists out there,” she said.

Aside from the Lancaster, North Hollywood and Chatsworth projects, others facing review include new or expanded courthouses in West Los Angeles, Torrance, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Long Beach, Huntington Park or South Gate, and one near Los Angeles International Airport.

“There is a re-evaluation going on,” confirmed Julie Wheeler, the program specialist in the county administrative office who oversees the courthouse construction program. “There’s no way we can continue going as fast as we have been going,” Wheeler said.

After rising through the late 1980s, Wheeler said the annual revenue coming into the county fund that pays for courthouse construction has been dropping steadily since 1989. Annual revenue fell from $25 million that year to $16.5 million in the past fiscal year, she said.

Courthouse construction funds come from a portion of general court fines, court-imposed traffic school fees and parking citations, officials said. With the economy in bad shape and the amounts of many such fees rising, smaller amounts of money have been getting collected from those sources.

Originally, following priorities set in state law, county officials had planned to start construction next spring on the North Hollywood, Chatsworth and airport or West Los Angeles projects, then starting on the Lancaster project by May. But now that scenario appears unlikely.

Apart from the pending financial cutbacks, county officials conceded they have yet to even purchase the site planned for a Superior Court complex in North Hollywood at the corner of Lankershim and Burbank boulevards. Nor has the board adopted an environmental impact report for the project.

In Chatsworth, the county owns the 9.6-acre site at the southeast corner of Plummer Street and Winnetka Avenue, where plans call for a new Municipal Court and possibly a Superior Court. But nearby homeowners have a lawsuit pending against the county challenging the environmental impact report for the project.

In Lancaster, the county also already owns the Avenue M site where it plans to build a five-story combined Superior and Municipal courthouse. That project has no apparent roadblocks and is in an area generally considered to be in greater need of new courtrooms.

Under current state law, however, construction can only begin on the Lancaster project after construction has commenced on all three other projects in North Hollywood, Chatsworth, and either the airport or West Los Angeles.

Some county officials privately have suggested seeking a change in state law to allow the Lancaster project to proceed regardless. Lori Howard, an aide to county Supervisor Michael Antonovich, who represents the Lancaster and Chatsworth court site areas, said he would support such a change.

But a spokesman for Board of Supervisors Chairman Ed Edelman, who represents the North Hollywood and West Los Angeles court site areas, said he would “look with great disfavor” on any attempt to delay them.