Earthquake: The Road To Recovery : This Court Assignment a Hard Cell : San Fernando: With their building red-tagged due to quake damage, city, county and federal agencies set up shop in the old police station and jail.

Inside the old San Fernando police station, where the Cabinet secretary came calling Thursday, city clerks, Los Angeles County prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies toil in jail cells every day, while U.S. Rep. Howard L. Berman works in one of the building’s offices.

A bizarre bureaucratic punishment? An ironic change of careers? No, not really.

Forced out of their regular quarters by last month’s earthquake, several city, county and federal agencies now have makeshift offices in the old building, some behind bars, others in padded rooms.

“We’re trying to accommodate people the best we can under the situation,” said San Fernando Mayor Dan Acuna, looking into a graffiti-scrawled cell being used to store court case files. “It’s just a place to work for the time being, although we’re thinking of keeping some of our clerks in here permanently. They have beds, so they can sleep, and that way we’ll get more work out of them,” he joked.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich visited San Fernando on Thursday to honor “The Unsung Heroes of the Earthquake.” Before he and Berman (D-Panorama City) presented certificates of appreciation to about 50 designated heroes, Reich toured the converted station to get a first-hand glimpse of local resourcefulness.

“All of the money in the world, all the federal assistance, wouldn’t mean a thing if it weren’t for people like you,” Reich said during the ceremony, held in the San Fernando City Council chambers. “We must celebrate the ordinary people, the workers of this community.”

The council chambers are now serving in part as a San Fernando Superior courtroom, Acuna said. The main court building was red-tagged after the quake and many workers transferred to Van Nuys Courthouse.

But some remained, and in a strange twist, prosecutors in the Los Angeles city attorney’s office who were formerly housed in the basement of the San Fernando Courthouse are now working out of jail cells in the old police station.

“It’s ironic what we’re doing to keep the justice system moving,” said David Knokey, the deputy city attorney who oversees the San Fernando branch.

Knokey himself has set up shop in a 4-by-8-foot yellow cell from which the urinal and toilet have been removed to make way for his desk. Knokey’s police liaison officer is working in a former padded cell.

Workers with the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence of the San Fernando Valley have set up shop in a large, gray holding tank, complete with bunk beds and a long set of iron bars. The two women, who place convicted drunk drivers in treatment programs, have decorated the sparse surroundings with a bouquet of flowers provided by a supervisor.

“In an emergency situation, we do the best with what we got,” said Diana Perez, court referral manager for the NCADD.