Errors, Haggling Delay Court Reopening : San Fernando: Staff at quake-damaged facility won’t be back until 1996.

Reopening the quake-damaged San Fernando courthouse will be delayed by about a year because of a miscalculation over repairs and bureaucratic haggling among the government agencies overseeing reconstruction and insurance companies, county officials said.

The modern Spanish mission-style edifice was originally scheduled to reopen in April. Instead, the building that houses the North Valley branches of Superior and Municipal Court is not expected to hold court again until next spring.

County officials are hedging on an exact reopening date. Several scheduled completion dates have already been missed because of arguments over construction costs among Los Angeles County, its underwriters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state Office of Emergency Services.

“If you’ve dealt with an insurance company before, well, magnify it by about 5,000 times and you’ll know what we’re going through,” said Carol Kindler, assistant division chief for the county chief administrative officer.

The courthouse is the largest county facility in the Valley still closed by Northridge earthquake damage, said Steve Sharr, who is overseeing the project for the county.

Meanwhile, judges, attorneys and staff members who had worked at the San Fernando courthouse continue to toil in trailers and other makeshift offices at the Van Nuys Government Center alongside their colleagues in the Northwest Judicial District.

Although the upheaval and delays reportedly have not cost the county any additional money, they have slowed an already glacially paced justice system.

“It’s amazing how this district has functioned,” said Stephen L. Cooley, who heads the district attorney’s San Fernando branch.

Cooley works out of a fifth-floor office in the Van Nuys Superior Court building, which used to house eight Van Nuys prosecutors and now is also home to 19 San Fernando attorneys and staff members. “It’s a little tight,” he said. The other dozen prosecutors Cooley supervises are scattered in five different locations throughout the government complex.

The 12-year-old courthouse was red-tagged, or closed to the public, after last year’s earthquake cracked supporting columns and walls and led to extensive water damage from broken pipes. County officials initially believed it would cost $30 million to repair but have since reduced their estimates to $13 million.

Construction managers now hope work will begin in September, provided that a new engineering report on needed repairs wins approval from county, state and federal officials as well as private insurance companies. The report is due June 22, Sharr said.

Under the new construction schedule, work would be completed by February. The courthouse staff would have two months to move back in, and court could be held again in the Mission City by mid-April.

“Of course, that is dependent on everything falling into place on time,” Kindler said.

The first setback was a miscalculation by county engineers in the strength of epoxy used to repair cracks. It turned out that bonding injected into walls was only about 70% of the strength required by FEMA, according to Sharr.

Since then, there have been debates over who should pay for what. Insurance companies have maintained that they should only have to pay to restore the building to pre-quake condition, and not for additional retrofitting needed to bring it to current seismic safety standards, as FEMA insists.

The county also wants to add more ramps and railing to the courthouse to comply with federal handicapped-access requirements.

“It would be unconscionable for us to let people back into this building if it were not up to current codes,” Sharr said.

So far, nearly $500,000 has been spent in emergency repairs, cleanup and engineering studies. When the project is completed, the final tab is expected to reach nearly $13 million. The new completion date is being met with guarded optimism by those who have experienced the closure’s myriad ripple effects.

“If this is accurate, we’ll be grateful,” said William MacLaughlin, supervising judge of the San Fernando Superior Court. “Everyone has done as well as could be expected . . . but it is still greatly frustrating because of the lack of facilities available.”

San Fernando criminal courts have joined their counterparts in the Van Nuys Superior Court building. There is a San Fernando courtroom on each of five floors there, and a sixth courtroom in the Van Nuys Municipal Courthouse next door.

“The hardest thing is you feel so temporary,” said Judge Candace Beason, who runs her Superior courtroom in the Municipal courthouse. “You feel isolated and out of the loop in terms of communication.”

Judge Judith Ashmann, who was supervising judge when the temblor hit last year, said criminal cases are moving slower than usual because suspects in custody must be brought upstairs from a basement lockup and through back-room hallways because of the lack of holding facilities in some of the courtrooms. At the San Fernando courthouse, which opened in 1983, each courtroom is equipped with a secured holding area for County Jail inmates.

The older Van Nuys Superior Courthouse lacks as many built-in security features as its San Fernando counterpart, where civil judges often took on criminal cases to help move a crowded calendar. Since that has not been possible in Van Nuys, more cases have been delayed with fewer judges available, Ashmann said.

San Fernando civil judges have settled into trailers just north of the Van Nuys Superior Courthouse. MacLaughlin, who handles civil matters, said the makeshift courtrooms are so small that cases involving more than four attorneys have been continued because they won’t all fit.

“It is a serious impediment because we have many multi-party cases,” MacLaughlin said. “And with an increased case load in criminal because of the ‘three-strikes’ law, it’s putting a lot of pressure on the entire district.”

San Fernando Municipal Court has split up its judges between the Van Nuys courthouse and an old facility on the 900 block of 1st Street in San Fernando, with the more serious criminal offenses going to Van Nuys.

Like the prosecutors, attorneys with the San Fernando branch of the county public defender’s office have joined their colleagues from the Van Nuys branch in offices on the 10th floor of the Van Nuys Municipal Court building.

“We are all doubled-up,” said Bill Weiss, who heads the public defender’s San Fernando office.

City officials in San Fernando would welcome them all home. Since the closure of the courthouse nearly 15 months ago, nearby businesses in the east part of the historic city near its civic center have been hurting for business. An estimated 2,500 people a day used the courthouse its closure.

“It has affected the nearby restaurants, cleaners, shops and gas stations that were dependent on the people who worked at and visited the courthouse,” said City Councilman Ray Ojeda, who was mayor when the quake hit.

At the Sizzler restaurant at Truman and Maclay Avenues near the courthouse, business has slowed since the building closed.

“Before, when the court was open, there were never empty tables around here,” said manager Guadulupe Ortiz, pointing to tables. “It’s lunchtime and look at all these empty chairs.”

San Fernando Police Chief Dominick Rivetti said the closure has also meant more time spent by his officers to travel to Van Nuys to file cases or testify.

“I have my fingers crossed,” Rivetti said, “and hope this projected opening is an accurate date.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Courthouse

Some vital statistics on the San Fernando courthouse:

* Located at 900 3rd St. in downtown San Fernando.

* Built in 1983.

* Cost $24 million to build.

* Municipal Court: five courtrooms and five judges.

* Superior Court: 13 courtrooms and 13 judges.