Judge Assails S. County Courthouse Plans

The 20-year fight for a larger courthouse in South County took another unexpected turn Tuesday, leaving one judge threatening court action and supervisors scrambling to work out a compromise before a final vote next week.

Pamela Iles, assistant presiding judge of Municipal Court in Laguna Niguel, exploded after county planners unveiled a proposed 87,000-square-foot courthouse--instead of a 250,000-square-foot version originally approved by supervisors four years ago.

“I’ve never seen such a piece of schlock in my entire life,” Iles said of a report by Chief Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier that compared South County courthouse plans with cramped courthouse space in the rest of the county.

“These numbers are a complete lie,” Iles said. “This is unprofessional. It’s a joke. . . . If you think we can operate in the space [Mittermeier] has provided, you go ahead and vote for it and I’ll see you in court.”

Supervisor Tom Wilson suggested that the board take another week to study the options. Supervisor Todd Spitzer said he and Wilson would meet with Iles and other court personnel this week. A furious Iles, who has made building a new courthouse a personal crusade, declined comment after the meeting.

It was just two months ago that Iles appeared happy with supervisors after they agreed to earmark $5 million toward the new South County courthouse after hashing out the county’s five-year strategic financial plan. The new building is to include court space as well as work areas for probation, the public defender’s and district attorney’s office, as well as prisoner holding cells.

At that time, Iles agreed with a county suggestion to phase in the eventual 19-courtroom building, to be built by Koll Development Co. in the Ladera planned community at an estimated cost of about $54 million. The current South County courthouse in Laguna Niguel is so overcrowded that clerks work in stairwells and a conference room is used for hearings.

Felony cases handled by the courthouse have tripled from 447 in 1986 to 1,385 in 1997. The courthouse was built 30 years ago to handle a population of 100,000. Now, it serves a population of about 559,200.

But the revised financial plan for the courthouse brought to the board Tuesday shrunk the courthouse and called for the county to pay cash for the building--now estimated at about $20 million--instead of financing a larger one.

Chief Financial Officer Gary Burton said the changes were needed to accommodate building the new courthouse without incurring additional debt, and paying for new jail beds at the Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange--two things supervisors insisted were priorities at their meeting in March.