FRESNO DESK - The Clinton General Services Administration (GSA)
has announced plans to go ahead with construction of a second Federal Courthouse in downtown Fresno that has an $84 mil price tag.
According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the continued growth of the Federal Judiciary has resulted in a system comprising 1,900 judges and 26,000 employees. Current facilities are under severe pressure to maintain and provide for increased court dockets, the expanding variety of ancillary activities related to legal proceedings, reliance on modern technology, and greater security needs.
Many Federal Courts are located in buildings that are architecturally and historically significant, but functionally obsolete for even today's requirements. Of the 731 Federal court facilities nationwide, the Administrative Office identified 200 which will be "out of space" within 10 years. In 160 of these locations, the Judiciary's needs have been or will be satisfied by the construction of a new building or an annex to an existing courthouse.
This program is expected to cost approximately $8 billion. Since it takes 7 to 10 years to plan and obtain funding for and develop each new courthouse, projected needs have to be addressed now.
In an effort to counter public criticism of the waste of public funds on such projects, GSA spokesman, Jeff Nelligan, said the Fresno building will not include posh design elements like imported wood paneling, Chinese marble hallways, nor privacy suites for judges.
Fresno City Council members have been under pressure from local federal judges to get the Fresno project off the back-burner since the new federal courthouse project was approved by Congress in 1996.
The problem of pressure from federal judges, originally led to modifications of federal courthouse building designs. Such changes led to improper influence of federal judges in other cities to coerce sub-contractors to change building designs.
The 'cozy' relationship of federal judges and sub-contractors on GSA projects has been covered in Fresno and National DR columns. Eventually, the public outcry across the nation led to more congressional 'oversight' and the elimination of cost over-runs.
A Congressional investigation was initiated to determine the reason for vast cost increases in government building projects in 1995. Congress was horrified to learn that it had become the practice of the GSA to satisfy every whim and building modification federal judges wanted.
Federal Judges, it was discovered, had manipulated construction by demanding and obtaining from federal sub-contractors, lavish palaces with private kitchens, bathrooms, private suites with posh dining rooms and hallways furnished with imported wood paneling and Chinese marble.
As soon as Congress announced the scheme, it postponed action on all new
courthouse construction projects. The Fresno Federal Courthouse project was among those postponed construction projects put on hold.
That action, combined with Fresno City Council move, this week, to cancel a key Civic Center Development contract, cleared the way for its use of eminent domain condemnation powers and the removal of the last vestiges of ongoing private sector business from the tax rolls in downtown Fresno.
