New courthouse priority list: Greenfield courthouse moves down, Seaside moves up

The Judicial Council of California has issued an updated report with a priority list for new courthouse construction projects, and the positions for Seaside and South County have changed since the report was last released.

In the new list, the Seaside courthouse is in the fifth position and the South County courthouse is in the 51st position. In an older list, Seaside was in 19th position and South County was in 45th position.

The Seaside courthouse, which is called the Fort Ord courthouse in the report, is in the immediate-need priority group, with an estimated project cost of $130.1 million, while the South County courthouse is in the high-need priority group, with an estimated project cost of $27.9 million.

The JCC lists the factors that contribute to the ranking: facility condition index, physical condition, security, overcrowding, access to court services and seismic risk factors.

In August, Greenfield city leaders traveled to San Francisco to make their case for a new courthouse, asking for the same critical designation that Seaside had at the time.

Greenfield Mayor Lance Walker sent a letter to the JCC, saying the city naively took the County Superior Court’s word 10 years ago when a courthouse was promised. The mayor said that, rather than keeping its word, the Superior Court made it clear it was more interested in securing a new facility with gorgeous views of the Pacific Ocean.

The Fort Ord courthouse would replace the current one in Monterey. The JCC ranked the current building as one of the most seismically dangerous courthouses in the state in a 2017 study. The building also does not have a fire suppression system and contains asbestos. The Superior Court said it hopes to find a safe replacement. It also said having the courthouse at Fort Ord location would keep it closer to population centers.

The new report will be discussed at a meeting on Tuesday in San Francisco.

To read the report from the JCC: