Off the Record 12/23/2009

by on Dec 23rd, 2009

THE COUNTRY may be sliding into permanent Depression, but Mendocino County’s judges, already more numerous in relation to the County’s sparse population than they are in any other county in the state, are apparently going to get themselves a new Courthouse, complete with indoor parking to spare their majesties the indignities of sharing public sidewalks.

THE EXISTING COURTHOUSE works fine. There’s no need for a new one, but lawyers make the rules, and when the lawyers organized as judges go to the lawyers organized as a state legislature the lawyers are going to get their way. Which is why an “estimated $119.9 million” will be invested in a major eyesore off West Perkins Street where the abandoned train depot now rests in open fields of windblown trash opposite the Adventist Hospital complex. The new courthouse will give us twin eyesores only a long block from the present County Courthouse, also an eyesore but one we’re at least used to. And as we all know, whenever a public agency precedes a dollar amount with the verb ‘estimated’ you can double the estimate and still be a hundred mil short. This baby, assuming it gets built, will cost a lot more than $119.9 million.

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1 Response for “Off the Record 12/23/2009”

  1. Trent Foster says:

    Yes indeed, a new court house when the jail is a petri dish of bacterial contamination, enough so as to be an eighth amendment violation as cruel and unusual punishment, 119.9 million so the Armani or your money clad lawyer/ warriors, can avoid the light of day, like the vampires they are!
    Our court house as of now is an eye sore, a bauhouse design that resembles Nazi Germany, all it needs is a swastika and eagle mounted on top of it, ye old picture would be completed, this my suggestion, jack the whole mess up and put the classical school street side on state street! Or else we can have another abandon mess like the Palace hotel, wouldnt that be nice
    Oh darn I forgot we can turn 100 north state street into a Costco, it is already being used as a whole sale warehouse for those wearing orange jumpsuits, to be sold out, our money, their money, your money

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