Today, they say that some 42% of those jobs where people were laid off will not return anytime soon. Much like the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act provided billions for shovel ready projects, it may happen again. But will the judicial council drop the ball again and refuse the money AGAIN?
Probably. They dislike the federal oversight and accountability strings that come with the feds providing the money. If court construction were moved over to DGS, then we feel confident that just like they did last time, DGS would utilize the funds.
But if the branch wanted to take advantage of billions in free money as to not stick traffic scofflaws with these bills, it would be important to assess and ready projects to the shovel-ready state and plan to accept the funds for new court projects. It probably won’t happen under a Trump administration because only the wealthy and corporations benefit from any action he undertakes and the poor working folks are left to leverage FreeBNB for freeway underpasses.
And now, a note to the Judicial Council and various courts:
After our last blog entry, we noticed that the courts essentially got on the bandwagon of social distancing, stopped holding most hearings and started releasing prisoners and erasing bail.
Today, as some parts of the economy gear up, citizens are still largely afraid of long lines and crowded locations typical of a court environment. With some courts, if you placed social distancing rules into place with tape spaced 6 feet apart, lines would wind around the block and down the street. This all must be addressed. The persons who don’t show up in court today are likely in fear for their health and that should be taken into account before issuing FTA warrants.
Judicial Council Watcher 
Delilah
May 31, 2020
The Push to Modernize California Courts Hits a Budgetary Wall
https://www.courthousenews.com/the-push-to-modernize-california-courts-hits-a-budgetary-wall/amp/
Maxrebo5
June 19, 2020
It’s hard to have much sympathy for CA Courts asking for more money on technology projects given how badly they mismanaged the funds previously provided to them for CCMS. The legislature and the legislative analyst are both right to carefully review every Judicial Council budget request as the JC members are all appointed by the Chief to speak with one voice. That voice is not necessarily what is in the best interest of the state or the public. For example, the JC always asks for more judges but case filings are down and have been for a decade so it’s time for the JC to stop with their crazy self generated judgeship formula that somehow always says they need more funding for judges despite there being far less work coming in the courthouse doors. The JC culture needs total reform. It’s toxic and has been since Ron George became Chief two decades ago.
I have no faith the JC culture will ever change on it’s own. That’s akin to asking the police departments to reform their tactics on use of force (police brutality) on their own without BLM and the public pressuring them to do so. The insiders in law enforcement don’t want to change. Same thing with the CA Judicial Council. Voices of dissent are not ever put on the JC. The Alliance of California Judges should never have had to be created if dissenting views were included and welcomed onto the Judicial Council. Instead, all JC members are vetted on the sub-committees to ensure the votes always go the way the Chief wants and dissenting positions are discouraged. Horrible way to run the CA Courts and the branch is worse off for it. This is why they are always being audited and why they are decades behind in terms of technology. It’s just badly managed from the top down because of their desire to keep dissenting voices off the Judicial Council. Their time will be up someday too.