COURT OFFICIALS WORKING TO MAKE THINGS BETTER.

Byline: Carl West Local View

WHEN the trial courts in Los Angeles County unified last year, the Burbank and Glendale municipal courts became part of the Superior Court's North Central District, which also serves La Canada Flintridge, La Crescenta, Montrose, Sunland and other communities.

While these former municipal court jurisdictions became part of a larger district, a primary goal of the consolidated court was to ensure that the residents not only continued to be served well but be served even better.

Some of the court's goals have been accomplished, while others are in the planning stages.

Residents in these communities no longer have to travel to Pasadena for juvenile traffic matters. Those services are now available at a courthouse within their own district.

In that same vein, a proposal is under consideration that would further benefit the citizens of these communities.

The proposal calls for each courthouse within the district to keep many local matters.

This plan would enable the Glendale courthouse to handle the majority of the district's civil, local traffic, unlawful detainer, small claims and code enforcement cases.

The Burbank courthouse would keep family law, local traffic, unlawful detainer and small claims cases. In addition, Burbank would handle the majority of the misdemeanor and felony cases. That would enable felony cases that currently are transferred to Pasadena to remain within the local district, which would shorten travel times for witnesses and family members.

It would also solve an increasingly difficult juror situation resulting from inadequate parking in Glendale and implementation of the one-trial jury program.

The fundamental reason for developing this proposal is to better serve the people who live in our communities and who use their courthouses.

Factors included in the rationale for this proposal are:

--The safety and security of individuals who frequent the courts.

--Adequate and convenient parking for jurors, witnesses and other interested parties.

--Avoiding unnecessary inconvenience and waste of jurors' time.

--Travel considerations for witnesses and family members.

--Making the best use of inadequate facilities over which the court has no control.

--Serving the best interests of all segments of the community.

--Complying with the will of the voters and state-mandated directives.

Although the provisions of this proposal have been the subject of meetings with city, justice agency and law enforcement officials for the past several months, some concerns have been raised in the recent days that need to be thoroughly examined.

While efforts are under way to explore those concerns and reach agreement, critical to the court is the ability to accommodate jurors who serve the district as it converts to a state-mandated one-trial jury system.

This new system, in which a person who completes service if not placed on a jury panel on the first day of service, requires nearly three times as many jurors on any given day as the previous 10-day system did. Parking for those jurors simply does not exist at the Glendale courthouse.

Consolidating the more juror-intensive matters in Burbank is one solution. Conditions can be arranged so the civil matters consolidated in Glendale are not so juror-intensive, thereby inconveniencing far fewer people.

Another critical consideration for the court is the safety of Glendale courthouse users. The small, antiquated lockup facility poses a significant security risk. The lockup at this courthouse, which was built 50 years ago, was designed to hold for far fewer individuals than today's needs and has inadequate areas needed for certain defendants who must be kept away from others and to segregate male and female defendants.

There are two important developments that require the court to explore different approaches to the use of the courthouses in our communities.

One is the Trial Court Efficiency Act, better known as Proposition 220, which was approved by the voters in 1998 and led to last year's merger of the superior and municipal courts.

The second factor is that the court does not own, nor does it control, the courthouse facilities. If something is inadequate, the court must rely on the county and municipal officials. In this regard, it is important to note that the city of Burbank contributed to the renovation of its courthouse in 1995, which included an upgraded jury assembly room and a state-of-the-art lockup facility.

The important aspect for the residents of the North Central District to keep in mind is that no plan will be implemented without input from the appropriate elected and appointed officials who represent them and their interests.

To this end, a series of meetings is under way that will explore options to aspects of the proposal that need to be addressed. This examination will include the assessment of the needs of all segments of the community - jurors, litigants, witnesses, members of the public, lawyers and law enforcement agencies.

This approach to meeting the needs of the citizenry of Glendale, Burbank and the other areas served by the court's North Central District is part of the court's overall goal, which is to provide better service and be an integral part of the community.