LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Tuesday the Lakeport City Council approved an agreement with the state Administrative Office of the Courts that will grant access to the proposed site for a new county courthouse, a development that will allow the state to move forward with property acquisition.

The Administrative Office of the Courts is proposing to build the new two-story, 50,000-square-foot courthouse on a six-acre parcel at 675 Lakeport Blvd. The estimated project cost is $53 million.

Looking on during the Tuesday council meeting were Lake County Superior Court Judges Andrew Blum, Stephen Hedstrom, David Herrick and Richard Martin; Lake County Superior Court Executive Officer Mary Smith; Anne Ording, the state's courthouse project manager; and Mary Bustamante, a senior real estate analyst with the Administrative Office of the Courts.

The memorandum of understanding – or MOU – the council approved with the state on Tuesday was necessary in order to clear up an access issue to the Lakeport Boulevard property.

In the due diligence process, the Administrative Office of the Courts' title company had concluded that there was a potential legal issue regarding property access because the property fronts on a portion of land that once belonged to Caltrans and was relinquished by the state to the city. Lakeport didn't designate it as street right-of-way, according to city documents.

At its May 17 meeting the council had considered the same agreement, which grants the state perpetual, nonexclusive use of the access area adjacent to Lakeport Boulevard for ingress and egress to the courthouse property, as Lake County News has reported.

The document also included a clause that the state would dedicate a right-of-way for a new proposed collector street to serve the courthouse “if feasible.”

Ording told the council at the time that the state had included the language because they had no information on what the road would look like.

Nonetheless, the council voted to accept the agreement with any instances of “if feasible” removed, because they wanted to guarantee that the road would be built.

The result was that the Administrative Office of the Courts rejected the language and the agreement the council approved, and began negotiating with the city on other options, one of which included proposing that the city build the road with the state to consider if it would participate financially. City staff rejected that proposal, according to city Community Development/Redevelopment Director Richard Knoll's report to the council for Tuesday's meeting.

With the purchase unable to proceed without an agreement, Knoll went back to the council with the original agreement, with the “if feasible” passages intact.

“There's been a fairly significant change in circumstance,” he told the council Tuesday.

That change, Knoll explained, came in the form of another agreement reached between the city and the state to pursue a feasibility study and engineering analysis for the proposed new road.

Once the study is complete, Knoll said the city and state will discuss whether the road's construction makes sense, taking into account topography, road alignment and other factors.

“In light of that, the MOU that has been proposed really makes the most sense in terms of the state's situation as far as acquiring the property” and moving ahead with design, said Knoll.

He added, “Staff is recommending that the city council approve the MOU as presented,” noting that city staff was “very comfortable” with the document as written because they know there will be additional discussion in the future.

Councilman Tom Engstrom, who in May had advocated removing the “if feasible” language, said he also was comfortable with the document.

Councilman Roy Parmentier, however, didn't want the “if feasible” language included.

“I just don't trust the state,” he said.

Mayor Pro Tem Stacey Mattina moved to approve the agreement, with Engstrom seconding. The vote was 4-1, with Parmentier voting no.

On Wednesday, Smith told Lake County News that, with the agreement approved, the state can move forward with the property purchase, which is expected to take at least a few weeks to wrap up.

On Friday morning the California Judicial Council is set to meet in San Francisco to talk about how to deal with the $350 million reduction to the state judicial branch's budget that was approved by the state Legislature and the governor as part of the state budget.

There are concerns about how those cuts might affect courthouse projects like Lakeport's, which the state judicial ranked among the most urgent in California.

However, Smith said local court officials are keeping an optimistic outlook.

“I think we're far enough along we're in good stead,” she said, but added, “That doesn't mean there won't be delays.”

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