The new Lodi courtroom has passed its fire inspections and will open soon. (Brian Feulner/News-Sentinel)

Almost in session

Inspections passed: New Lodi courtroom expected to open soon

It took four state fire inspections, but Lodi's new courtroom finally cleared its last hurdle on Tuesday morning and is ready to open soon.

The exact move-in date will happen sometime in the next month, once county, court, city and technology employees all meet to finalize the details, said Camey Joerke, court manager for the Lodi branch of San Joaquin County Superior Court.

In other words, by this time next month, the public should finally begin using the courtroom atop the city jail, at the west end of Lodi's police building on 215 W. Elm St.

That means the current criminal courtroom, located across the street at 310 W. Elm St., will be empty and the city can begin renovating it so the Finance Department can move in.

The moving and shuffling has been a long time coming, with the new courtroom space sitting vacant for four years.

The most recent delays involving fire inspections were minor and involved technical requirements for air ducts. But the various hold-ups started long before the building reached the fire inspection stage.

The biggest delay was due to the fact that, around the same time the police building opened in 2004, the state turned over control of courts to individual counties.

However, the state and county both have court construction funds, which paid for the courtroom renovations, totaling roughly $3 million. Those construction funds are paid for with money from fines — for instance, $10 of every $87 seat belt violation ticket goes to construction funds.

Once the monetary and construction complications were smoothed out, the work finally got underway. In constructing the building, Lodi had left space for the courtroom but did not build walls and rooms.

Court construction began in the spring of 2007, and by this fall employees were getting ready to move. When a possible moving day was set for September, some court personnel packed up items that weren't needed for everyday use.

But then the state fire inspections held things up. The courtroom itself falls under county jurisdiction and the building falls under city responsibility, but the state also had to sign off because it regulates anything regarding inmates.

More than once, Verne Person, Lodi's part-time interim fire marshal, coordinated schedules so a state fire inspector could come to Lodi from Sacramento. Each time, over a period of several months, the contractor hadn't finished something, Person said.

"It ended up being a much bigger issue than it should have been," he said, expressing relief that the building finally passed the fire inspection on Friday afternoon.

The issue was in the number of sensors and reset buttons in heating and air conditioning ducts, said Gary Wiman, Lodi's construction projects manager. One time, the number of required reset buttons was changed. Another time, the contractor hadn't made the changes.

But finally, with employees working around boxes for months, the state signed off Friday, the Lodi Fire Department signed off Monday and the Building Department gave its stamp of approval on Tuesday.

The new courtroom, with light maple and cherry wood and coordinating gray colors, is ready for occupancy.

Court clerks will have more desk and storage space, as well as plenty of windows. The judge's chambers have plenty of seats for attorneys to occupy — and the judge even has a private bathroom.

As for security, that's the biggest improvement.

No longer will drivers stop at the crosswalk as deputies escort handcuffed inmates across the street from the city jail to court. Instead, the inmates will go from their jail cell directly into an elevator, with bars to separate law enforcement from prisoners.

When they're done in court, the inmates will head back down the elevator, into the jail and out to a waiting Sheriff's bus, without ever stepping outside where they can run — as happened once, half a dozen years ago.

Joerke and Wiman hope to have the new courtroom opened within a month, and Joerke is optimistic that busy court calendars won't have to be reshuffled. Instead, the move may happen over a weekend next month, assuming all phone lines and computer accounts can be transferred.

Contact reporter Layla Bohm at layla@lodinews.com.