ROBERT PRICE: So, what did we ever decide on a name?
| Saturday, Jan 21 2012 10:00 PM
Last Updated Saturday, Jan 21 2012 10:00 PM
Out in front of the new Bakersfield Federal Courthouse last week, a work crew was building the forms for a substantial concrete pour: a 2-1/2-foot wall that one day soon will bear the name of a giant of jurisprudence.
And that, of course, is, ah ... um ... well ...
In a mere two months or so, the courthouse's building contractor will be wrapping up construction on the surprisingly handsome 35,000-square-foot structure, but Bakersfield may be no closer to knowing what name will appear out in front. Months after Reps. Jim Costa and Kevin McCarthy agreed that the naming of the building is best left to local voices, there's been no formal committees, no public talk-back sessions.
The background: Last July, a brief, innocent story appeared in the pages of this newspaper noting that Costa and U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer had each introduced bills in Washington to name the Bakersfield federal courthouse after the late Judge Myron Donovan Crocker. The reaction in Bakersfield was a collective "who?" Crocker was a distinguished jurist, no question, but he spent most of his notable career in Madera County, 130 miles away from the courthouse that would honor him. Costa and Boxer, who introduced their legislation at the request of nine federal judges, graciously withdrew their bills.
"This would allow the community to have a transparent process to name this federal courthouse," Costa said in a statement. "The process should involve the residents of Kern County and community leaders."
So much for the "process."
"I haven't heard anything," said federal magistrate Jennifer Thurston, who gets the nice, big corner office overlooking Mill Creek when the courthouse is completed May 8. She, like several people I talked to, said she'd heard something about there having been a roundtable meeting to discuss the naming, but she had no idea who might have participated. Thurston said the new courthouse, which will hear its first gavel strike sometime in September, will almost surely start out as simply the Bakersfield Federal Courthouse. "They're designing the signage (with that name) already," Thurston said.
Quite a ring to that, eh?
No matter whose name is on the front of the building, the courthouse will streamline the regional federal caseload. It won't lighten it, though: The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California will hear just as many cases overall as ever. What's different, Thurston said, is that an active courtroom in Bakersfield will make life easier for jurors, witnesses, court employees, the federal marshal's office and others who would otherwise have to travel some distance.
In fact it's quite an expense. The courthouse's official $28.5 million price tag is being funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 -- the Obama stimulus. ("But don't call it that!" two GSA contractors interjected in unison when I used that politically flammable term during a tour last week.) Local companies are providing much of the material and labor.
Back to the naming of the building: Last year, The Californian asked readers who they thought might deserve the honor, and responses have continued to trickle in. Earl Warren, the Bakersfield boy who grew up to be the three-term governor of California and perhaps the nation's most influential Supreme Court chief justice, leads with 70 percent of the vote. Among those receiving single votes: George Brown, Bernie Barmann, Frank Noriega and Thurston's suggestion, Arthur Wallace. "Nobody" has a vote, too.
McCarthy says he's working behind the scenes with federal judges and others to get something done that's fitting and acceptable. "Nobody" might be the winner in the short term, he concedes, but look for an appropriate honoree at some point.
Email Editorial Page Editor Robert Price at rprice@bakersfield.com.
