Mendocino County’s Judges Eliminate Civil Court in Fort Bragg-Without Telling the Public- Fort Bragg Courthouse: Criminal Court continues here but Death by a Thousand Cuts?

Are Mendocino County’ s judges trying to axe the Fort Bragg Courthouse once again?

The year 2025 has seen slow cutting of Coast court services, all of them unannounced. The biggest hit so far has just come.

Civil court on the Coast will be no more as of Nov. 14. What about the clerks? Will a new judge be assigned to Fort Bragg or no?

Is it true there will never be a jury trial on the Coast again?

And guess what this court system, made separate from the county and which works for an unelected agency which acts with superpowers we are given no role in, the California Judicial Council, DID NOT EVEN TELL OUR COUNTY SUPERVISORS ABOUT THIS!!!

The California Judicial Council has also recently cut off all reasonable access to criminal court files. They have a stated dislike and total disdain for the profession of journalism. They believe with all their hearts that the public should not be able to access, nor criticize the court system. They want to make it as hard for you, and for attorneys, and for police officers and for witnesses to access their glorious $150 million edifice of a courthouse in Ukiah. Their courthouse is supported with only fawning praise by the Ukiah Daily Journal, which has been cut to nothing and is like them, no longer really anything that could be called community or local. And by the Mendocino Voice. These two media outlets have buried the county in fawning praise for the new courthouse, but have never ever ever ever asked them ONE hard question. There are at least 100 hard questions we would like to ask them and have already asked them without answer. MUCH MORE TO COME on the spectacular failure of our fawning local media which praises architecture (even that raises some major questions) and doesn’t ask about function, access or how justice can work going forward totally in the dark without one tiny, tiny scintilla of even fake caring about public access to the court system.

Mendocino County courts are using the occasion of the retirement of the Coast’s Judge, Clay Brennan, to remove all civil cases to Ukiah. The courts are still likely to be open three days per week for the criminal court.  No announcement has been made about this big move, nor other cuts that have gone on. Jury trails have been transferred to Ukiah more and more and no further jury trials are expected in Fort Bragg. Translator and public defender services have been cut.  Nothing has been announced and has been catching lawyers, employees and of course the general public by surprise at every turn. Everything is being decided then just happening. Eventually, will there be a big announcement? What will be left at that point? Compare the many cut services that have happened since the judges promised to keep the courthouse open back in 2012. What exactly does Fort Bragg get from Ukiah in exchange for all that Ukiah takes away? Earlier in the year, the county told us, but didnt annouce anywhere that they were eliminating their regional jury selection method, which has allowed Fort Bragg people to serve on Fort Bragg jury trails. We now know that is becasue there are no plans to continue jury trails here. Again, think of how this is being done! This is the courts! We are supposed to be able to trust them!

This seems like a sneakier repeat of 2012, when the judges in Ukiah faces a gigantic uproar when they announced similar cuts, which the community figured out was eventually going to result in the closure of the 10 mile Courthouse entirely.  The new courthouse planned for Ukiah has enough courthrooms for all the judges.  

Last time, police weighed in on how difficult it woud be for them, and victims and witnesses to make that monstrous trip to Ukiah.  The county in Ukiah has a long and sordid history of forgetting that the Coast is what creates the entire tourist economy the county now lives on and much else. 

When MendocinoCoast.news learned that Mendocino County had quietly eliminated civil court in Fort Bragg—without announcement, without public input—we knew it was time to act.

This final, backbreaking cut follows a year of silent dismantling: jury trials slashed, services withdrawn, and now, a courthouse stripped of its core function. Attorneys are now required to file all documents online—no more filing at the window, no more local access.

We won’t stage-manage this story. We’ll publish the facts we know, the reasonable questions we’re asking, and the civic implications that demand answers. Then we’ll follow up with every response we can get—from the county, the courts, and the community.

Here are our questions

1.  Is the Fort Bragg courthouse headed for closure?
2. Is civil court gone for good?  Could this be temporary? (Not what we have heard from reliable sources)
3. What hours will the court be open?
4. Will the clerks continue to be employed?

This isn’t just a procedural shift. It’s the quiet unraveling of local justice. For a year, Mendocino County has chipped away at Fort Bragg’s courthouse—cutting jury trials, stripping services, and now, eliminating civil court entirely. No announcement. No hearing. No vote. Just silence and a new mandate: attorneys must file online, with no more window access for the public.

We’ve seen this playbook before. Ukiah judges tried it once—with notice. This time, the cuts came cloaked. But the community deserves clarity, not erasure.

According to a history of the local court system written in the Anderson Valley Advertiser written in 2014 by retired Judge Jim Luther, the 20th and 21st century has been a story of the Ukiah headquarters cutting outlying courthouse after courthouse. 

At one time there were two judges in Ukiah and the rest practicing in communities all over Mendocino County, called Justice courts. Then in 1994, by constitutional amendment, all the justice courts in the state were abolished and became municipal courts, each with its own full-time judge. In Mendocino County, the municipal courts then held court in seven locations: Covelo, Point Arena, Laytonville, Boonville, Fort Bragg, Ukiah, and Willits.

Now eight judges are on the bench, all in Ukiah. Judge Patrick Pekin has been holding criminal court Mon-Wed in Fort Bragg, but nobody has officially been assigned the Fort Bragg Court.  A $144 million new courthouse is going up in Ukiah, with enough courtrooms to give each of the current judges, plus one a home. 

A Brief History of the Justice Courts of Mendocino County

The authorities have trained, obedient media here who have been joyously celebrating the new courthouse, never questioning the pricetag or scale of it and who boosterize any press release and all official viewpoints. In that enviornment, MendocinoCoast.news will not wait for the press release. We’re publishing what we know, asking what must be asked, and tracking every answer. Because when a courthouse goes quiet, someone has to speak up.

Here are the questions we sent to the top bananas, MC Courts Administrator Kim Turner, chief judge Keith Faulder, supervisors Bernie Norvell and Ted Williams, FB Mayor Jason Godeke and City Manager Isaac Whippy. Only the first two made this decision, but you should expect the others to care. In at least one case, they won’t but they did when this has been tried in the past. If you dont care, you lose everything in America.

	to keith.faulder

Hi KIm and Keith , Frank Hartzell with Mendocinocoast.news about the drastic cuts to the Fort Bragg courthouse…

I Had  a few questions, I can call. or if email works Im happy to print answers in full

1 . Is there a plan to close the courthouse in Fort Bragg?

2. Civil court is being removed, will it come back here someday?

3. Is it true there will never be a jury trial on the Coast again?  If not, can you tell me how jury trials would happen here?  When the community made a huge effort and the closure was stopped in 2014, the promise was made that jury trials would continue here

4. Will a new judge be named to sit on the bench here or will all 8 (or is it 9) be Ukiah based?

5. Will the DA staffing remain at 1?  

6. Are the cuts to translation services on the Coast permanent?

7. Could the drastic cutbacks to the Coast be at least lessened temporarily by cutting back on the expenditures being made for the new courthouse?

8.  Were the Coast’s two supervisors made aware of the year long cuts that have been going on to the Coast’s court?  Were the cities of FB and Point Arena

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9 . Why is all of this being done without any formal announcement?

10.On August 1, all online access to criminalI  court files was cut off by you. This has made it impossible for myself and any other journalist who wishes to get files, totally impractical if not impossible. The new “public portal” has not been available when I have gone to try.Its impossible to do trend stories. I had an important one on how the DA was prosecuting crimes, how they are selected. With these changes, there is no way I could do this in the time allotted and the cost is now exponentially more to access court files. Mendocino County bucked the trend of cutting off publlic access to criminal court files until this year, although the edict to do so   (not mandatory) came out before the pandemic. Other counties still provide reasonable public access. Is there any plan to provide this in the future?