Siskiyou Courthouse, Part 4: The state giveth and tryeth to taketh away Bob Kaster The Septuagenarian Speaks On July 12, 2016 Siskiyou County Superior Court Presiding Judge William Davis and Court Executive Officer Mary Frances McHugh had to perform a difficult and heart-breaking task. They had scheduled an emergency session with the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors to deliver some terrible news. The state was on the verge of taking away the funds designated for constructing the new courthouse in Yreka. Commencement of actual construction of the project was just weeks away; a $69 million project that would take two years to build. Planning for the project had been ongoing for more than a decade. Court CEO Mary Frances McHugh explained to the Board that the crisis was outside of the county’s control. The special fund used to pay the debt service funding 23 court construction projects statewide, created September 26, 2008 by Senate Bill 1407, came from fines collected by the courts. But between 2010 and 2013, when the state was in fiscal crisis, the governor took $1.4 billion of the special fund, and had not repaid it. The $1.4 billion would have paid for all 23 projects. Siskiyou County’s project was the first priority of those 23 projects, and shovel-ready. She told the Board, “The community has invested $5,000,000 in the project … In March 2016 the state asked Siskiyou to take interim financing instead of having a bond sale for just a single project. Siskiyou agreed. Four months later, Siskiyou is being told the path the State asked us to take will mean no funding at all. It will mean the death of the project, a waste of a community contribution of nearly $5 million and it will create a blight in the center of the community.”