When most people think of a courtroom, they don’t envision a small corner office — but that’s exactly where Judge Art Thomas holds court.
His chambers in the North Harmony town hall are no bigger than a good-sized closet. Defendants waiting to argue speeding tickets or noise violations sit in chairs scattered throughout the building’s common space, like middle schoolers waiting to see the principal.
‘‘We’ve always called ourself the court closest to the people,’’ Thomas said with a smile.
And it is, literally. Defendants sit just feet away from him in brightly colored plastic chairs in front of his desk, flanked by newspaper clippings and photos cluttered on Thomas’ wall. Small as it is, the setting of his court has changed dramatically since he became town judge in 1964 and sessions were held in his home.
When proposals to merge small town courts come up every few years, Thomas’ follows the developments, cutting out newspaper articles and adding them to a scrapbook. The idea, which Thomas said ‘‘comes up about every seven years,’’ has again resurfaced with renewed efforts to merge neighboring town courts.
Assemblyman Bill Parment, D-North Harmony, has introduced a bill that would allow two or more contiguous towns to form a combined court. The law currently allows only two neighboring towns to merge courts.
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According to William Coughlin, county public defender, merging some town courts could save money in cost of transporting prisoners to trial and reduce the amount of assistant public defenders needed to cover the courts.
‘‘In the past three years, the (state) Office of Court Administration has created more courts within the existing courts,’’ Coughlin said. ‘‘You have drug courts now in Jamestown and Dunkirk and a drug court in Family Court, just to name a few. Each time they open a new court, that gives another clerk I have to send a public defender to and the district attorney has to send someone to.’’
In 2005, Chautauqua County paid nine assistant public defenders and one second assistant public defender $370,707 in salary and benefits. Four first assistant district attorneys and eight assistant district attorneys made a combined $559,412.
According to Coughlin, merging courts could allow the Public Defender’s office to make assistants full-time, bringing reductions in staff and post-retirement benefits.
‘‘One reason we have as many public defenders as we are required to have is because we have too many courts to cover,’’ Coughlin said. ‘‘If you were to consolidate courts, I may not need as many public defenders because you’d be in one location.’’
District Attorney David Foley said a merger wouldn’t necessarily cut down on the number of assistants who visit town courts. The towns of Mina, Sherman, Clymer and French Creek hold calendar calls at different times on the same night, so the district attorneys and public defenders only have to make one trip.
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While Parment’s legislation will allow towns to join together to merge court facilities, many officials have advocated going a step further to create district courts regulated by the state Office of Court Administration.
In 1978, the county’s comprehensive plan proposed replacing local courts in the Jamestown urban area with a general district court. The plan would have left rural courts unchanged because merging these would mean greater travel distances in areas already lacking adequate public transportation.
In 1996, the Southern Tier West Regional Development Board conducted a feasibility study for merging courts in the area known as Metro 6 — the city of Jamestown, towns of Busti and Ellicott, and villages of Celoron, Lakewood and Falconer. A committee with representatives from each community spent months studying the court systems, including costs and duplications.
The study found establishing a district court would reduce per-capita costs because the state would foot the bill for the courts’ operation and administration. These courts would require licensed attorneys to serve as justices and operate full-time, five days a week, which the report said would bring ‘‘a high level of legal sophistication and professionalism.’’
Success in consolidating would depend largely on how willing residents and political leaders would be to change the current system, the report found.
‘‘The indications seemed to be, from a cost standpoint, at the time there was a rationale for doing that, but there didn’t seem to be the political interest in doing that,’’ said Eric Bridges, a consolidation expert with Southern Tier West.
The local Magistrates Association came out against this merger.
‘‘It’s that nasty c-word — change,’’ Bridges said. ‘‘What we were proposing was dramatic, would make big changes in the way towns provide services.’’
