Judge Kingsbury on TV re Angora

Hello Judge Kingsbury:
Thank you so much for allowing us to videotape your fire story
for AOC-TV CCN. We got so much great video and information, we decided
to make it a two-part story - July 10 and August 14. The script below
is
for Part I.The hardest part is distilling it down into just a few
minutes!
I'll check back with you at the end of the month to make sure I
have the latest info for August.

Leanne Kozak
Office of Communications
Judicial Council of California-AOC
916-263-2838

CCN Script Part I:
This is the Tahoe we all know and love. Pristine air, fragrant
green pines, crystal clear lake. This is what it turned into on the
last
Sunday of June.The fire swept through residential neighborhoods in the
forest, devouring 254 houses --- and vehicles --- and more than
31-hundred acres. Including El Dorado Presiding Judge Suzanne
Kingsbury's neighborhood. She heard the news from a friend who'd been
on
the fire lines.

"About 7 o'clock at night he called the house and said 'I've
been by your neighborhood, your house is still standing, you don't have
any more neighbors."

But of course, Judge Kingsbury couldn't go home, so she spent
Sunday night in her chambers.

"They turn off the heating and cooling system over the weekend
so it was a little nippy in here, I had my pillows and my little
blankie."

Yet during a surreal event, reality intruded.

"In fact I was still on call, still getting calls from the
Sheriff's department on the west end of our county with probable cause
declarations they forgot to make. My town is burning to the ground and
you're worried about whether some drunk is going to get out jail -
aargh! It was very very hard to focus on real life but real life
marches
on."

So that was what Sunday brought. Monday promised a whole new set
of challenges with court business to take care of.
Monday is preliminary hearing day.

"I've got a calendar, I've got prisoners, I have people showing
up."

Fortunately, only 41 cases were scheduled. But law enforcement
personnel were unavailable - on the front lines of the fire zone, so no
security, and no prisoner transport.

"Virtually every officer that was scheduled to testify was out
in the field doing emergency duties. So I have to make a choice. Do we
call these people off the disaster lines? Do we let people out of
custody that perhaps present a danger to the community?"

So Judge Kingsbury's first order of business was to get the
Chief
Justice to issue an emergency order suspending time lines for five
court
days.Then they struggled to get through as much of the calendar as they
could in the coming days. They closed down at 3 Monday.

"We contacted our court administration down in Placerville, got
it posted on the website, contacted local media so they could let
people
know on the radio and in the newspaper what they should do if they had
a
court case. Then we started planning for succeeding calendars."

Another challenge: just a skeleton staff showed up for work. Many
court personnel were evacuated from their homes, or were poised to run
for their lives. Many couldn't get in. Angela Ann Phillips-Brown called
in Monday, but came to work Tuesday.

Angela: "I need to be here, I need to be around people I can't
just sit and watch the news, it doesn't help, it just hurts."

But then Tuesday afternoon, when the wind shifted, she and other
court staff were told to evacuate.

Angela "It was just an amazing scene, I'd never seen anything
like it. Scared to death. The smoke was so thick, it was so thick, and
the embers that were falling were huge."

Fortunately, firefighters kept the flames away from town, and
the
court, but the effects of the fire on the community will be felt for a
long time to come. And there are thoughts about lessons learned.

"Plan plan plan is all I can say. And I say even with that
you're going to meet up with a lot of unexpected issues that you never
contemplated in the planning process."

Next month on CCN, we'll tell you more about the personal
elements
of this story, as Judge Kingsbury takes us on a tour of her
neighborhood.

"What's it going to be like living in Chernoble? It looks like
it's been through a holocaust."

That's Tuesday, August 14, our next CCN.