Weber Court to close?

OGDEN -- Officials are considering shutting down the Weber County Justice Court, citing economic reasons.

The move would leave four cities that prosecute cases in the county court -- plus court staff that includes a judge, two bailiffs and four court clerks -- with no place to go.

For that reason, some of those city officials are meeting with the County Attorney's Office on Dec. 2 to explore options.

The big elephant in the room is the court's judge, Craig Storey. He's still facing a pending federal lawsuit alleging sexual harassment of his court administrator, Marcia Eisenhour, after the state's Judicial Conduct Commission only admonished Storey privately in dismissing Eisenhour's complaint at its Aug. 4 meeting.

"I think we may go in that direction," Deputy Weber County Attorney Dave Wilson said of the likely closure of the court, possibly as soon as July 1.

"If so, we would give notice to the judge and the other employees before the end of the year, in fairness to them." The county would be liable for Storey's salary, regardless, through all of next year, when his elected term of office ends.

Wilson, as head of the county attorney's civil division, will essentially be chairing the Dec. 2 meeting with prosecutors from Marriott-Slaterville and Hooper.

Wilson and Weber County Commissioners Craig Dearden and Ken Bischoff all insist that closing the court's doors in the Weber Center, 2380 Washington Blvd., is purely fiscal in motivation, even though they have been wrestling with the allegations against Storey since early in 2008.

"We were looking at this way before any of that happened," Bischoff said. "Obviously it doesn't help. But this discussion about the court has been going on for years. It's unfortunate another issue showed itself during the discussion. But that's not a reason to close the court."

"It does not factor into the discussion about the court," Dearden said of Storey's situation. "It's totally separate."

They've been discussing the court's future for four years or more, they said, while watching the number of citations written to the court drop from 10,000 a year to 2,000.

Justice courts, once called justice of the peace, handle only class B and C misdemeanors, with their most serious cases being assaults and drunken driving.

"We took a pretty good hit when Ogden city started its own justice court," Wilson said.

Wilson said if not for the county's share of the revenue in fines and fees from the four cities that use the court instead of running their own, the court would not be covering its operating costs. In addition to Marriott-Slaterville and Hooper, West Haven and Huntsville file their cases with the Weber court.

Word of the court's possible demise was news to Bill Morris, Marriott- Slaterville's city manager and prosecutor. He heard of it only two weeks ago, leading him to press for the Dec. 2 meeting.

"The county is suffering moreso than some of the cities with the recession for the past year," he said. Paperwork and bureaucratic hoops in setting up a new consolidated court to replace the Weber court could take as long as a year, said Morris.

"I just want to make sure we've got a court to go to next July. That's the target date they (county officials) gave me."

Wilson said a possible solution is to merge with another existing justice court. Roy, Ogden, and Washington Terrace, all with their own justice courts, have called to say they're interested, he said.

In the meantime, it was Wilson's office that took the sexual harassment complaint to the Judicial Conduct Commission this year after last year moving Storey's office up one floor from Eisenhour's, as well as naming another county official as her immediate supervisor instead of the judge.

After the judicial panel took no public action, Eisenhour and her lawyer, Brenda Beaton, angrily went to the press. They released their most damning evidence, an 11-page love letter with a number of mildly erotic passages Storey wrote to Eisenhour in 2007. The two have worked together in the justice court for 25 years, and continue to do so with the aforementioned buffers. Pending federal clearances, Beaton promises a lawsuit.

Eisenhour alleges Storey has monitored her phone calls, asked co-workers for personal information about her, and required she clear her vacation requests with him directly with details on where she was going, when and with whom, and once told her he dreamed of her naked from the waist up washing dishes in the court's break room. Storey has not returned phone calls seeking comment.

"The judge has gone through the disciplinary process with the Judicial Conduct Commission, and Marcia is going to do what she is going to do," Wilson said.

"The county commissioners have always said they are not using the possible closure of the court to solve the problem. They've said that all along.

"The lawsuit will come whether we close the court or not."