By Doug Miller
Gov. George Pataki recently signed Senate bill S7035, proposed at the behest of the state's Office of Court Administration, which effectively promotes several small-city judges from part-time to full time, and Smolkin found out last month that he would be among those promoted.
Long Beach has two city judges, both of whom are elected, and the judgeships are currently held by two career politicians. Paul Lamanna, the law clerk for Nassau County Administrative Court Judge Anthony Marano, said the bill did not originate locally and was not intended to benefit any particular judge. "It has more to do with an assessment on a statewide level of the filings in the various city courts and the judicial resources needed to meet those filings," Lamanna said.
Smolkin, 63, a Vietnam veteran and a former Democratic city councilman, is 33 months into a six-year term that runs through 2009. In addition to maintaining a private law practice, he typically presides two days a week, handling the bulk of the civil matters and small claims that come through the city court system.
"The only difference is our courts will be more accessible," Smolkin, who has sat on the bench since 1991, said on Tuesday. "Now I sit two days a week. I'll be sitting all days a week. I'll be doing the same thing, only more of it."
Is there, in fact, "more of it"?
"There is and there isn't," he said. "Some days there's a lot more."
The promotion means Smolkin must give up his private practice, but his judge's salary will increase from $54,400 to about $118,000.
Judge Roy Tepper, the city's current full-time judge, presides in City Hall's second-floor courtroom, while Smolkin's court sessions are held on the sixth floor, in the main meeting room, where he sits in the same chair as City Council President Leonard Remo and Zoning Board of Appeals Chairman Rocco Morelli. The room is adequate for small claims, traffic violations and building code violation hearings, but it will not be adequate for the criminal cases Smolkin will hear in his new position, several city officials said. While most major felonies are tried in Nassau County District Court in Mineola, cases of crimes committed in Long Beach originate with preliminary hearings and arraignments here. Those hearings must be conducted in a courtroom staffed by armed court officers and must be near a holding cell, which the City Council chamber obviously lacks.
In recent years, David Malone, who bludgeoned his wife, Diane, to death in their West End home two years ago this month, and Julio Rodriguez, a Level 3 sex offender charged with stalking Long Beach Middle School students, were arraigned under heavy security before Tepper on the second floor.
The possibility of a second full-time judge has come up before, most recently in 1990. City Manager Edwin Eaton, who was also in power then, said that Tepper has suggested building a second courtroom across the hall from the current one, in the space currently used as fire department headquarters. Eaton said he has been reviewing that proposal, and that it will be considered when the city decides where it will put Smolkin.
While the salaries of judges and court officers are paid by the state, the physical structure of the court is the responsibility of the city. "It's something that's going to have to be addressed," Eaton said. "Do we need a second full-time judge? Obviously the state thinks so. If we are mandated to [build a second courtroom], it's going to cost the city and its taxpayers a considerable amount of money."
And while Smolkin's promotion may indeed make the courts more accessible, at least one elected official said it sounded like the city was being handed an unfunded mandate by Albany. "If the city was given the opportunity to opt in or opt out, I would have liked to have seen data before making a decision," said Republican City Councilman Jim Hennessy. "I would want to know how many cases are heard each day, when the judges come in and go home ... To say something like 'every city needs another judge' is a ridiculous way of making policy."
Comments about this story? DMiller@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 213.
