COCRA MEMBERS

It has come to COCRA’s attention that in December of 2009, a recommendation was made to the WVC Academic Senate that several programs be discontinued, including the court reporting program.

One hundred percent of WVC students sitting for the California Certified Shorthand Reporters examination in the last five years have passed the rigorous Department of Consumer Affairs exam and went on to become successful members of our court reporting team.

Please support WVC by sending your letter/email out immediately.

Two of our favorite court reporters have made it easy for you. Below is the contact information you will need and two sample letters; one from Carol Karen of San Francisco Superior Court, CSR 8189, RDR, CRR, and the other from Patricia Dowling of San Francisco Superior Court, CSR 5388.

Please act today! The court reporting industry is a vital and vibrant part of our California judiciary. We need schools like WVC to teach promising men and women the necessary skills to keep California court reporting at its best!

CONTACT INFORMATION

Please send email or letter correspondence to:

Mr. Jim Henderson
Business Division Chair
West Valley College
14000 Fruitvale Avenue
Saratoga, CA 95070
jim.henderson@wvm.edu
cc: linda.lawson@wvm.edu

Continue reading for sample letters.

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Well, court reporting may not have made it into the top 10 or even top 20 in a new survey of the 200 jobs rated best to worst put out by careercast.com, but court reporters have plenty to cheer about when they see that according to the survey court reporters ranked number 22 beating many other professions like astronomers, economists, and even physicists!  How do you like them apples?

The website came up with the scoring for the jobs in the survey in the following manner.

How does Jobs Rated determine which professions rank better than others? Data on each job is broken down into five key categories: Physical Demands, Work Environment, Income, Stress and Hiring Outlook. Jobs receive a score in each individual category, and when these are added together, the career with the best overall score is ranked 1st, while the one with the worst overall score is ranked 200th.

If you’d like to see the survey yourself, you can click here for the page.

Well, COCRA members and supporters, it took about a year’s worth of planning, but we finally got it done. And by done I mean the total revamp of our website. COCRA takes pride in the fact that our original website was a trendsetter for state court reporting associations. And now COCRA sets the trend again with our refurbished site.

The first thing visitors to the new site will see is a feature that we had installed on the previous website. And that feature is our blog which is where we’ve been posting the latest news and information about court reporters.

We’ve also made it easier for people to follow us on Twitter and Facebook by adding icons for both social networking sites up at the top of the website. So don’t forget to friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Aside from the very cool new color scheme, we’ve pared down our website to its essentials and we’ve streamlined pages to make it easier to find information.

Of course none of this could have been done without the help of the folks at the web design firm LunaGraphica. A special thanks to Bob Nicholson and Cindy Couling of LunaGraphica for helping COCRA realize its dream for a new website. If there are other court reporting state associations out there looking for a firm to either build a new website or refresh a current one, I highly recommend that you contact Bob and his team.

COCRA hopes that its members and supporters will like the new website and if there’s anything you see that you think ought to be corrected, drop us a line and we’ll get right on it.

Say Hello To Your COCRA District Regional Representatives

At the COCRA Fall Conference the membership voted to approve changing how the membership is represented on the Board.  Originally we had district reps that followed the appellate judicial districts.  However, after much research, the COCRA Board presented the membership a new representation plan that is based on the California Administrative Office of the Courts’ regional districts.  Gone are the six judicial districts and in comes the three Regional Representatives.  The main impetus for this change is the fact that it is the AOC that is tasked with the running and oversight of California superior courts.

If you’d like to see a map of which region your county fall in, you can click here to view it.

The following are COCRA’s Regional Representatives and the regions they represent.

Bay Area/Northern Coastal Region

Formerly known as Judicial District 1 and Judicial District 6

This region shall consist of Judicial District 1 and Judicial District 6 and shall include the following counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Monterey, Napa, San Benito, San Francisco, San Mateo, Solano, Sonoma Santa Clara, Santa Cruz.

Bay Area/Northern Coastal Regional Representatives

Jo Ann Bryce, CSR
San Francisco County
E-Mail: jbryce@sftc.org

Dawn Wood, CSR, RPR, CRR
Santa Clara County
E-Mail: dawnbwood@gmail.com

Northern/Central Region

Formerly known as Judicial District 3 and Judicial District 5

This region shall consist of Judicial District 3 and Judicial District 5 and shall include the following counties: Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, El Dorado, Fresno, Glenn, Kern, Kings, Lassen, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, Modoc, Mono, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tehama, Tulare, Tuolumne, Trinity, Yolo, Yuba.

Northern/Central Regional Representatives

Brian Graber, CSR, RMR, CRR
San Joaquin County
E-Mail: bg5219@yahoo.com

Suzanne McKennon, CSR
Fresno
E-Mail: suzsteno@peoplepc.com

Southern Region

Formerly known as Judicial District 2 and Judicial District 4

This region shall consist of Judicial District 2 and Judicial District 4 and shall include the following counties: Imperial, Inyo, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Ventura.

Southern Regional Representatives

Deborah Kalla, CSR
Ventura County
E-Mail: COCRA.Kalla@gmail.com

COCRA celebrated its ten-year anniversary this year in conjunction with COCRA’S Fall Conference, which took place at San Francisco State University’s downtown campus in the chic Westfield San Francisco Centre on Saturday, September 12, 2009.

The day commenced with the CCRR realtime test being given to those steadfast reporters courageous enough to battle their jittery nerves at 8:00 on a Saturday morning. We’re Officials! We’re not used to our fingers flying on the machine until 9:00! Good luck from COCRA to those waiting to hear the results!

Candis Bradshaw of Pennsylvania next presented her Technogadgets and Sites Galore seminar. Her bubbly enthusiasm and savvy technosense were contagious. Official Reporters pride themselves staying up with latest and greatest technology, and Candis didn’t disappoint introducing us, among other things, to “Dropbox” and sharing her knowledge of the best laptop specs.

Before lunch, Kitty Costello, M.A. MFT taught us to manage our stress with breathing and relaxation practices. Her demeanor was very, very calm, and her pitch was soothing and melodious. Can you imagine if every judge, litigant and witness conducted themselves in such a fashion? Our jobs would be so much easier. As reporters, we tend to take on the stress of the courtroom. Did you know that when a stressful trigger occurs, you have six to ten seconds to redirect your nervous system from the fight or flight response? Kitty gave us the tools, in effect, to save ourselves from ourselves! We left for lunch with our shoulders down and our “Zen” on!

After lunch we got down to business with our Sacramento Watch. Tami Brown, Lyn Yard and Suzanne Lauzon filled us in on the latest goings-on around the State regarding labor issues, court closures and the harrowing budget details.

Stacy Gaskill (San Mateo), Debbie Neville (San Francisco), Adrienne Peretti (Alameda), Retta Parsons (Santa Cruz), and Suzanne McKennon (Fresno) were our Town Hall panelists. You could hear a pin drop as each Reporter gave us the details of the happenings in their respective counties.

The last seminar of the day is always the hardest for our presenters. The audience begins to look cross-eyed and delirious by this time of the day. Thank goodness for Rhonda Aguilina’s briefs workshop!! You’re probably saying briefs? Not too exciting, but Rhonda was hilarious and totally entertained us with her flippant, off-the-cuff humor. It’s official! COCRA’s Rhonda Aguilina is DRA’s Mary Bardellini. We loved it. What a great way to end the day!

Please check our website for COCRA’s next event, which will be in April of 2010. Thank you to Gordon Aiavao and the Conference Committee for all the hard work!

I can’t even begin to tell you how insanely accessible the location is for the COCRA Spring Conference at the Westfield San Francisco Center. So accessible that at our 2008 Spring Conference I was pleasantly surprised when I met a group of officials who had flown up from the Los Angeles area for the day. The group had flown into San Francisco International and then walked over to the BART station and took the train into the city and got off at the BART station located in the San Francisco Center. Now if this group of intrepid reporters were able to find their way from LA, what’s the excuse for those of you in the Bay Area?

Here are a couple directions and tips on parking for those of you planning on attending COCRA’s Spring Conference this Saturday April 4th at the SFSU Campus at 835 Market Street between Fourth and Fifth Streets.

PLANES

Those of you planning on flying in for the day or the weekend will be coming in either through San Francisco International or Oakland. If you’ve got the money, you could catch a cab. But if you plan on taking BART, here are some directions from the airport websites.

San Francisco International

BART operates rapid rail service to northern San Mateo County, San Francisco and the East Bay directly from SFO. The SFO BART Station is located on the Departures/Ticketing Level of the International Terminal (Boarding Area G side). BART is easily accessed from any terminal by riding SFO’s AirTrain to the Garage G/BART Station stop. There is no charge to board AirTrain. BART provides a connection to Caltrain at the Millbrae station.

Oakland International

AirBART operates between OAK and the BART Coliseum/Oakland Airport station daily, approximately every 10 minutes, until midnight. Service begins at 5 a.m., Monday through Saturday, and at 8 a.m. on Sundays and holidays. There is a single shuttle stop for both terminals, conveniently located between Terminal 1 and 2 at OAK’s third curbside.

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Since moving our conference to the SFSU campus located at the San Francisco Westfield Center we’ve heard many positive comments about the plusses of the location. But there is one plus that I’m going to tout and that is the free Wi-Fi!! Those of you who bring your laptops or any other web accessible device will be able to hop online to do research on seminar topics. You’ll also be able to check your emails or Facebook or Twitter about the conference. Now does that make you sound like a member of the plugged-in generation or what?

Just a reminder for those of you seeking to be certified in realtime reporting that the California Commission on Realtime Reporting will be giving its California Certified Realtime Reporter (CCRR) this Saturday, September 12th, at the 2009 COCRA Fall Conference. There’s still time for you to register online and you can do so by registering online with COCRA or you can register for the CCRR at the official CCRR website.

Posting video here of part of the rally held Tuesday, August 25th, in front of the San Mateo County Superior Court protesting the possible layoff of 60 employees.

A $3.89 million “accounting error” could cost 60 court workers’ positions in San Mateo County Superior Court. On Aug. 25, 2009, more than 200 workers rallied to fight service cuts to the community if one in four court workers is let go.

COCRA received word last Thursday, and confirmed in the media Friday, that court reporters in San Mateo are included in a group of employees that may be laid off due to “internal accounting errors” by the court. An article published by the Mercury News says that although the layoffs are a result of a $3.89 million deficit due to state cutbacks, an internal email sent out to court employees points out that the real cause may be otherwise.

According to a press release issued Thursday, the $3.89 million court budget deficit in the fiscal year that ended June 30 was “due to cutbacks in funding from the state.”

But in reality, top court officials discovered that the deficit was caused by “internal accounting, tracking and analysis deficiencies,” according to an e-mail Court Executive Officer John Fitton sent to employees Thursday morning, just before the news release on the layoffs went out.

Investigators from the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts are now trying to figure out why top court officials did not know about the $3.89 million gap until the finance director reported it to Fitton about a week and a half ago, Fitton said Friday.

That investigation is expected to last another week or two, Fitton said, and will aim to find out whether the error can be traced to the court’s accounting systems or its employees — or both. So far, there is no evidence anyone intentionally covered up the deficit or did anything illegal, he said.

Needless to say court employees are in complete shock as they thought they would be able to make it through the 2009/2010 fiscal year without layoffs.  An email sent in from one of the San Mateo court reporters laid out what the layoffs mean in the starkest terms possible.

60 court employees will be given notice on 9/1/09, and their last day will be around 10/2/09. We will have 25% fewer employees running the SM Courts from 2.5 years ago. Layoffs are based on hours worked/positions held. In other words, if you have seniority and a job that is not slated to go away, you won’t be let go. If you have a job that is slated to go away, you will be let go, regardless of seniority.

According to the Mercury News article the union representing court employees, SEIU Local 521, is holding a rally Tuesday “to protest the potential layoffs.”

COCRA will continue to provide updates on this matter as they progress.