The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Exactly 50 years ago, there was a big political battle in Santa Rosa over a plan to move the Sonoma County courthouse out of downtown. Now there may be a battle over moving it back.

As noted in today’s story “Downtown courthouse proposed,” Santa Rosa City Councilman Gary Wysocky thinks it’s a “crazy” idea to ship county inmates downtown for their court appearances. Others, including Mayor Susan Gorin, who is aligned with Wysocky on most issues, says it would be a benefit to downtown, and she has no concerns about the security of transporting inmates back and forth from the city core to the county jail.

It certainly would attract more businesses such as criminal attorneys and bail bondsmen to downtown. But when Santa Rosa made it a goal to bring more people downtown, I don’t think they had in mind that they would be in handcuffs.

By the way, if the court is built on the post office site on Second and E streets, where would the main post office go?

I also wonder whether this will kill any chance of building a mixed-used housing complex on the former White House site on E street. I mean, who is going to want to pay a lot of money to live next door to a criminal court?

– Paul Gullixson