At a cost of $620 million, San Diego's planned Superior Court complex downtown should be the best money can buy. The 22-story high-rise is the most expensive of the 41 courthouse projects included in a $5 billion master plan approved by the Legislature in 2008.

When it opens in 2016, the 704,000-square-foot courthouse will contain 71 courtrooms, plus offices.

But one thing it won't have is an underground tunnel to transport prisoners from the central jail across the street, as originally planned. And a promise to tear down the old courthouse, a drab low-rise taking up three city blocks just off Broadway, also will be broken.

SACRAMENTO — California judicial officials quietly brokered a union-friendly pact to govern construction of a new $586 million courthouse in downtown San Diego, marking the first time the state has turned to a "project-labor agreement" at the onset of building a major court facility.

The deal is between contractor Rudolph and Sletten Inc. and the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California.

"I requested that the contractor enter into a PLA with the Trades Council to ensure certainty and timeliness as well as reduce variables in a construction project of this magnitude," state courts director Steven Jahr wrote in an email obtained by U-T Watchdog. "This will be the first state courthouse project on which a PLA is signed."

The Coast Community College District on Wedensday shot down a request to draft an agreement that would pre-negotiate hiring terms with local unions for almost $700 million in construction projects.

The idea has split the Board of Trustees and drawn sometimes-heated debate for months.

And that acrimony could continue, according to one trustee.

Dear MUSD Board of Education,

My name is Eric Christen and I am the executive director of the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction. CFEC was formed 14 years ago to stand against the waste and discrimination represented by Project Labor Agreements. We are a statewide organization that seeks to educate owners and taxpayers about the true nature of PLAs.

We are disappointed to have learned thatÊyou agreed to a limited PLAÊfor a certain number of projects without consulting our organization. Before you had undertaken such a radical change in the way a school district does business I would have hoped that the board and your staff would have at least taken a moment to research these "agreements." A quick Google search would have revealed not just how contentious they care but how unpopular they are. Eleven entities now have outright banned PLAs in California in just the past 36 monthsÊwhile 15 different states have done the same.ÊJust last June 58 percent of voters in America's 10th largest city (San Diego) voted to ban them. You would also have found how few school districts use them. In point of fact there have been more than 400 school bonds passed over the last 15 years in California. Of those only 28 have had PLAs placed on them. Why is this? What do the vast majority of school districts know about PLAs that you do not?

The California bullet train agency on Thursday defended its bidding criteria for selecting the winner for its first construction contract, saying that the process held down prices and was handled properly.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority has come under fire from critics who assert changes to the bidding criteria could jeopardize the quality of the project. The authority tentatively chose a team led by Sylmar-based Tutor Perini to build a 29-mile segment of track through Fresno even though it had the lowest technical score. The team had the lowest-cost bid, at just under $1 billion.

Changes to the bid evaluation criteria were made public in August 2011 but were not approved by the agency's board.