Robert Coates Obituary (1937 - 2024) - La Jolla, CA - La Jolla Light
Robert Coates Obituary (1937 - 2024) - La Jolla, CA - La Jolla Light
Robert C. Coates Twitter
January 31, 1937 - January 3, 2024
La Jolla
Raised in Pacific Beach by his parents H Crawford Coates and Genevieve (Teachout) Coates at a time when most of the streets were unpaved and Mt. Soledad was sagebrush and deer. He devoted his life to innumerable areas of service in the community of San Diego including the environment, climate change, justice, scouting, and homelessness and served President or Chairman of more than 16 organizations.
As a lad, Bob was a devoted "baseball guy" and played 3rd base for the City Champions PB Reds, was MVP his senior year at La Jolla High School in 1954 and played at SDSU. He was also a regular attendee of the annual La Jolla High School Alumni baseball game.
He served in the Naval Reserve and after an unsuccessful bid for a state assembly seat in 1964 Bob attended Cal Western School of Law and began his 59 year long career in the legal system. He was a trial lawyer for 12 years and was appointed to the bench in 1982 where he served for over 28 years after which he went back to private practice. While on the court, Judge Coates was involved in the establishment of the successful SIP (Serial Inebriate Program) which is seen as a model for treating chronic alcohol abuse. Additionally, Judge Coates focused on how the court handles homelessness and mental health issues.
Judge Coates authored several books. A 1984 book of his poetry entitled "Ships Crossing at the Dead of Night" was followed by "A Street is Not a Home", a book addressing solutions to American homelessness. This book became the "bible" for several Grand Juries. His court experience is related in "Crazy People in Court", 30 courtroom stories, each with a mental health theme. Coates wrote a men's cookbook entitled "The Guys' Who Can't Cook Cookbook". He also co-authored "Quotations for The Public Person" with his best friend, Robert E. Miner.
Judge Coates was a regular swimmer at La Jolla Cove and a member of the La Jolla Cove Swim Club. He was also a scoutmaster of La Jolla Boy Scout Troop 4 from 1996-1998. As an advocate for addressing the challenges of climate change, he was engaged with multiple scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD for public education events, publications and advocacy.
Judge Coates is survived by his beloved wife of 19 years, Ana Maria Fernandez-Coates; and his daughter Whitney, Son Cameron and four grandchildren.
Judge Coates hopes to have met his Savior by the time you read this, and he wanted to assure everyone of his profound love for them.
The Family asks that in lieu of flowers please send a check to: Boy Scouts of America, 1207 Upas St., San Diego CA 92103
A celebration of Judge Coates' life will be held Saturday afternoon Feb 3rd at 12:00 p.m. at the St. Stephen's Church of God and Christ, 5825 Imperial Ave, San Diego, CA 92114
Please sign the guest book online at legacy.com/obituaries/ lajollalight
Published by La Jolla Light on Jan. 18, 2024.
Robert Coates Obituary (1937 - 2024) - San Diego, CA - San Diego Union-Tribune
About
UPCOMING SERVICE
Robert Coates Obituary
Raised in Pacific Beach by his parents H Crawford Coates and Genevieve (Teachout) Coates at a time when most of the streets were unpaved and Mt. Soledad was sagebrush and deer. He devoted his life to innumerable areas of service in the community of San Diego including the environment, climate change, justice, scouting, and homelessness and served President or Chairman of more than 16 organizations.
As a lad, Bob was a devoted "baseball guy" and played 3rd base for the City Champions PB Reds, was MVP his senior year at La Jolla High School and played at SDSU.
He served in the Naval Reserve and after an unsuccessful bid for a state assembly seat in 1964 Bob attended Cal Western School of Law and began his 59 year long career in the legal system. He was a trial lawyer for 12 years and was appointed to the bench in 1982 where he served for over 28 years after which he went back to private practice. While on the court, Judge Coates was involved in the establishment of the successful SIP (Serial Inebriate Program) which is seen as a model for treating chronic alcohol abuse. Additionally, Judge Coates focused on how the court handles homelessness and mental health issues.
Judge Coates authored several books. A 1984 book of his poetry entitled "Ships Crossing at the Dead of Night" was followed by "A Street is Not a Home", a book addressing solutions to American homelessness. This book became the "bible" for several Grand Juries. His court experience is related in "Crazy People in Court", 30 courtroom stories, each with a mental health theme. Coates wrote a men's cookbook entitled "The Guys' Who Can't Cook Cookbook". He also co-authored "Quotations for The Public Person" with his best friend, Robert E. Miner.
Judge Coates is survived by his beloved wife of 19 years, Ana Maria Fernandez-Coates; and his daughter Whitney, son Cameron and three grandchildren.
Judge Coates hopes to have met his Savior by the time you read this, and he wanted to assure everyone of his profound love for them.
The Family asks that in lieu of flowers please send a check to: Boy Scouts of America, 1207 Upas St., San Diego CA 92103
A celebration of Judge Coates' life will be held Saturday afternoon Feb 3rd at 12:00 p.m. at the St. Stephen's Church of God and Christ, 5825 Imperial Ave, San Diego, CA 92114
Published by San Diego Union-Tribune on Jan. 14, 2024.
Memorial Events for Robert Coates
Celebration of Life
12:00 p.m.
St. Stephen's Church of God and Christ
5825 Imperial Ave, San Diego, CA
Bob
was brave and novel and a crusader for the good, my friend of at least
50 years since my city council career 1960. Remember when he stayed out
overnight with the homeless, as a Judge, to learn more about how some
of us survived. He was always respected, we last visited at Fr. Joe's
Celebration at St. Rita's parish and now appropriate we Celebrate him at
St. Stephens, founded by iconic Bishop George McKinney who both
cherished.
Mike Schaefer, La Jolla; former Councilman SESE;
Column: Stalwart Southeast San Diego church faces cash crisis
The Rev. George McKinney has paid his dues for six decades, but now he must pay his church’s mortgage
Retired San Diego Superior Court Judge Robert Coates has been active in the church since the beginning when he helped McKinney build it. The church’s mission to be actively involved and relevant to the surrounding neighborhood has deeply impressed him.
“George is brilliant, learned, honest and accomplished,” said Coates. The two men once took to sleeping in the streets together, masquerading as transients to learn first-hand about the homeless crisis.
“We’ve fixed a lot of lives over these 57 years,” said McKinney, who was named Mr. San Diego in 1995 and in 2003 was under consideration to be chaplain of the U.S. Senate. At his side now is Barbara Warren, the first female judge and first African-American judge in Waxahachie, Texas, whom he married a few years after his first wife died in 2004.
McKinney recalled a touring visitor who was impressed by his operation but afterward commented: “George, you have too many people there who used to be drug addicts, prostitutes and felons.”
“He didn’t know it, but he was giving me a high compliment,” said McKinney. “The point is, they used to be addicts, prostitutes and felons.... We’re known as a safe haven for many who have lost hope.”
About Judge Robert C. Coates
As Partner with the San Diego law firm Olins, Riviere, Coates & Bagula, Judge Robert C. Coates serves as the firm’s “grey eminence,” handling cases and generating client traffic. Judge Coates’ leadership in the San Diego community began in 1964, when he ran (unsuccessfully) for the California State Legislature in San Diego’s 78th district. In the legal community, it started in 1971, when he entered into a career as a trial lawyer. For many years, he served as Partner with the 13-attorney firm Coates & Miller, LLP, undertaking a wide range of civil and criminal defense cases at the state and federal levels. Cases he provided counsel on involved personal injury, criminal, environmental, mental health, and mining law. He notably argued two cases before the California Supreme Court, winning one. Judge Robert C. Coates served on the Executive Committee of the San Diego Trial Lawyers Association from 1981 to 1982, also holding responsibilities as an Adjunct Law Professor with the University of San Diego (USD) School of Law. This involved the development of a now standard course, Environmental Law.
In 1982, Judge Robert C. Coates took a position as Judge, presiding over jury trials and settlement conferences at the Superior Court of California, County of San Diego. He initially served within the Municipal Court Civil Division, overseeing a full pre-trial motion calendar, undertaking 50 settlement conferences per week, and reviewing all ex-parte requests. He also continued his work with USD, establishing and directing the Environmental and Natural Resources Forum for four years. Judge Coates notably created and taught the course Poverty Law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in 1995. He was honored in 1997 with the Consumer Attorneys of San Diego’s Judicial Excellence Award.
Over the decades, Judge Robert C. Coates has been active in numerous humanitarian projects and currently chairs San Diego’s Homeless Women Task Force. The organization assists women who have a mental illness or are otherwise unable to access public health and psychological care. Judge Coates helps the task force coordinate coalition efforts of groups including Catholic charities, the San Diego Housing Commission, and the San Diego Police Department. The organization recently raised $200,000 for a collaborative mental health clinic for women experiencing homelessness and mental illness. Judge Robert C. Coates also chairs the Adult Eagle Scout component of the Boy Scouts of America’s San Diego-Imperial Council and serves as President of the Rotary Club’s Understanding Climate Change, LTD.
Judge Robert Coates and Shannon Jaccard Discuss Mental Health Issues - It's Your Money and Your Life Radio Show
Richard and Joe’s guests this week on IYMONEY were Judge Robert C. Coates and Shannon Jaccard. They discussed the subject of mental illness, the treatment of mental illness and the homeless.
Judge Coates has worked within the legal system since 1971 as a Trial Lawyer and presented cases from the local courts all the way to the State and Federal level. He began serving as a Judge in 1982. Judge Coates retired from the bench in January of 2011 after presiding over a San Diego Superior Courtroom for more than 28 years. He continues to be an active presence within the law community. Currently, he is a partner at Olins, Riviere, Coates and Bagula, which is a law firm that practices civil law with a focus on environmental, business, employment, and real estate law.
Judge Robert C. Coates has also gained recognition as a writer and legal thinker, authoring five lead law review articles and six books. The nonfiction book, A Street is Not a Home: Solving America’s Homeless Dilemma, sold 34,000 copies and earned the 1991 Warren Williams Advocacy Award from the California Psychiatric Association (part of the American Psychiatric Association). His recently released book, “Crazy People in Court,” chronicles the stories of many of the mentally ill people that passed through his courtroom.
Judge Coates maintains his commitment to solving issues of homelessness. Judge Robert C. Coates was recognized for his achievements through a 1999 Humanitarian Award from the Coalition for the Homeless and a 2007 Rotary International Service to the World award. He is currently chair the “One-in-Four Task force on Homeless Women””, for Catholic Charities.
A native San Diegan, Judge Coates attended La Jolla High School and earned a B.S. in Geology from SDSU.
Shannon Jaccard is the CEO of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) San Diego. Her interest in helping people with mental health issues began with her brother’s diagnosis. NAMI San Diego is the community’s voice on mental illness. Its threefold mission is to support, educate and advocate. They offer a Helpline (1-800-523-5933), support groups, educational meetings, newsletters, a lending library and classes at various locations throughout the county to end the stigma associated with mental illness. NAMI San Diego’s innovative Tech Café https://techcafe.namisandiego.org/ creates opportunities for uses of technology and strategies to support culturally competent recovery and resilience.
She co-authored a book “Our Stories-101 Things We Know Now We Wish We Knew Then”. Shannon serves on several boards of directors including the international organization, Recovery Innovations and the Meeting Place Clubhouse in San Diego County. Shannon has received numerous awards such as; Outstanding Young Californian by the San Diego Junior Chamber of Commerce and the Channel 10 News Leadership Award. She was named one of San Diego’s “50 People to Watch” by San Diego Magazine.
Shannon received her BA in Political Science from UCSD and her MBA from California State University-San Marcos and is a fellow of the Aspen Institute inaugural Health Innovators class.
Listen to a podcast of Judge Robert Coates and Shannon Jaccard’s interview!
Listen to a podcast of Judge Robert Coates’ interview!
Listen to a podcast of Shannon Jaccard’s interview!
Judge Robert C. Coates - Attorney / Partner - Olins, Riviere, Coates, & Bagula | XING
Robert Coates
With 28 years of experience as a San Diego judge and 13 years as an attorney, Judge Robert C. Coates recently accepted a position as Partner with Olins, Riviere, Coates & Bagula. His breadth of experience as a trial attorney extends to criminal defense in cases involving murder, as well as environmental, mining, and mental-health litigation. Judge Robert C. Coates' current practice focuses on small business and estate planning issues. He additionally advises on a wide range of litigation matters, notably representing a manufacturing operator in Tijuana, Mexico.
In 1971, Judge Robert C. Coates established the 13-attorney law firm, Coates & Miller, LLP. Judge Coates personally argued two cases before the California Supreme Court, and his victory on one of these, Earhart v. Low, changed California law. In 1981, he created the course titled Environmental Law as an Adjunct Professor with the University of San Diego (USD) School of Law. Over the next four years, he additionally directed the Environmental and Natural Resources Forum at USD. From 1982 to early 2011, Judge Coates served with the Superior Court of California, County of San Diego, presiding over hundreds of jury trials and settlement conferences during his years on the bench. His well-rounded experience extended to cases involving criminal, juvenile, and family law. In 1997, he received the prestigious Consumer Attorneys of San Diego's Judicial Excellence Award.Judge Robert C. Coates has also gained recognition as a writer and legal thinker, authoring five lead law review articles and five books. The nonfiction book, A Street is Not a Home: Solving America's Homeless Dilemma, sold 34,000 copies and earned the 1991 Warren Williams Advocacy Award from the California Psychiatric Association (part of the American Psychiatric Association). Judge Coates maintains his commitment to solving issues of homelessness as Chairperson of San Diego's Homeless Women Task Force. Reflecting his longstanding passion for teaching, Judge Robert C. Coates currently pursues plans to engage with the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundationâs law teachers section.
PUBLIC ADMONISHMENT OF JUDGE ROBERT C. COATES
The Commission on Judicial Performance has ordered Judge Robert C. Coates publicly admonished pursuant to article VI, section 18(d) of the California Constitution and commission rule 115, as set forth in the following statement of facts and reasons found by the commission:
STATEMENT OF FACTS AND REASONS
Judge Coates has been a judge of the San Diego County Superior Court since 1982. His current term began in January 2005.
Judge Coates has persisted in a pattern of abuse of the prestige of his judicial office and misuse of court resources in connection with personal and non-court matters, notwithstanding his prior discipline by the commission for similar conduct, notwithstanding direction from his presiding judges that he cease such conduct, and notwithstanding advice he received from the California Judges Association (CJA) Ethics Committee to avoid such conduct. His conduct reflects a repeated refusal to comply with canon 2B(2), which prohibits judges from using the prestige of judicial office to advance the personal or pecuniary interests of the judge or others.
Judge Coates’ recalcitrance manifests indifference towards the erosion of public confidence in the judiciary that results from irresponsible behavior by judges. This repeated ethical indifference warrants another public rebuke.
REGION: Judge Coates: 'I was dumb' - The San Diego Union-Tribune
The San Diego judge hit with a rare public admonishment ---- he was called out for misusing his stature with regard to four lettershe authored ---- said Monday the actions that got him into troublewere “mistakes.”
“I was dumb,” San Diego Superior Court Judge Robert C. Coatessaid. “It was four letters. It wasn’t drunk driving, it’s not fordoing something wrong in court. It was four letters.”
Last week, the Commission on Judicial Performance cited four instances in which it found that Coates had acted improperly, including using his judicial letterhead to write a complaint letter to his credit union after he sat through long wait times during phone calls.
The public admonishment is the second time in less than a decade that the commission has determined Coates acted improperly. In 2000, the commission issued a rare public admonishment, and cited, among other actions, a report that Coates had berated a court staffer and had acted improperly while on the bench during trial.
Since 1964, only 10 judges in the county have been publicly admonished, and only two judges in the region have had it happen twice.
Coates, 72, said he plans to run for re-election in 2010. Pointing to his long time on the bench ---- he has been a judge since 1982 ---- and his community works, including a book looking at solutions for homelessness, Coates said his history of work is”relevant.”
Coates primarily hears criminal cases and is based at the courthouse in downtown San Diego.
On Monday, the judge explained himself in each of the four newly detailed incidents.
As to using his judicial letterhead on a complaint letter, Coates said he had been “thinking a thought pattern that was lame.”He said his intention had been to point out to the credit union, a bank popular with court staffers and judges, that their pattern of phone delays resulted in the court’s business being made to wait.
As for the second letter, the judge had his secretary type up and fax a letter to his insurance company asking it to approve a medical procedure.
“I drafted the letter at home,” Coates said, “and then when the time came to send the letter, I can’t explain what I did. I faxed it to my secretary and she typed it instead of me doing it at home.
“I had been run down by a truck seven days earlier and I was on Vicodin. Now is that a good excuse? I don’t think so, but it is an excuse.”
The third problem the commission found was a letter Coates had faxed to then Undersheriff Bill Gore regarding a courtroom bailiff.The commission said Coates said the communique was a letter of recommendation for the bailiff, but the commission found the letter”went beyond” that, suggesting the Sheriff’s Department had problems in its training.
Coates said he had done so because former Sheriff Bill Kolender had encouraged judges to communicate with his department about the bailiffs in the courtroom, “but the commission didn’t buy that,” Coates said.
The fourth incident the commission cited was a letter sent onbehalf of a private organization with which Coates is involved.Coates included his judicial title, “giving the appearance that the judge is lending the prestige of his office to advance the personal interests of others,” the commission found.
“My theory for that is something that you find in the ethics handbooks,” Coates said. “If something is so small as to be minimal, court resources can be used for it. But the commission did not buy that theory.”
Asked about the criminal defendants who stand before him with excuses, Coates said, “I can tell the good excuses from the bad excuses.”
He declined to comment any further.
“I can’t saying anything beyond saying I made mistakes.”
Call staff writer Teri Figueroa at 760-740-5442.
Judge Robert C. Coates and the Esmeralda Gemstone Mine Leave a comment
Judge Robert C. Coates has lusted after the Esmeralda Gemstone Mine for three decades. He tried a partnership offer with the paranoid gent who owned it. Too fearful! The older owner then signed his rights over to an uninterested son, but just then, checked himself into a County Rest Home. The County thereupon placed a lein on the Mine. It took years to convince the County to lift the lein (what could IT do with such an asset?), but the son was generally out-of-town and diffident.
Years passed.
Finally, Judge Robert C. Coates persuaded the diffident son to take the $50,000 being (finally) offered by an experienced, Gemstone Mining Company. Coates set up an escrow and, even through the fee simple ownership had originated from an unusual Mining Patent no longer issued by the Federal Government, a policy of title insurance did issue. With this, the Mining outfit was able to secure an investor to fund the “first phase” of gemstone mining, and, after permits and delays, the blasting began and today the tunnel approaches the pegmatite core and, all hope, dozens of gem pockets. One pocket alone from the Mining concern’s last mine, yielded $2,000,000 in gems and a window-front at Tiffany’s, on New York’s Fifth Avenue. Judge Robert C. Coates and his Partners should be so lucky!
Robert C. Coates as a freshman at San Diego State Leave a comment
As a freshman at San Diego State, the eventual Judge Robert C. Coates was a painfully introverted person. As he has put it:”I just read Tolstoy and other books and played baseball”. He did hit pretty well, with a .483 average most of the way through the season (until calculus caught him!). This was his style until his Junior Year, when Mary Ann Kovacevich very gracefully told Coates to, “Bug off”. He concluded that he did not have a winning formula for like…and that he needed to get one. Fast! So Coates and Pal Bob Miner (he, with a similar personality, but tops in math!) found the Fraternity containing the most men “not like them”, and they joined.
Delta Sigma Phi was about to get kicked off campus and Coates and Miner heeded the Frat President’s call to “do something positive, and visible, like volunteering for Student Body Committees”. Judge Coates became chair of the 4-member ‘Campus Chest Committee”, along with Miner and Delta Sig, Jack Brennan. They organized a 7-College, countywide World University Service, “WUS Week”, repleat with pancake breakfasts. And pretty soon introverted Robert Coates was speaking to Student Councils, Circle K Clubs, YMCAs and Kiwanis audiences. He had something to say! Simultaneously, his wide reading came across Dr. Harrison Brown’s The Challenge of Man’s Future, an analysis of population pressure, food and water supplies, projecting into the future. Sobering stuff!
And it caused Coates (who was sandwiching in political science courses along with his science: He was to be the only SDSU student to pass the U.S. State Dept. Foreign Service Officer’s Exam, that year: holding his degree in geology!) to begin to notice American politics. Coates developed a dislike for the stuffed shirt, John Foster Dulles. He noticed that Dulles holier-than-thou posture pitched Nassar, Egypt and the Aswan Dam into the Soviet camp and, as the Delta Sigs volunteered to take in a Hungarian student, over from the Hungarian Uprising of 1958, Coates also reacted with disgust as America promised aid to the Freedom Fighters, and then delivered none.
Consequently, Judge Robert Coates began to examine the Democratic candidates for President. Jack Kennedy’s Huston Ministerial Association speech turned young Coates to Kennedy and the Democrats. By then, Judge Robert Coates was an engineering geologist on the City of San Diego’s Miramar Dam Project. After a couple of abortive phone calls, Coates went to Kennedy Headquarters on “C” Street, and started his public life: licking stamps!
When Kennedy won, Judge Coates became County Chair of the Young Democrats, which then sported 13 Clubs. Soon, Coates ran for the County Central Committee and, in a field of 26, he garnered more votes than any, and 10% more than the extant Democratic County Chairman: Coates, at age 24, became Vice Chair. The next year, under the tutelage of his eventual, brilliant Law Partner, James H. Miller, Jr., Judge Robert C. Coates ran for (and over 3 Democratic rivals) became Democratic Nominee in the 78th State Assembly District. The District was only 41% Democratic (the then rule-of-thumb was that a D needed 56% registration to win, in California). When Coates lost, he declined Governor Pat Brown’s offer of help if he moved into an adjoining Assembly District which was being vacated.
Judge Coates had determined that he wanted a “life in public service”, and that legal training was needed for him, for that. Coates thus went to Law School. At the end of a legal career of 12 years, Judge Coates was teaching at the USD Law School, publishing legal articles and was a leader on the Executive Committee of the San Diego Trial Lawyers…and he was about to become a father. Noting that his 75-hour weeks were not going to cut it in fatherhood, Coates “ducked into a cushy job”, a Judgship! Appointed by Governor Jerry Brown, Judge Robert C. Coates served on the Municipal and Superior Courts for a total of 28 years, retiring just short of his 74th birthday.
“Every instant on the Bench was was a profound privilege —
assisting people solving human problems”, he said. Judge Coates was
also known for asserting that he had “Boiled the job down to only two
components: 1) Fall in love with everybody who shows up; and 2) Call
balls and strikes, ruthlessly”. When he went to the Bench, Coates
carefully boxed 7,200 “closed case files” from his early law practice.
Today, Judge Coates relished being asked to serve his community
regarding homelessness and low-income housing as well as with the
Climate Crisis, and Coates takes great joy in…being a lawyer, again!
Judge Robert C. Coates and the Esmeralda Gemstone Mine Leave a comment
Judge Robert C. Coates has lusted after the Esmeralda Gemstone Mine for three decades. He tried a partnership offer with the paranoid gent who owned it. Too fearful! The older owner then signed his rights over to an uninterested son, but just then, checked himself into a County Rest Home. The County thereupon placed a lein on the Mine. It took years to convince the County to lift the lein (what could IT do with such an asset?), but the son was generally out-of-town and diffident. Years passed. Finally, Judge Robert C. Coates persuaded the diffident son to take the $50,000 being (finally) offered by an experienced, Gemstone Mining Company. Coates set up an escrow and, even through the fee simple ownership had originated from an unusual Mining Patent no longer issued by the Federal Government, a policy of title insurance did issue. With this, the Mining outfit was able to secure an investor to fund the “first phase” of gemstone mining, and, after permits and delays, the blasting began and today the tunnel approaches the pegmatite core and, all hope, dozens of gem pockets. One pocket alone from the Mining concern’s last mine, yielded $2,000,000 is gems and a window-front at Tiffany’s, on New York’s Fifth Avenue. Judge Robert C. Coates and his Partners should be so lucky!
Judge Robert C. Coates and the fearsome Picacho Del Diablo Leave a comment
Judge Robert C. Coates is a geologist, and was, in his youth, an adventurer. At age 22 he and four compadres climbed the fearsome Picacho Del Diablo, an awesome spire set apart from the main, 8,200′ plateau of the Sierra San Pedro Martir, in Baja California. Usually a five day climb, the Coates-Albright-Hession party decided to try to do it in three. They succeeded. The first day was a 14-hour boulder scramble and rock-climb up Diablo Canyon from the desert floor. Next, up the spire. Straying off the route (one, had done it before!) meant facing vertical cliffs all-around…The group stayed together! The last pitch to the summit was across a 50 degree face, with a crack displaced some 3 inches. Simple enough, eh? All one needed to do was lean against the rock and edge sideways up the crack for some 50 feet. Except…that there were 50 to 60-mile wind gusts, and it was starting to snow! On the summit, the view extended to mainland Mexico…and around westward, all the way across to the blue of the Pacific. “The most atavistic moment of my life”, later reflected Judge Robert Coates. Down, in the november snowfall, Coates does not remember anything except trotting to their packs in the Canyon bottom. They each ate a candy bar for dinner, slid into their sleeping bags and, In Coates’ case, edged under a snug boulder whose surface encased his, and slept. Awaking in the dark of the morning, they found that the stream was full, but all else surrounding them was dry: A wild wind had blown all night!
“One day, I want to live in a City that does not have the scandal of homeless women!” – Judge Robert C. Coates Leave a comment
“One day, I want to live in a City that does not have the scandal of homeless women!” Judge Robert C. Coates began making this declaration to publicly-involved friends after retiring from the San Diego Superior Court, in 2011. Intriguingly, , every person he said this to, responded with, “Me, too!” Judge Coates decided to say it to the Chief of San Diego’s Catholic Charities (which runs the only “Day Center” specifically for homeless women — and some 500 individual women “sign in” each month at Rachel’s Women’s Center).. Rachel’s does great work, but only a small part of what is needed to actually accomplish Judge Coates’ goal of getting ALL of San Diego’s homeless women….properly housed! Coates’ group has been meeting monthly at Rachel’s and has proven to be useful, pin-pointing the “gaps” in mental health services to homeless women, by County agencies. Further, Judge Robert C. Coates has fixated on a large, City-owned building, that is being vacated: The “old”, downtown Public Library building on “E” Street, between 8th and 9th. It happens that this charming and sturdy edifice is not yet “reassigned” by the Mayor, and it is located across “E” Street from Rachel’s housing on the 2nd floor of the Old Downtown Post Office Building and only one block away from Rachel’s itself. Why not turn this historic building into Homeless Women’s Housing? It would accomodate about 500. The Housing Commission Director says he wants it. So Judge Coates plans to keep pushing this idea. Will others join him? Possibly.
The Grand Canyon a fascination of Judge Robert C. Coates Leave a comment
The GRAND CANYON has been a lifetime fascination for Judge Robert C. Coates. While the Universe is some 14 million years old, and the Earth 4.5 million years old, the rocks in the Grand Canyon go to over 2,000,000 years. Hiking across this great, natural “vista to the past” was, as Judge Coates has put it, “A profound, religious experience.” The occasion for this strenuous hike was a summer Geology Field Tour that Judge Coates enrolled in as a Geology Major at San Diego State College (it was not yet a University). Two professors and 23 geology guys (plus, one statuesque brunette, assigned to Professor Thomas..) bounced along in a yellow bus: First, to Vegas via Death Valley and its giant crator, and thence, eastward to Zion and its giant, white sandstone walls and streams laced with cottonwoods… and then, gradually upward through an increasingly dense, scented pine forest to….the North Rim. The bus jerked to a stop beside a trail head in the trees and Professor Blake Thomas rose with his deep, basso voice entoning: “Anybody want to hike across the Grand Canyon? If so, we will pick you up at the El Tovar Hotel on the other side, mid-afternoon tomorrow.” Five strapping young men grabbed their packs and bedrolls and scrambled out and onto the downward trail. In the lead all the way, Judge Robert C.Coates (who had read book after book on the Canyon’s geology. One memorable one was Hans Cloos’ Conversations With the Earth.), strode through bed after bed of Time, ever deeper into the earth’s history, observing as he went, awestruck..
They arrived at Phantom Ranch at the Canyon’s bottom, at 8:00 PM. Dinner was over and the geologists had brought no food! They talked the cleaning-up cook into a roast beef sandwich each, plus a couple of huge cans of grapefruit juice for the morning, and they hit the sack. The group split up, three heading up Bright Angel Trail which was 14 miles long and had the advantage of water, whilst Coates and fellow Eagle Scout, Al Venton, chose the Kaibab Trail: shorter by 4 miles, but no water! The swinging suspension bridge (with planking wide enough for mules to traverse) was an exciting start with wide, rushing rapids below! A mile up the trail, Coates and Venton overtook a lady walking alone. She had no water; so Judge Coates gave her his canteen. Toward the top, Judge Robert Coates and pal Al were plodding slowly in the blazing July heat — 50 paces and a stop. 50 paces and a stop… At the summit, they hitch-hiked westward to the El Tovar and in its soda fountain where Judge Coates recalls downing 4 root beer floats. Almost exactly as they sauntered out of the hotel, the yellow bus came to a stop at the curb. Professor Thomas welcomed the five adventurers aboard: “Here are the tough guys!”, he shouted. Three years later, Judge Robert C. Coates was to win a Sierra Club “Campership of the Year” (given to a “Young person likely to give a lifetime of service to the environment.”) and Coates chose the two-week rubber raft trip down the 315 miles of the Grand Canyon, rapids every mile. This was in 1962, the last year that “the river was wild” before the plugs went in at the Glen Canyon Dam.
Robert C. Coates as a freshman at San Diego State Leave a comment
As a freshman at San Diego State, the eventual Judge Robert C. Coates was a painfully introverted person. As he has put it:”I just read Tolstoy and other books and played baseball”. He did hit pretty well, with a .483 average most of the way through the season (until calculus caught him!). This was his style until his Junior Year, when Mary Ann Kovacevich very gracefully told Coates to, “Bug off”. He concluded that he did not have a winning formula for like…and that he needed to get one. Fast! So Coates and Pal Bob Miner (he, with a similar personality, but tops in math!) found the Fraternity containing the most men “not like them”, and they joined. Delta Sigma Phi was about to get kicked off campus and Coates and Miner heeded the Frat President’s call to “do something positive, and visible, like volunteering for Student Body Committees”. Judge Coates became chair of the 4-member ‘Campus Chest Committee”, along with Miner and Delta Sig, Jack Brennan. They organized a 7-College, countywide World University Service, “WUS Week”, repleat with pancake breakfasts. And pretty soon introverted Robert Coates was speaking to Student Councils, Circle K Clubs, YMCAs and Kiwanis audiences. He had something to say! Simultaneously, his wide reading came across Dr. Harrison Brown’s The Challenge of Man’s Future, an analysis of population pressure, food and water supplies, projecting into the future. Sobering stuff! And it caused Coates (who was sandwiching in political science courses along with his science: He was to be the only SDSU student to pass the U.S. State Dept. Foreign Service Officer’s Exam, that year: holding his degree in geology!) to begin to notice American politics. Coates developed a dislike for the stuffed shirt, John Foster Dulles. He noticed that Dulles holier-than-thou posture pitched Nassar, Egypt and the Aswan Dam into the Soviet camp and, as the Delta Sigs volunteered to take in a Hungarian student, over from the Hungarian Uprising of 1958, Coates also reacted with disgust as America promised aid to the Freedom Fighters, and then delivered none. Consequently, Judge Robert Coates began to examine the Democratic candidates for President. Jack Kennedy’s Huston Ministerial Association speech turned young Coates to Kennedy and the Democrats. By then, Judge Robert Coates was an engineering geologist on the City of San Diego’s Miramar Dam Project. After a couple of abortive phone calls, Coates went to Kennedy Headquarters on “C” Street, and started his public life: licking stamps!
When Kennedy won, Judge Coates became County Chair of the Young Democrats, which then sported 13 Clubs. Soon, Coates ran for the County Central Committee and, in a field of 26, he garnered more votes than any, and 10% more than the extant Democratic County Chairman: Coates, at age 24, became Vice Chair. The next year, under the tutelage of his eventual, brilliant Law Partner, James H. Miller, Jr., Judge Robert C. Coates ran for (and over 3 Democratic rivals) became Democratic Nominee in the 78th State Assembly District. The District was only 41% Democratic (the then rule-of-thumb was that a D needed 56% registration to win, in California). When Coates lost, he declined Governor Pat Brown’s offer of help if he moved into an adjoining Assembly District which was being vacated. Judge Coates had determined that he wanted a “life in public service”, and that legal training was needed for him, for that. Coates thus went to Law School. At the end of a legal career of 12 years, Judge Coates was teaching at the USD Law School, publishing legal articles and was a leader on the Executive Committee of the San Diego Trial Lawyers…and he was about to become a father. Noting that his 75-hour weeks were not going to cut it in fatherhood, Coates “ducked into a cushy job”, a Judgship! Appointed by Governor Jerry Brown, Judge Robert C. Coates served on the Municipal and Superior Courts for a total of 28 years, retiring just short of his 74th birthday. “Every instant on the Bench was was a profound privilege — assisting people solving human problems”, he said. Judge Coates was also known for asserting that he had “Boiled the job down to only two components: 1) Fall in love with everybody who shows up; and 2) Call balls and strikes, ruthlessly”. When he went to the Bench, Coates carefully boxed 7,200 “closed case files” from his early law practice. Today, Judge Coates relished being asked to serve his community regarding homelessness and low-income housing as well as with the Climate Crisis, and Coates takes great joy in…being a lawyer, again!
Judge Robert C. Coates and the family Leave a comment
Whitney Coates, daughter of Judge Robert C. Coates, was married to Kellis Landrum on Saturday, May 25, 2013, at her mother and step-father’s La Mesa Home, with Whitney’s father officiating with a wide smile. 100 friends and family attended, and after the vows (which included Whitney promising Kellis “Never to discuss anything important before Kellis had had 2 cups of coffee”), they together murmured, “”Mostly”, which the Judge then repeated into the microphone. Judge Coates had done a wedding at that spot before: He officiated at the wedding of Mimi, the mother of his two children, to Bob Halgran (a splendid person; a Naval Academy graduate and, like Judge Coates, a former Scoutmaster) 11 years before.
Judge Robert C. Coates has a fine photo of Whitney on his Office wall: with Whitney standing thigh-deep in a river next to a car which was obviously bogged down in the torrent. “That river, 75 feet wide, was not there when we drove in. The Baja Hands among us had gazed at the heavy storm pelting the peaks to the west, and opined that “None of that water will make it to us”….But when the party went to drive out three days later, they were confronted with the adventure of having to throw stones into that river for a day, to build a causeway for the 4-wheelers to drive across.
This was Whitney Coates’ introduction to Baja camping, at age 4 and remains a most memorable trip of their lives, with Whitney up-and-early, singing to campers’ tents: “Good morning to you. Good morning to you, we’re all in our places, we’ve brushed our teeth and washed our faces. Good morning to YOU!” They hiked the desert canyons, ate cactus fruits, and Judge Coates wrote on the beginning manuscript of his eventual opus on solutions to the American scandal of homelessness. Now, 27 years later, Judge Robert C. Coates plans a late summer expedition to the very mountains on which that heavy rain had fallen: the Sierra San Pedro Martir, with its Mexican National Observatory at 9,200” — and, across the deep, 6,000 crevass of Devil’s Canyon, the imposing spire of Picacho Del Diablo, Baja California’s tallest peak. Judge Coates climbed this one, Thanksgiving weekend, 1961, and has published on its geology.
BOB COATES
Gays in Boy Scouting and Judge Robert C. Coates Leave a comment
Judge Robert C. Coates will be pardoned, he hopes, for looking, first, to some legal facts and principles, as he approaches the issue of whether Gay people should be premitted as volunteers in the Boy Scouting movement. First, he notes, is the U. S. Supreme Court’s stand that protects the right of Scouting to exclude gays if it so decided — based on two First Amendment, Constitutional rights: the right to freedom of assembly and free association, and the right to freedom of religion. This latter, because many churches, notably the Mormons, Catholics, Baptists and Pentecostals, utilize the Boy Scouts as their official, church youth program to inculcate as to Church doctrine. The second legal fact is that, within Scouting, the owner of a Scout Troop, Cub Pack or other “unit”…is the sponsoring institution, usually a church; and some 75% of these are churches like those mentioned wherein homosexuality is considered sinful, because contrary to Biblical teaching.
With these things in mind, Judge Robert C. Coates has long thought that Scouting should change its National ban on Gay volunteers — but only to the extent of permitting the individual sponsoring Institutions to make the decision, whether to allow Gay persons to be volunteers, or not. This move would preserve everyone’s rights, the Catholics and Mormons and Baptists and Pentecostals, on the one hand….and the Women’s Clubs and Unitarians and others who might welcome Gays, on the other. It should be noted that these latter groups are presently, arguably getting their “right” to a Boy Scouting program, blocked without consideration of their and “their youth’s Constitutional rights to freely associate, and to practice their more tolerant, shall we say, beliefs, within Scouting. Would this not respect everyone’s, of course, dissimilar views, letting all kids get the “fresh air” of Scouting?
Finally, Judge Robert Coates, an Eagle Scout, past President to the Eagle Scout Alumni Association and holder of many leadership posts within San Diego area Boy Scouting, conceives that ALL BOYS should have the fabulous opportunity to be afforded the maturing, ethical, substantive education that a boy gets, almost automatically, as a Boy Scout. The current policy does not serve this noble end, and thus, ought to be modified, “tweeked”, as it were. After all, it is easier to ride the horse in the direction it is going!
ROBERT C. COATES
Judge Robert C. Coates Leave a comment
As a thirteen year old Boy Scout, Judge Robert C. Coates was first introduced to the mountains of Baja California, Mexico. It was love at first sight. He had never before seen such a rich mix of granite boulder piles interspersed with sugar pine stands and wide meadows…and withal, a lake (Laguna Hanson), for goodness’ sake! Through college, this love affair continued, with many camping trips there and into the wilderness, hot spring canyons on the eastern scarp of the mountains; and then, over the Thanksgiving Weekend in 1960, Judge Coates and four of his sturdy friends decided to take on a real challenge: to climb the fearsome, 10,100 foot spire of “Picacho del Diablo, from the desert floor. This peak is offset from the further south, high “Sky island” plateau of the Sierra San Pedro Martir, a seldom-visited Mexican National Park.
Going in, Judge Coates had no real appreciation of the danger this climb represented. A mistake off of the known route would wind one up facing vertical cliffs, down hundreds, perhaps thousands, of feet. The start of the “usual” approach involved one man swimming out into a waterfall-fed pool, finding a shelf of sand under the fall, and, using the few handholds, climbing up through the waterfall to its top, then throwing this man a rope with which he hauled up the packs, and then, his commpadres. But, when Coates’ party got there they found that a flood had carved away the sand bar, and this route was impossible. They followed the alternative, a precipitous, 4-hour climb up and around the fall on sheer cliffs. Ropes were employed there, as they were further up, the second day. The start was early, around 5:30 AM as the sun crept above the Sea of Cortez far to the east. All day was spent bushwhacking and boulder climbing, up the steep and bush and tree tangled Diablo Canyon, and at 8:00 P.M. by flashlight, the only one who had been there before announced: “This is where we camp! The jumping off point to the peak.”
They built a brief fire, ate, and hit the sack. The next morning the climb was steeper…all day. As the summit was approached, they could see the “false summit” to the north, and turned to a 50 degree slanting slab of rock, the only way to the Peak. There was a 3 inch ledge that crossed the slab, angling some ten degrees upward so, if one leaned against the rock, one could easily inch oneself sideways bit-by-bit, to the summit. No problem! However, by then, it was blowing heavy gusts. and the first snowflakes were flying horizontally. Would they be blown off and down that long, long slab and off the cliff below? Up they went, one by one.
On the Summit the view was magnificent. “The most atavistic moment of my life”, Judge Coates was later to exclaim. Looking east, you looked across the brown expanse of the Laguna Salada and desert, on across the blue of the Sea of Cortez and saw the mainland of Mexico…..and then, around westward, one gazed over the chasm of the Canyon to the greensward of the plateau’s forested surface, and then, as in the east, the brown of the Baja peninsula all the way to the Pacific Ocean. WOW! But with the storm gathering there was no time to waste after signing the register in the iron box (26 before them, no hispanic names), so they hied back down and down. In the Canyon bottom the snow was falling in earnest and the parties silently found there respective, huge boulders under which to snuggle, ate one candy bar each, and fell asleep. At dawn, the brush and rocks were bone dry — dried by the wild, nighttime howl!
Through the ensuing decades Judge Robert C. Coates camped many times in the glory of the uninhabited “Martir” plateau. Eagles and condors soar the skies, there. The North American continent’s southernmost aspen stands crowd against pines and cedars and wide meadows grace the landscape. The Sierra San Pedro Martir pint-sized plateau is some 25 miles long, north-south, and a dozen miles wide. At the southern extreme it is 6,200 feet and it shelves gradually upward to 8,200 at the northern end, and then, a nice knob invited the Mexican government to place its National Observatory at 9,200 feet. The view afforded there is, as one can imagine, almost comparable to that from the Picacho.
A geologist by undergraduate training, Judge Robert Coates took to reading the sparse geological literature on this fine, small Mountain Range. Like the ranges in San Diego and San Bernerdino Counties (and indeed, like the high Sierra Nevada to the north!), the Martir’s rocks are composed of Jurassic and Triassic metamorphic beds (some 150 million years), intruded into by an 85 to 93 million year-old series of granitics. Eventually, San Diego Superior Court Judge Robert Cl Coates began publishing articles on this unique, “Sky Island” mountain range. These publications caught the attention of the renowned Explorer’s Club of New York City, which offered Coates a full Membership (if he’d pay his dues, of course!). This home for such luminaries as Jacques Cousteau, Sir Edmund Hilary and Teddy Roosevelt, now boasts a dozen Chapters around the U.S., and, since La Jolla is home to many who, from Scripps Institution of Oceanography for example, have dived to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, or explored Antarctica or Borneo or the “plastics patch” (the size of Texas) in the north Pacific, or the location of Genghis Khan’s tomb — Judge Robert C. Coates gets to rub elbows with such interesting folk at monthly, San Diego meetings. Some day, maybe he and his bride, Ana, will attend the Annual Explorer’s Club “do” at the Waldorf-Astoria, in New York.
Judge Robert C. Coates Leave a comment
Judge Robert C. Coates, now a Partner/attorney with the San Diego Law Firm of Olins, Riviere, Coates and Bagula, Is a longtime Trustee of the Pacific Rim Parks Foundation, the brainchild of famed architect and artist, James Hubbell. Hubbell noticed that the nations that surround the Pacific Ocean are increasing their trade and cultural exchanges, and, at least arguably, beginning to share a common “Pacific Rim culture”. “This deserves to be encouraged and fostered”, thought Hubbell, and the idea of a “string of pearls” Parks, surrounding the Pacific Rim, was born. Judge Coates, long a fan of Hubbell’s art and architecture, joined the Pacific Rim Parks effort, early on. Then, there were only three such Parks: on China, Russia, and the U.S. “Why not in Mexico?” asked Judge Coates. He happened to be speaking to Hubbell’s Foundation chair, who challenged Coates to see what he could do to help create a Park, in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico.
Judge Coates, then about to become President of his Rotary Club, succeeded in “stitching together” nine Rotary Clubs to work together on the Project. They got choice, ocean-view land donated by the Mexican Federal Highway Department, Hubbell worked with architecture students from four countries for three months — designing and building the Park, and it may be visited near the entrance to the southbound Tijuana-to-Ensenada Toll Road, overlooking Playas de Tijuana and the Coronado Islands. It is a beautiful facility, dedicated to Peace among the nations of the Pacific Rim. Judge Coates took an afternoon of “vacation” from the Court to attend the Park’s dedication. On his drive south, alone, Judge Coates found himself thinking “an idle thought” — “I think that I just might be ready to meet somewne..” He arrived slightly late, and The Mayor of Tijuana was just finishing his address to the assembled 400. Coates stood outside the crowd. And as the assemblage was disbursing, he glanced to his left, up a hillside. He saw five Rotarians assisting a beautiful woman, poured into a red dress, down the slope. She was giggling and obviously enjoying the male attention, and Coates said to himself, “Goodness, that lady really likes guys!”
He wangled an invitation to where she was going for lunch. Elbowed others out of the way, to sit next to her. And….eight months’ later, Ana Maria Fernandez became Mrs. Robert C. Coates. The eighth Pacific Rim Park is about to be built, in Taiwan, with Judge Robert C. Coates still loyally an active (and grateful!) Trustee!
The Miramar Dam Project by Judge Robert C. Coates Leave a comment
After graduation from San Diego State with his degree in engineering geology, Judge Robert C. Coates landed a choice plum of a job: as a Junior Civil Engineer/Construction Inspector, on the City of San Diego’s 1,000,000 cubic yards, Miramar (earth filled) Dam Project (Coates’ “backup idea” at the time if the City did not work out, was to go to Cuba and join Fidel in the Sierra Maistra Mountains — Castro was then viewed as a “friend to Democracy” by Americans, opposing, as he was, the dictator, Bautista). Coates was only one of two SDSU geology graduates that year to gain work in a geological field: Did the others become house painters?
The Miramar Dam Project was a dream project for Judge Coates. He began preparing for a lifetime working in Water Supply. He was nearly named as Resident Engineer on another City Dam Project, the Thing Valley Dam; but was offered a job on the California Water Project, bringing water south from the Feather and Sacramento Rivers, to the thirsty Southland….but he “voted wrong” at a Young Democrats State Convention, and decided that he had to withdraw from the Water Project job, as it had, eventually, been conditioned on his support for a certain candidate. Coates wound up making the Nominating Speech for that very candidate…but to preserve his public integrity, he withdrew from consideration for the Water Job: A life-changing decision, as it turned out!
While Miramar Dam was rising, another huge dam project was being readied for work: The Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona, 320 miles upstream from Hoover Dam. Like Hoover, Glen Canyon was to be constructed in a deep gorge of the Colorado River. The contractor on the Miramar Dam knew the Superintendent on Glen Canyon and gave Judge Coates a letter of Introduction. So on a Friday after work, Coates and his outdoor buddy, Jack Hession (soon to be Sierra Club’s Staffer for Alaska, in Anchorage, after his Ph.D.) headed eastward. They were given a tour of the Canyon bottom just as the first concrete pours were going in. The “Batch Plant” preparing concrete was attached to the north canyon wall, just below its top. Namajos had been employed to dangle in ropes, testing the rock’s strength, up and down the spot on the wall where the thin concrete curve of the Dam was to be attached. A dramatic bridge spanned the mile of space below the Dam, permitting traffic from Page, Arizona, toward Kanab, Utah and the North Rim. Upon completing their tour, Hession and Coates headed home the “other route” through Kanab, St. George and Las Vegas. Making it home Sunday night, Judge Coates was at work at Miramar Monday morning, and Jack, having slept the drive back, was into his arduous routine of three jobs and Masters work at SDSU as he supported his Mother and Brother all the while.
Following the Miramar Dam Project, Judge Coates was made Assistant Maps and Records Engineer, supervising 34 engineers, draftsmen and clerks; and, having taken many Administration Courses at night, was taken onto the City of San Diego’s City Manager’s Staff. After four years with the City, Judge Coates launched (at age 26) his Campaign for the State Assembly. After losing twice, he entered California Western School of Law.
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