Judge appoints a receiver to guide the Dick Bruhn Building through remediation or sale.

For Oldtown Salinas property owner Gerry Kehoe, a clock that was already ticking on his ownership of the fire-ravaged Dick Bruhn Building has begun ticking faster and in earnest. 

During a hearing this morning, Aug. 7, Monterey County Superior Court Judge Marla Anderson appointed a receiver over the property, which was gutted by an electrical fire in 2016 and has sat, boarded-up and blighted on a prime corner in the city's center, ever since. Last December, the city moved to court action to seize the building, saying years of inaction on the part of the building's owners have created a public health nuisance.

Anderson gave the receiver limited power to start. If a sale that Kehoe's attorney maintains is in the works isn't completed by Oct. 2, the receiver can take total control of the property, remediate and sell it, or just sell it outright to someone with the finances and wherewithal to remediate it on their own.

"The city is pleased the courts agreed with the city's belief the building is substantially dangerous and the city can make sure the public is safe from this dangerous building," Salinas City Attorney Chris Callihan says. "We hope the sale happens, otherwise the receiver will take control of the property and remediate it since Mr. Kehoe can't or won't." 

For now, Anderson has empowered the receiver, Eric Beatty, to secure the building so nobody can enter. On a recent weekend day, a security guard patrolling Oldtown found the lock to a security door on the building had been picked and the property entered. 

On Feb. 12, 2016, a trio of workers entered the Bruhn Building with several family members in tow to show them the interior. One of them turned on a light switch, and the decrepit wiring, in conjunction with unpermitted interior renovations, sparked a fire so intense that a high-rise strike team from the San Francisco Fire Department was put on standby and late-Mayor Joe Gunter said he thought the whole 300 block of Main Street might burn to the ground.

Kehoe, who also owns the Greyhound Building in Oldtown, as well as the restaurant and entertainment complex at 201 Main St., was ordered to pay  $75,000 in civil penalties and costs after an investigation by the Monterey County District Attorney found that Kehoe and Berkley, Inc. failed to conduct environmental protection surveys before a renovation.