Oldtown Salinas Association looks to block church's homeless outreach

Get the torches.

The Oldtown Salinas Association is trying to build a zoning case against First Methodist Church, claiming the historic church's homeless outreach creates extreme blight—including an increased presence of aggressive panhandlers, drug sales, harassment of Oldtown workers and visitors and public urination and defecation.

A draft memo written by OSA President Ken Steen to Salinas City Manager Ray Corpuz and obtained by the Weekly via a Public Records Act request says the OSA's mission of safeguarding Oldtown as a "clean, safe, peaceful and ambient [sic] place to visit, work and do business" is being hampered by the church.

And the OSA is demanding the city use zoning law to prevent the church from offering a number of programs: a weekday hot lunch; day room with television, telephones and Internet; a mobile health clinic in conjunction with Clinica de Salud; mental health services via the nonprofit Interim Inc.; literacy training; and distribution of clothes, food or household items.

It was not immediately clear if the OSA also wants the church to cease hosting representatives of the VA Palo Alto Health Care System Resource Group, which helps homeless military veterans find transitional housing and offers other services, such as sober-living programs, as well. The veterans group sets up shop at the church every Tuesday.

"There is an undesirable element of street thug roaming the streets of Oldtown," Steen writes. "They engage in antisocial and illegal activities."

Specifically, Steen writes, First Methodist fosters the element with programs in violation of its nonconforming use under the city zoning code. 

"The Association…hereby demands that immediate code enforcement action be taken against the church. Action must require the church to cease and desist performance of any and all activities in violation of zoning code."

Included with the draft memo are comments from a who's who of Salinas' business community, including Taylor Farms President Bruce Taylor and Vice President Margaret D'Arrigo; National Steinbeck Center Executive Director Colleen Bailey; property owners Catherine Kobrinsky Evans, Frank Saunders, Jim Gattis and Jay DeSerpa; Rabobank Regional Vice President Harry Wardwell; and business people including Robert Struve, Tom Martella, Peter Kasavan, Dick Arentz, Wylie Mitchell and Fred DeYoung.

DeSerpa comments, "This issue has been jaw-boned for years with no effective action. We can strike a blow with a swift program of code enforcement and citizens' arrests."

D'Arrigo also advocated for an increase in citizens' arrests: "Take back control of our downtown," she wrote.

The OSA board is holding a special meeting 8:15am Thursday at its offices, 10B Midtown Lane. A source tells the Weekly that representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union may be in attendance. 

Salinas City Councilman Steve McShane, whose district includes Oldtown and who has a seat on the Oldtown board, says solutions to the ongoing issues created by homelessness must include input from the business community, the church, the OSA and the homeless themselves.

"Maybe I'm a crack optimist, but I believe everyone can exist in harmony," McShane says. "It's when there's an outbreak or someone is found near dead or someone's business gets tagged that we're seeing the kind of responses we're seeing now."

In the past year, Salinas City Hall hosted two forums focusing on homeless issues, following an attack on a homeless man by owners of an Oldtown restaurant. One of the owners of the XL Grindhouse is serving a nine-year sentence after pleading no contest to a charge of assault with a deadly weapon—a baseball bat—in the October 2012 attack.

Also not immediately clear is whether the city would seek to enact a blight ordinance that would force Oldtown owners to better maintain their properties. A walk of Oldtown shows numerous boarded-up windows and for-rent signs on empty property.