Turlock Gospel Mission sues city over unfinished day center, utility overcharges
The Turlock Gospel Mission filed a civil lawsuit Monday against the city of Turlock and its contractor, regarding the failed and unfinished renovations of its day center and significant utility overcharges.
The lawsuit was filed in Stanislaus County Superior Court and names the city of Turlock and ANV Contractors, Inc., including its owner, Nicholas Vargas. The mission seeks damages in excess of $500,000 “to complete the project and finally place the day center into service,” according to a press release.
Founded in 2007, Turlock Gospel Mission provides emergency shelter for men, women and families with children. This includes daily meals, showers, case management, transportation assistance and workforce development.
“Turlock Gospel Mission has worked alongside the city of Turlock and many community partners for years in pursuit of a shared goal of serving neighbors experiencing homelessness,” the mission wrote in a press release. “Filing this lawsuit was not a decision reached lightly.”
In a statement to The Bee, the city said it remains committed to working with the mission to bring the project to completion.
“From the beginning, the goal of this project has been to create a facility that expands services for people who need them. That goal has not changed,” reads the statement.
Vargas declined to comment.
Day center demolition
According to the filing, the city approached the mission in 2016 to relocate its day center to a property directly across from the mission’s main campus, offering a $120,000 acquisition loan since repaid in full.
By 2018, faced with code violations and hazardous materials at the new site, the city pledged $240,000 in federal Homeless Emergency Aid Program funds for renovations.
The city’s initial contractors demolished the property in early 2021. The mission entered a new loan agreement with the city in the amount of $330,000 to fund completion.
ANV Contractors was later selected to finish the job within 90 days, but allegedly stopped working in late 2022 or early 2023.
A subsequent walk-through of the day center found that ANV did not finish the project and used improper, residential-grade materials — unfit for commercial use.
By August 2024, the city estimated that an additional $491,053 would be needed to finish the renovation of the day center to make it operational.
However, in January 2025, the Turlock City Council failed to pass a motion to allocate additional funds needed to complete the project.
The fallout has forced the mission to spend more than $100,000 to rig its main campus with outdoor pavilions and extra climate control units to handle the overflow, causing overcrowding, safety risks and property deterioration.
Turlock Gospel Mission’s board “believes the unfinished day center represents more than an incomplete construction project — it represents services that vulnerable members of the community have been waiting years to receive,” the press release reads. “After exhausting efforts to resolve these matters outside of court, the board concluded that seeking judicial resolution is necessary to help ensure those services are finally made available.”
In its statement, the city wrote that while many of the claims raised remain in dispute, it has stayed engaged with the mission and other project participants with a continued focus on supporting the project’s completion and ensuring compliance with applicable grant requirements.
“The city takes its responsibility as a steward of grant-funded projects seriously,” the statement says.
Water and sewage overbilling
The lawsuit further alleges the city overcharged the mission for water and sewage at its main campus for nearly eight years.
According to the complaint, a city worker replacing the meter in May 2025 allegedly admitted the old device was defective and overcounting usage.
Once the new meter was installed, the mission’s utility bill plummeted, revealing that the nonprofit had been paying more than nine times its actual usage. The mission calculated it overpaid the city $142,385 between 2017 and 2025.
While Turlock eventually cut a partial reimbursement check for $156,859 in June 2026, the lawsuit alleges the city continues to overcharge because the meter issues remain unresolved.
Turlock stated that during its initial review, staff replaced the water meter as part of the troubleshooting process. Errors occurred during the integration of meter-reading data into the city’s utility billing system, hence the billing discrepancies.
“The city takes utility billing accuracy seriously,” the city stated. “Once the cause was identified, the city’s billing records were reconciled.”
Turklock asserts that the majority of the reimbursement has been issued directly to the mission, and the remaining balance has been applied as a credit to the utility account.
During Tuesday’s city council meeting — a day after the lawsuit was filed — the council approved contracts and funding for a $3.8 million project to replace more than 4,000 “failing” water meters that have been generating “incorrect water consumption readings” citywide.
