Turlock council delays decision on Sacred Heart Catholic School

Sacred Heart Catholic School’s request to permanently close one block of Cooper Avenue to enclose its school and preschool will wait awhile longer for an answer.

The Turlock City Council voted unanimously to study the matter further on Tuesday and indicated it might seek further conditions from the school before considering the request again at a later meeting.

Whatever the city might ask for, however, seemed unlikely to sway neighbors who have steadfastly opposed the closure. Again Tuesday, many of their complaints cited the deep frustration of a small neighborhood sandwiched between the town’s only stadium, with no adjacent parking lot, and the 6,000-member Sacred Heart Church with a lot that has about 80 spaces.

The neighborhood is a four-block grid of half-size blocks. Tidy rows of modest homes, some without off-street parking, sit on tree-lined streets with dim traffic lights. Only Lyons Street has continuous sidewalks. On much of Cooper and Cahill streets, and all the side streets, lawns stretch to the curb and alleys are unpaved.

Residents at Tuesday’s meeting spoke about festivals being too loud, lasting past 9 p.m. some nights. Parking problems are legion, forcing residents to lug groceries more than a block on occasion, and street closures for church functions come as a rude surprise.

“They just haven’t been considerate,” said neighbor Katherine Hunt, who said she has lived in her Cahill Street home since 1998 and advised anyone against buying a home near any church. Driving, walking and bicycling on Lyons Avenue is hazardous because of church traffic, she said.

“This is only going to make it worse,” Hunt said.

The street is already closed from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on school days through a compromise reached in 2001. Large, metal gates close off the street, a feature that apparently does not appear on emergency dispatch maps. Cooper Street resident Amy Boylan-Mendes told of watching a fire engine from the main station four blocks away drive on Cooper during school hours and be forced to detour, adding precious seconds while smoke filled her home.

“How much is my property – my life – worth to you?” she demanded of council members.

Opening the road during school hours is not being considered.

Boylan-Mendes also questioned whether a public street could be gifted to a private entity. At an earlier meeting, however, Turlock Director of Development Services Mike Pitcock said the older neighborhood has streets created by public easements. The city does not own the land under the street; technically it still belongs to the church, Pitcock said. The closure would create a block about the same length as those in newer areas of town.

Neighbor Mike Ducey, whose family helped move Sacred Heart to its current location in 1912, said a permanent closure would create more hazards, sending traffic and pedestrians down dimly lit Cahill at night.

Church families do not live night and day with the problems they cause, speakers against the proposal stressed.

“The parishioners don’t live in the neighborhood. They say we have a transient problem – it’s them,” Boylan-Mendes said.

But Sacred Heart Principal Linda Murphy-Lopes countered that many of her students are the children and grandchildren of Sacred Heart alumni, with generations of involvement in the church community.

“Yes, our population changes,” she said, “(But) it’s not kids that don’t belong.”

Closing the street permanently is needed to enclose the school and keep children safe, Murphy-Lopes said, noting vagrants and drug addicts walk onto campus during school hours.

Public schools throughout Turlock have or are getting security fencing. Sacred Heart could close its campus by installing emergency exit latches on the street’s pedestrian gates, which without them must remain open. But speakers for the closure say the school wants to make its campus whole.

Preliminary plans for a closed Sacred Heart campus show a landscaped playground area and the addition of a traffic lane with parking around the preschool.

“We have a conceptual plan we think will improve public access. We are open to any reasonable ideas or suggestions,” said parishioner Rusty Baez, who helped design the plan.

Council members said they wanted more time to have the city’s staff work with the neighbors and investigate complaints of poor street lighting and blind corners.

“I still would rather err on side of children being protected,” said Councilman Bill DeHart, adding that he is also concerned about traffic and public safety issues raised by neighbors.

Gary Hampton, sitting at his first council meeting as the newly hired city manager, recommended a delay. No matter how the decision goes, not everyone will be happy, he said. “We at least need to address issues on both sides of the concerns.”

This story was originally published April 13, 2016 at 2:36 PM with the headline "Turlock council delays decision on Sacred Heart Catholic School."