Turlock will close road dividing Sacred Heart Catholic School

Sacred Heart Catholic School will be able consolidate its campus after a unanimous decision by the the Turlock City Council to close one block of Cooper Avenue for good.

The school straddles the street, with Sacred Heart Church and the elementary school classrooms to the north, while the playground and preschool are across the street to the south. For more than three decades the church tried to bring the properties together, but neighborhood protests quashed a request to close the street in 1983. A 2001 request resulted in closing the street with gates during school days.

With Tuesday’s 5-0 vote, the council has cleared the way for Cooper Avenue to be plowed up and become part of the school proper, once sidewalk and safety fixes have been completed.

“We’re thrilled that the children will be in a safe, secure location and we don’t have to worry about lockdowns. And we think it will be better for the neighborhood,” said school parent Ronda Lucas.

In meeting after meeting this year, Sacred Heart supporters said the school was unsafe, with pedestrians being able to wander through the campus during school hours. More parking, better school dropoff flow and creating a planned, park-like setting were added benefits supporters cited in arguing for closing the road.

Turlock Fire Department test runs found the closure would add three seconds to the three-block run from Station 1 into the neighborhood. In addition, Turlock police ran eight simulations and found a closure would not be a problem, City Engineer Mike Pitcock said.

Neighbors, however, protested passionately against the loss of a straight shot down Cooper Avenue. Most speakers focused their ire on traffic problems created by church activities, like street closures for parades, late and loud festivals, and parking problems every Sunday when thousands arrive for services.

“Sacred Heart needs to acknowledge that they’re possibly the largest Catholic church in the area, with 6,000 members I guess. Well, maybe it’s time that they need to acknowledge that their current location is not big enough and they need to move out of a well-established neighborhood with no room to grow. And they need to take their location of their parish somewhere else,” Amy Boylan-Mendes told the council. “Don’t close my road.”

“Many of my neighbors and myself feel we’re being overrun by the actions of outsiders,” said Mike Ducey, who challenged the council’s authority to rule on the issue since none of the members live in the neighborhood.

The Sacred Heart neighborhood is a four-block square near downtown, sandwiched between the only stadium for two high schools to the east, and two churches and the Turlock Library to the west. It is an older section of town, with small lots and few two-car garages.

Arguing the street was used by walkers heading downtown and needed for emergency access, neighborhood speakers urged the council at multiple meetings this year to once again reject the idea of giving public land to a private school.

“This isn’t about the safety of the kids. This is a land grab by the Catholic church,” Boylan-Mendes said Tuesday.

The church already owns the land and what the city agreed to give up was its right-of-way, Pitcock had said at an earlier meeting. Utility easements will remain.

The Planning Commission looked at the issue at a contentious meeting in January, and was deadlocked 3-3 on giving a recommendation. The City Council voted March 1 to move forward with a public hearing, then delayed making a decision on April 12, saying it wanted give the church and neighbors time to resolve their differences.

That effort was not successful, Pitcock said Tuesday. “We were unable to come to any common ground, so no one went home satisfied.”

In other business, the council voted unanimously to make over the city bus system. Bus Line Service of Turlock, better known as BLaST, will become Turlock Transit, with a new logo, new buses, longer hours and ad-bedecked bus shelters to help pay for it all. Routes will switch in January from four long loops to six back-and-forth routes with faster turnaround, and a mobile app to help riders find the fastest way to their destinations.

Turlock also joined the Stanislaus County effort to put a half-cent sales tax for roads on the November ballot. The resolution of support passed on a 4-1 vote, with Amy Bublack dissenting.

This story was originally published June 15, 2016 at 6:45 PM with the headline "Turlock will close road dividing Sacred Heart Catholic School."