County of San Diego Code Compliance division representatives brought a PowerPoint presentation to educate the Alpine Community Planning Group and the 11 citizens who attended the meeting last Thursday on what services they offer. In exchange, they received blunt commentary from several members of the ACPG, including Mike Milligan, Al Haven, George Barnett, and Richard Saldano who all expressed their frustration that the Youth Center at 2153 Arnold Way is under what they see as unnecessary scrutiny by the county.
“We don’t like you guys, to be real honest,” Milligan said.
George Barnett described the situation as harassment.
“You guys are harassing our community and the end result is going to be the closing of a facility for youth from this community,” Barnett said.
Milligan acknowledged the building does have some code issues but pointed out that the Youth Center began life as a bank with building plans that were purged from county files. According to Chief of Code Compliance Brent Panas, county administration is not obligated to maintain building plans and will not send an engineer out to view the general structure unless it is to confirm that specific repairs have been made.
Milligan said there are 11 pages of alleged code violations, some of which appear to be less about code updates and more about the age of the building, and pointed out the contrast between county employees getting paid to track code violations from behind a desk and locals who are struggling to knock down that list so that children can utilize the facility.
“At this point, everyone on my team is donating their time… To get the kids to smile, that’s worth it to me,” Milligan said.
Panas explained the building has to meet California state code and put forth his opinion that any building slated for use by children has extensive requirements. He also pointed out that code doesn’t differentiate between non-profit and for-profit use.
“We understand the challenges that presents. We can’t change code or the law or requirements… We can waive fees, give more time… Don’t take back that we’re not going to help you guys,” Panas said.
“When you folks go home at 4:30, we get to work here on the building for the kids,” Saldano said.
Lyon, who also sits on the Alpine Union School District Board of Trustees, brought up the ongoing resurfacing of the athletic fields – or lack thereof – at Joan MacQueen Middle School.
Lyon said the fields at JMMS have withstood a long wait while AUSD decided whether to line the fields with natural grass or install synthetic turf. He further explained that in October 2018, the decision was made to install natural grass on the school’s fields if the district anticipated being able to maintain that grass. At that time, an unnamed volunteer had offered to build a well and install a sprinkler system so that the grass could be maintained. Unfortunately, Lyon reported, that offer has fallen through because the donor realized that having to pay prevailing wage to fulfill school district construction requirements renders the offer unrealistic.
Citing the impossibility of the district being able to afford maintenance of grass fields, Lyon returned to the idea of a synthetic turf field. He said that although natural grass might be the preferred ground cover, he sees class after class moving on from the school without utilizing the fields while they stand undeveloped, and he would prefer to see the project move forward.
“We’ve got 95,000 square feet worth of dirt. I’d like to see our soccer teams, our softball teams have a field,” Lyon said.
Victor Woods, who had been sworn in to the ACPG at the start of the meeting, brought up the idea of a corporate sponsorship and suggested that he might broach the idea wit Viejas tribal council, where he also serves as Chairman of the Board.
