The Turlock City Council announced Tuesday that it will hold a special meeting on Thursday at 6 p.m. when it’s expected to take up the issue of a proposed mental-health residential-care facility at 1617 Colorado Ave.
After its regularly scheduled meeting, the council retreated into closed session before reporting back on action taken behind closed doors.
“As to agenda item 14-C, I want to report that votes were taken … both unanimous on 5-0 votes, as to the matter involving the facility at 1617 Colorado Ave.,” said city attorney George Petrulakis. “The council has waived the confidentiality requirement under the municipal code and the government code for closed-session matters, and has also waived attorney-client privilege as to those same matters.”
That means that on Thursday, the council is free to discuss matters that were previously confidential regarding A&A Health Services' proposed mental-health residential care center, which has been at the center of a feud between the city and county.
The city opposes the proposed location of the center, claiming it’s too close to Dutcher Middle School and that that target populations for the facility would be “persons with severe mental health challenges, the homeless and persons recently released from state prison or county jail,” according to language in a June 19 letter from city manager Reagan Wilson to the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors.
The county took issue with Wilson’s characterization.
“A&A Health Services provides transitional residential board and care for stabilized behavioral health clients in support of their recovery,” the county said in a press release. “The county had been placing clients at the same Turlock facility for several decades with the previous service providers. Any Behavioral Health and Recovery Services clients referred to the re-opened Colorado Avenue facility would fall well within their state licensing guidelines for admission.”
Moreover, the county contends that the city possessed the power all along to stop the project from moving forward by denying various building permits, but was unaware of what was happening under its own roof.
In other business, the council gave final approval to amend the municipal code to make it illegal to sit or lie in public space — including parks.
Councilmember Cassandra Abram (District 3), who urged the council during its most recent meeting to amend the language in the proposal, tried again on Tuesday — to no avail.
“At the last meeting, and in the days since, I voiced my objections to some portions of this and we received a lot of feedback,” said Abram. “Some of the members of the public, myself included, are concerned that this ordinance goes too far in that it prohibits normal innocent behavior, like sitting in public.
“And I would like to be clear that I’m not reading something into this ordinance that’s not there. It plainly reads ‘no person may sit, lie, sleep, or camp on a public place at any time.'”
Abram then made a motion to amend the language, which was seconded by Councilmember Kevin Bixel (District 1).
At that point, Bublak asked Abram what language should be substituted for the omitted language. Abram, who last week wrote an opinion piece for the Turlock Journal that urged constituents to make their opinions known regarding the issue, responded by saying that it wasn’t in her purview.
“So, you had time to write your op-ed, but you didn’t have time to write new language?” Bublak asked.
After the motion failed to amend the language, Monez moved to approve the ordinance as written. Franco seconded, and it passed by a 3-2 margin, with Abram and Bixel voting against.
