The Turlock City Council once again voted against a plan for a potential day-use center for the city’s homeless population.
The Turlock Gospel Mission was looking for the city to approve restructured forgivable loan terms that would allow the non-profit to refurbish the property across street from its current base of operations at 432 S. Broadway.
The sticking point, once again, was the length of the forgivable loan. Originally, TGM sought a 10-year note, while the city was seeking 17 years.
City staff brought forward a revised plan with a 12-year term, and recommended approval in its report to the council.
District 1 councilmember Kevin Bixel and District 3’s Cassandra Abram voted in favor of the plan, but Mayor Amy Bublak, along with councilmembers Rebecka Monez (District 2) and Erika Phillips (District 4) voted to oppose.
“I just don’t believe in what happened and how it’s worked,” Bublak said as she moved from the council chambers to a closed-session meeting across the hall. “There’s a history of us not working with them, them not working with us, and nothing’s really happened.”
Phillips explained her vote this way: “It just didn’t make sense to me to open another facility for the same services.”
The day-use facility offers similar services as the overnight shelter, but primarily functions as a gathering place for the homeless when the overnight shelters are closed down, and can be used as a cooling or heating center during extreme climate swings.
Christian Curby, executive director of Turlock Gospel Mission, said that his organization even agreed to cease operations on the weekend due to complaints from neighbors.
“We operated seven days a week in the day-center for several years,” said Curby. “And we noticed on the weekends, when our neighbors are home, the level of conflict goes up. They eventually came and asked, ‘Is it possible not to have the day-center open on the weekend when our kids are home from school and we’re all home from work?’ As a gesture of respect to our community and neighborhood, we took that direction.”
Judging by the tenor of discussion among councilmembers, and by comments from Curby and TGM board member Chris Kiriakou, passage seemed like a slam dunk.
“This has been going on for a long time,” said Kiriakou. “We cannot use the building as it is, for anything. They have closed TGM down, indirectly, for the day-center. So, are we disappointed? Extremely.”
Last February, by a similar 3-2 vote — Bublak, Monez and then-councilmemeber Pam Franco — voted against extending funds to keep the We Care Navigation (day-use) Center in operation.
Curby and Kiriakou said they’ll report back and gauge the will of the TGM board concerning their next move.
Also Tuesday, city finance director Isaac Moreno provided a report on the city’s issuance of $29.5 million in lease revenue bonds, with proceeds to be used to finance road projects.
“Great news going into the market,” said Moreno. “We had a lot of offers coming in; we had $29.5 million going out and we had requests for over $70 million. So, that shows you what the market interest was. A lot of that comes down to our (double-A) credit rating and how substantial that is.”
On average, according to Moreno, California cities have a single-A credit rating. With Turlock’s more robust rating, the city was able to secure more than $31 million in proceeds.
“This project is a project that’s continually moving forward,” said Moreno. “It’s not a one-and-done. We’re going to be doing multiple issuances. The more proceeds we have, the more we can maximize our dollar amounts, and the more projects we can do.”
