Council Approves Buying Boys’ Club Site in San Ysidro

The San Diego City Council agreed Tuesday to pay $100,000 for the abandoned, vandalized San Ysidro Boys’ Club building and to find an outside group to use it for youth programs.

As a bonus in the transaction, the Boys’ Club agreed to give the city another 3.5 acres of land on Otay Mesa.

The council’s 8-0 vote ended a yearlong controversy over what to do with the 179 Diza Road property that started when the San Ysidro Boys’ Club folded and locked up the building last October.

Vandals repeatedly broke into the 14,000-square-foot building over the last several months and smashed interior windows, overturned furniture, scribbled graffiti on the walls and littered the property.

Focus on Building’s Plight

The building’s plight received publicity last week when Mayor Maureen O’Connor visited the site--with television cameras in tow. The mayor said she was shocked by the damage and pushed to have the council consider the purchase as an emergency item on Tuesday.

O’Connor’s visit ruffled the feathers of 8th District Councilwoman Celia Ballesteros, whose turf includes San Ysidro. On Monday, Ballesteros called the mayor’s television tour “sensationalism” that damaged the community’s reputation.

Ballesteros said she was working quietly behind-the-scenes, before O’Connor’s intervention, to get the city manager’s office to buy the building. Ballesteros apparently wasn’t told, however, that the city manager’s office had decided last month against purchasing the property.

Ballesteros showed the sting of her public tiff with the mayor on Tuesday, when she complained during council discussion that the city staff failed to inform her that the deal had been called off before O’Connor became involved.

“I’m dismayed, evidently, that you changed your mind and failed to communicate with me on this,” Ballesteros told City Manager John Lockwood.

There was also some confusion over who would clean up the building.

O’Connor’s office has organized a cleanup for Oct. 10 and 11, with the Old Mission Beach Athletic Club overseeing the project.

But San Ysidro resident Saundra Lopez said a “grass-roots” community group has organized its own cleanup day the week before O’Connor’s.

Purchase to Cover Debt

William J. Bauer, attorney for the San Ysidro Boys’ Club, said the $100,000 purchase price will cover the club’s estimated $90,000 in debts, including $44,700 in back pension payments for two former club employees.

The attorney said O’Connor deserves the credit for Tuesday’s sale.

“She stopped the talking and started the doing,” Bauer said.

The purchase was applauded by San Ysidro residents and businessmen who attended Tuesday’s hearing.

“This is the most solid support I have seen from the community of San Ysidro since I’ve been there,” said one businessman. “Most all of us are absentee landlords. We take our money out of San Ysidro and we give precious little back.

“Now, we are faced with an opportunity to help that community,” he said, adding that the council’s move would “wake some of us fuddy-duddies up” to become involved in the community.

Lockwood said it would take up to 45 days to receive proposals to run the San Ysidro club, but the city’s park department will begin youth programs starting Oct. 12.