Discount Fails to Lure Buyers for San Ysidro Massacre Site

Despite two attempts, the City of San Diego has failed to attract an acceptable formal bid to develop the San Ysidro massacre site--even at a discount price--because of the “emotional issues” attached to the property where 21 people were killed by a crazed gunman in 1984, a city official said Friday.

But the city hasn’t given up hope for the property, and it plans to pursue exclusive talks with Southwestern College to put a satellite campus on the 75,000-square-foot parcel, Deputy City Manager Jack McGrory said.

McGrory said Friday that he thought developers were reluctant to buy or lease the property because of the strong feelings that San Ysidro residents still have about the place where gunman James O. Huberty shot and killed 21 people and wounded 19 others in a McDonald’s restaurant. The residents have been asking the city for years to build a monument there to honor the dead in what was the single worst shooting tragedy in American history.

‘Emotional Issues’

“I imagine it was the emotional issues surrounding the site,” McGrory said. “That must have had an effect on the people who were looking at it for purchase and later use.

“Any future use on the site would be carefully controlled and have to be sensitive to what’s happening there. That prevented us from getting any bids.”

Earlier this year, city officials put the lot up for sale at $425,000 but received no takers.

Hoping to do better, the city subsequently lowered the price to $300,000 and mailed 100 bid packages to interested parties, said Lucille Goodman, a city property agent. But it received only one formal proposal by Friday’s bidding deadline--to buy the land for only $125,000.

McGrory said city administrators will recommend to the City Council next week that it reject the $125,000 bid and instead seek permission to negotiate with Southwestern College.

Southwestern officials approached Councilwoman Celia Ballesteros last month with a plan to lease the land for a nominal price--discussions suggested $1 a year--and build 13,300 square feet of buildings on the site.

But the City Council voted two weeks ago to put that proposal on hold until the second bidding period had run its course and the city could examine other, perhaps more lucrative, proposals.

Ballesteros warned, however, that the delay and vocal opposition by some community activists could threaten the Southwestern plan by making college officials reluctant to walk into a political controversy.

With no other bids deemed acceptable by the city, Ballesteros said Friday that the council will most likely go for the Southwestern deal, if college officials are still interested.

A spokesman for the college said its president, Joseph Conte, was out of town and unavailable for comment.

Time to End Delays

“I wanted to bring in a decision on this this year because I don’t think the community can handle things being held in abeyance like they have for the past three years,” said Ballesteros, whose term expires Monday.

“This is what I’ve been trying to do. It’s been a bit painful at times, but that’s part of the struggle.”

Part of the negotiations with Southwestern will be about what kind of memorial the college would propose for the property. Although college officials said they would erect a permanent marker when permanent classrooms are built, at least one San Ysidro activist said Friday she would like to see a memorial before then.

“We don’t want to wait six years until the permanent buildings go up,” said Andrea Skorepa, one of five people who serve on an ad-hoc committee to advise the city on what should be placed on the massacre site.

“We want to make sure that when they come on the site, even in their portables, that there is some provision to memorializing that site for what happened,” said Skorepa, who is also executive director of Casa Familiar, a San Ysidro-based social service agency.

She suggested that the college may want to dedicate a “living memorial” in the form of scholarships for local students.

Skorepa, who has openly criticized Ballesteros for trying to push through the Southwestern proposal without following the formal bidding process, said the interim councilman “jumped the gun.” But she added that the satellite campus is a good idea for the site.