Panel to Study Other Sites for Mission Hall

A new Mission San Diego de Alcala parish committee will examine alternate sites for the controversial meeting hall that has pitted the Roman Catholic diocese against local Indians and archeologists, Msgr. I. Brent Eagen announced Friday.

Eagen’s announcement, in a press release, said the committee will also consider building the hall on the existing site, a plan that has drawn protests since mission ruins and Indian burials were unearthed there in the spring.

Finding Alternatives

But the new committee’s chairman, architect Harry Hallenbeck, said Eagen specifically asked him to find alternatives to the site and has not yet mentioned an evaluation of the current project.

Mission spokesman William Finley emphasized that this is the first time Eagen has called for a survey of alternative sites for the proposed building.

“Maybe there’s an answer that nobody’s thought of. Maybe there’s a site we haven’t considered or a technique we haven’t discussed,” Eagen said in the press release. “If so, now’s the time to find out.”

The diocese has previously maintained that the proposed lot is the only usable site on mission grounds.

Hallenbeck’s committee will include five or six other parishioners familiar with the mission’s history and needs. Their names were not announced Friday because they had not yet been contacted by the diocese, Hallenbeck said.

Both Finley and Hallenbeck mentioned the mission’s parking lots as likely alternatives to the site. But Hallenbeck said the area’s steep terrain may pose problems for the search committee.

Earlier Friday, Eagen met with Councilwoman Judy McCarty, an outspoken critic of the project. Finley described the meeting as “a chance for them to get acquainted.” McCarty said the two met “to clear the air” and “to talk face to face rather than through the newspaper.”

The City Council will hear the city attorney’s report on the project at another closed session Tuesday. Lawyers for the city toured the site Tuesday with Manuel Medeiros, a deputy attorney general from Sacramento. He will report on his findings to the Native American Heritage Commission, a state agency.

The commission is monitoring negotiations between Eagen and Kumeyaay Indians about disposal of Indian remains found on the site, said Robert Shull, an attorney for the Kumeyaay. Talks are scheduled to resume next week, he said.

But Finley said it is taking too long for the Indian group to decide on its position. “The monsignor would like to do what the Indians want, but we still don’t know what it is,” he said.

That may change when a committee of Kumeyaay representatives meets Monday to plan strategy, Shull said.. The committee, composed of representatives from the 11 local Kumeyaay bands, is headed by Ronald Christman of the Viejas reservation, Shull said.

Meeting hall opponents welcomed Eagen’s announcement Friday.

“That’s great; it makes our hand a little better,” said Clarence Brown, a Kumeyaay. “It shows we are on the right track.”

“I’ll believe it when I see the results. It’s about time,” said anthropologist Florence Shippek.

Before Eagen’s announcement, some Indians had announced plans to picket the mission’s Festival of the Bells this weekend, Shull said.