Vistans Decry Fire Station Sale to Soup Kitchen

With threats of legal action and recall votes, an angry knot of Vista home and business owners vented their spleens Wednesday night over the sale of a surplus Vista fire station to a nonprofit organization that hopes one day to operate a permanent soup kitchen and provide shelter for up to 2 dozen homeless people.

Faith & Love Ministries has already entered escrow with the Vista Fire Protection District to buy the 45-year-old station in the 2200 block of South Santa Fe Avenue for $245,000, with the hope of turning it into an outreach center for the down and out.

Once escrow closes on Oct. 31, the ministry will need the approval of the county to operate the facility under a special-use permit. The station is in unincorporated county territory between Vista and San Marcos.

But at an acrimonious and often out-of-control “informational meeting” held by the fire district’s board Wednesday night--a session that was replete with vulgarity and finger-pointing--neighbors told district officials they wanted nothing of it.

Real estate broker Karen Kunze, who emerged as a spokeswoman for the residents opposed to the sale, challenged the fire district’s process of advertising the sale through small legal advertisements in community newspapers, and of opening bids within a month of the first legal notice of the sale. She and others argued that the sale was not done in compliance with Vista city guidelines. The city is a partner with the fire district in providing protection for 18 square miles in and around Vista.

“We are not bound by Vista city guidelines,” answered fire board director Robert Hutchings.

“Well, the courts will have to decide,” Kunze retorted.

Answered another board member, Richard Hemenez: “That’s your bottom line? Then let’s back up a half a step from that bottom line. We happened to sell it to someone you didn’t want us to sell it to. Let’s cut the . . . “

Lee Horton, a local homeowner, suggested that Faith & Love Ministries buy another piece of property more suitable for the organization’s use--a six-acre site near Bonsall.

Fire district directors, who said they are not in a position to back out of the escrow unilaterally, concluded the meeting by saying they will meet with their attorney to discuss what protocol, if any, would allow Faith & Love to back out of the deal, if there were assurances that a buyer with a better bid would step forward.

But Faith & Love director and founder Janet Sucro, who was working at the soup kitchen and did not attend the meeting, said later that she had no interest in retreating.

“We’re obligated to buy the fire station,” she said. “We’ve already made a down payment. I don’t know how we can get out of it, even if we wanted to, which we don’t. I have no intention of getting out of it. We bought it with the intention of what we’re going to use it for, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

She said she is aware of the 6-acre site on Vista’s north side, but is not keenly interested in it because of its location and concern that a shelter would not be permitted there.

Duane Fellows, president of the fire board, said Faith & Love Ministries’ plan for the property was not a factor when the district agreed to sell the station to it.

“We can’t back out any more than anyone else can get out of a deal once escrow opens,” Fellows said outside the meeting. “We’ve entered a good-faith agreement, and unless something happens that breaks the escrow, that’s it.”

The advertised sale of the fire station--which is being replaced by two new stations to better serve Vista’s sprawling eastern border--generated six bids. Faith & Love’s offer of $245,000 was deemed the best because, even though another bid offered $4,000 more, that bid was not accompanied, as was Faith & Love’s offer, with a 10% cash down payment.

The businessman who made the higher bid, Dean Sutton, said he assumes the 10% down-payment requirement could have been met by delivering the cash at the opening of escrow. Even higher bids were informally offered Wednesday night, but officials said they were too late.

Fellows said: “What the people are asking us to do is like if I sold a house to someone, and then my neighbors asking me to get out of the escrow because they don’t like the person I sold it to. You can’t do that.”

Faith & Love Ministries operates soup kitchens in six different churches in Vista, offering nightly meals Monday through Friday, a lunch on Saturday and a brunch on Sunday.

The ministry was started by Sucro four years ago as a nondenominational Christian outreach project that, in its early days, fed about 40 people a night. Now about 100 people are fed at each meal.

The group, Sucro said, hopes to raise $400,000 to finance the balance of the fire station acquisition and then renovate the building into a small boarding facility for up to 12 men and 12 women, as well as provide meals, job placement and other services for more people.

The facility’s residents would first be screened to make sure they are not addicted to drugs or alcohol, and would be admitted only if they were actively seeking jobs.

“There’s a homeless problem in Vista, and if we can’t get some of them off the street and rehabilitate those who need it because of drugs or alcohol, and then get them jobs, then there will continue to be a homeless problem,” Sucro said.

The Rev. Doug Regin, pastor of St. Francis Catholic Church in Vista and chairman of the Faith & Love Ministries board of directors, said he and others have already contacted county officials about the necessary special-use permit.

“We’re not saying it’s going to be easy, and we anticipate citizen complaints. There are legitimate concerns among neighbors,” Regin said. “But we’ve made some initial contacts with county officials, and we believe we have political contacts that can be helpful in achieving our goal.”

He said the fire station is a good site for a small homeless center and soup kitchen because it is alongside a generally industrial and commercial street, not far from a proposed transportation center “where people will congregate naturally.”

“The clientele that we serve are roaming the streets now. They’re already in the community,” he said. “It’s not like we’re bringing in a whole new group of people into the community.

“A small minority of people chose that (homeless) lifestyle, and we have to deal with them in a social or police response,” Regin said. “But a whole larger portion of people, 70% or more, don’t want to be in that situation. We need to work with them.”