Vista Fire Station Buyer Holds Off on Suit

Faith and Love Ministries decided Monday night to put its faith in the Lord instead of the lawyers in its efforts to buy a Vista fire station for use as a job counseling center for the homeless.

The Faith and Love board, which operates six soup kitchens and an alcohol and drug rehabilitation center in the Vista area, met in closed session to discuss whether to sue the Vista Fire Protection District. Instead, the board decided to seek a compromise in discussions with city officials, who are seeking to block the sale after hearing protests from area property owners that the center would drive property values down and bring crime and further deterioration to the neighborhood.

“We don’t believe that the Lord has brought us this far to abandon us now,” said Msgr. Doug Regin, president of the Love and Faith board. “Lawsuits are not in anyone’s best interests.”

He added, however, that the board is not ruling out the possibility of a lawsuit if a compromise cannot be worked out.

Board member Paul Eckert, a former county supervisor, said there are other sites that could accommodate the center, “but we need the city’s cooperation to make that possible.”

Regin said he and other board members will meet with Mayor Gloria McClellan on Wednesday and present their compromise proposal to the City Council on Monday. They will ask that the city take a “reasonable person” approach to the controversy and drop its opposition to the sale of the fire station, which the organization successfully bid on and is seeking to acquire.

The 45-year-old station was put up for sale last spring, and Faith and Love was the highest of the two bidders that conformed to the rural fire district’s bidding specifications, by depositing 10% of its $242,500 bid.

But, when property owners around the South Santa Fe Drive building learned who had purchased it and that it was to be turned into a shelter for the homeless, they stormed the fire board’s meeting in June and demanded that the sale be voided.

Fire board members protested that the district had followed proper procedures and had no authority to withdraw from the escrow agreement it had entered into with Faith and Love, despite the protests from residents and businesses.

The more than 100 protesters refused to take no for an answer and threatened to sue the fire district if it went through with the sale.

Karen Kunze, a real estate saleswoman and a spokeswoman for the protesters, said Monday that the group is waiting to see “who sues who” before going to court themselves.

Kunze said the opponents of the sale “are not just disgruntled property owners,” but also business people who “had been waiting for the fire station property to come on the market so they could make a bid on it.”

She said she has offers of $300,000 and $270,000 for the building from individuals who were unaware that the building was up for sale because it had not been properly publicized.

“I plan to bring those offers to the meeting Tuesday” of the City Council and fire district, “to illustrate that the property was under-appraised and improperly advertised,” Kunze said.

The council and fire district will meet jointly--for the first time since the controversy arose--at 7 tonight at the main Vista fire station, 175 N. Melrose Drive.

The city and district are partners in a joint powers authority to provide fire protection to the city and surrounding unincorporated areas. As such, Vista technically owns 79% of the fire station. City Atty. Ron Null informed the council last week that it has a voice in the sale of the property.

“To make the sale of the property work, to make the sale complete, they (fire district board members) are going to have to have the consent of the city,” Null told council members. The City Council then voted 3 to 1 to oppose the sale.