Earthquake: The Long Road Back : Frustrated Fillmore Ponders Rebuilding

City leaders and merchants in Fillmore expressed growing frustration Friday as they searched for the best way to go about rebuilding the devastated farm community.

The job of rebuilding will take much longer than initially predicted, city officials said. It will be complicated by worries about possible lawsuits and fears that local businesses might not be able to afford to start over again.

Trying to avoid future litigation by downtown merchants with buildings damaged in Monday’s quake, the Fillmore City Council on Thursday adopted a detailed appeal process for any building the council decides ultimately to condemn.

The council spent more than an hour in a closed executive session with City Atty. Roger Meyers before adopting the complex appeal process--discussing the legal pitfalls of condemning any buildings on the downtown strip.

Meyers warned the council not to act hastily, citing mistakes made by the town of Coalinga after city officials there decided to raze most of their earthquake-damaged downtown in 1983.

Coalinga later was hit with a series of lawsuits from business people who said Coalinga officials acted prematurely and destroyed the character of the town by demolishing its downtown area.

“Our vision for Fillmore has always been to preserve the historic look of downtown,” said City Manager Roy Payne, who also urged a cautious approach to reconstruction. “That’s not going to change.”

The city’s policy of moving slowly, however, actually brought criticisms Friday from some business owners who complained that they are being blocked from demolishing their buildings as soon as possible.

Members of the Masons Assn., which owns the historic Masonic Temple on Central Avenue, were among the chief critics of any delays in demolition.

“It’s got to come down,” said Jack Starnes, a member of the association.

But Ken Glenn, president of the Masons Assn., said the group doesn’t have the money needed for a new building even if the old one is demolished.

“It’s going to come down and the lot will probably remain vacant, or we’ll try to sell it,” he said.

Cost will be a big problem for many other small businesses in the city, officials agreed. That view was supported by a city consultant who told the council Thursday that the new codes could be prohibitively expensive.

“You don’t want to adopt a code that is going to be more expensive than anyone realizes, making it impossible for these businesses to rebuild,” said architect Steve Craig of The Planning Corp. in Santa Barbara.

“Based on my experience, not much is going to happen for a while. Look at Santa Cruz and Watsonville and you’ll see it’s going to take a long time to rebuild,” Craig said.

City Manager Payne took issue with Craig’s predictions that reconstruction efforts might be too slow in Fillmore.

“How quickly we can recover has as much to do with the will and desire of the people here than anything else,” he said.