St. Isidore Church’s Good Samaritan: Poe

For Mayor Marilynn M. Poe, the small mission church on Katella Avenue and Reagan Street that has been closed for more than one month is not just important to the Latino people who have congregated there for more than 78 years.

St. Isidore Roman Catholic Church is important to the rest of the community as well, she said.

“It’s a symbol of the history of Los Alamitos,” Poe said. “This is the oldest existing building in our community.”

The mayor said she identifies with the parishioners and their cause. She has lived in the small, middle-class community since she was 2 and grew up with its parishioners.

Poe and about two dozen others have been attending weekly meetings of the Comite de Amor, or Committee of Love, which is made up of church members trying to save the building.

Committee member Rebecca Cagle says she is impressed by the mayor. “She is neither Catholic nor Hispanic. . . . She’s absolutely wonderful,” Cagle said.

The Diocese of Orange closed the church Sept. 1 because officials said it would be unsafe in an earthquake. The cost to retrofit the historic building would be close to $300,000.

In addition, the diocese is following a national trend to consolidate small neighborhood churches and integrate them with larger ones nearby, said diocesan spokesman Msgr. Lawrence J. Baird.