Councilman: Demolition of historic LGBT house ‘not … illegal’
District 3 Councilman Todd Gloria says there appears to have been nothing illegal about the allegedly deceptive manner in which the so-called Michels-Carey House, the initial headquarters to San Diego’s fledgling LGBT-rights movement, was demolished to make way for future development.
However, Gloria has referred the matter for further investigation by the mayor’s office, which at press time had not yet confirmed what if any investigative action will be taken.
“The limited information we have at this time does not indicate that this action was illegal,” a spokesman for Councilman Gloria said. “Given the sensitive and high-profile nature of the property involved, it raises questions that the building was demolished without notification of all interested parties.”
A volley of questions faced Michael Neal, president and CEO of developer HG Fenton Company, which bought the property at 2004 El Cajon Blvd. last September, as he appeared with one of his employees at a community meeting, June 4. The pair came to the University Heights Community Association (UHCA) meeting bearing artist renderings of a seven-story, mixed-use project that is planned for the site where the two-story, “saltbox” house stood three weeks ago.
“The house was going to be demolished no matter what,” a resolute Neal replied to one resident at last week’s UHCA meeting.
Charles Kaminski, a retired architect and board member at Lambda Archives, is angry about what he says was a deliberately underhanded demolition job by Neal’s company.
“Come on, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see what these guys did,” said Kaminski in an interview with San Diego LGBT Weekly, following the community meeting. “They stealthily got their permit Thursday or Friday, then even more stealthily came in late Friday afternoon and tore the house down in a matter of a couple of hours.”
At the University Heights community meeting, Neal said his 109-year-old, family owned “strictly San Diego” firm had worked closely with the local community to revise a previously approved plan for the property. That outreach, says Neal, led to a new plan and a fresh design for a seven-story residential and commercial project now planned for the site.
“We took a look at that original design and saw an opportunity to really create something better,” senior development director at HG Fenton, John LaRaia told the crowd at the University Heights Community Association.
But according to one local resident at the meeting, what the developer means by “better” is simply “bigger.” It wasn’t immediately clear what community groups HG Fenton had consulted regarding input on the revised development plan.
“Do you think the University Heights Community Association could be part of your future focus groups?” one of the group’s volunteers asked Neal and LaRaia as last week’s meeting wrapped up. “We’re probably the largest group of University Heights residents around and we would love to be a part of helping shape the project.”
The property, located on the north side of El Cajon Boulevard between Alabama and Florida Streets, is in the heart of University Heights.
“There aren’t going to be anymore focus groups,” Kaminski told LGBT Weekly. “I’m not sure if everyone understood that this developer tore down a historic building late last Friday afternoon. Now they’re going to build whatever they want. That’s just the way it is.”
Lambda Archives, which maintains San Diego’s largest depository of the local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community’s historical documents and media, is working to compile a database that traces the region’s architectural and cultural assets of particular significance in the struggle for equality.
The preservation of buildings, landmarks and public-space artifacts will presumably be the survey’s paramount purpose. Until the building’s destruction on the afternoon of Friday, May 29, securing official status for the Michels-Carey house, built in the 1920s, as a historical asset was one of Lambda’s top priorities.
“The Michels-Carey House had a lot of significance for us,” said archives President Maureen Steiner. “It was the ‘ground zero’ of LGBT activism in San Diego in the very early 1970s. Not only did Bernie Michels and Thom Carey, his partner, lay the groundwork for the first LGBT Center in San Diego, Bernie Michels developed a curriculum at the house.”
In fact, the curriculum Steiner refers to, developed by San Diego LGBT Community Center cofounder, Bernard “Bernie” Michels while he lived at the now-razed house, became the first college-level LGBT studies course offered in San Diego. The course, titled “Myths and Realities Concerning Gay People” was offered at San Diego State University in 1974.
But longtime San Diego LGBT-rights activist, City Commissioner Nicole Murray Ramirez, who is a columnist for this publication, says the house was far from a mecca for LGBT activism.
“Those two moved a lot,” Ramirez said. “You can’t save every stick in town just because someone lived there for a year or two – or held a meeting. Look, the work they did was very important for the community, but that doesn’t mean the house was.”
Nonsense, says Charles Kaminski.
“The articles of incorporation were written there with Thom (Carey), who was treasurer of the planning group for what would become The Center,” Kaminski said. “Bernie Michels was director of the planning group and Jess Jessop became the director of the actual center. As far as Nicole’s comments, it’s true; there were meetings held all over. But the first two or three meetings that laid the groundwork for The Center happened there. The Bernie Michels Archives at Lambda Archives show that in detailed notes.”
Steiner and Kaminski were assured by representatives at the City of San Diego Historic Resources Division via email that notice would be given before the building was razed. That did not happen.
Councilman Gloria says he was unaware that such assurances were given.
However, Bernard Michels, who now lives in the Boston area, wrote in an October, 2014 email to preservationists that Gloria was nonresponsive regarding efforts to save the informally historic building where he once lived.
“Not only did Todd Gloria not answer me, but I confronted him last October about not doing so when I was at the Metropolitan Community Church in San Diego,” wrote Michels. “I still do not have a positive reply from him.”
A spokesman says the councilman regrets the loss of the building.
“The property owner and historic preservationists had been discussing options for the existing building for several months,” the spokesman said in an email to LGBT Weekly. “It’s obvious that those negotiations were not successful and that’s regrettable. Councilmember Gloria hopes that both parties will re-engage to find a mutually agreeable way to honor LGBT history somewhere else in Council District Three.”
In fact, Steiner and Kaminski were preparing for a trip to Sacramento as part of efforts by Lambda Archives and the Save Our Heritage Organization to secure national historic registry status for the Michels-Carey House.
“We submitted a historic nomination to the state of California Historic Resources Commission,” said Kaminski. “Fenton as the owner was made aware of it and hired a pro-developer historic-resources consultant to denigrate our report. We addressed their issues and resubmitted the nomination to the state. On May 27, Wednesday, I posted information that the formal hearing for a historic national registry listing for the site would be held in August in Sacramento. By Friday afternoon at five o’clock, close of business time, this house was demolished.”
HG Fenton Company says it will dedicate a portion of a side wall of its new project to honor LGBT history.
“We met with Lambda Archives,” CEO Mike Neal told LGBT Weekly. “We offered that the building could be moved. We were told that they didn’t want to move it or they didn’t have a site to move it to. We’ve offered monumentation; and what that looks like and is going to be; we want to work with them to make sure it’s going to be something that everybody’s proud of.”
Neal expressed no regrets about tearing the building down.
“We pulled the demolition permits and demolished the building,” he said. “The rest of the residences on the site will also be demolished.”
But for the preservationists the residence that mattered was the Michels-Carey house. “I was on the phone to Fenton at 10:30 a.m. that Friday,” said Steiner. “They never mentioned the demolition. At 5 p.m. the house was gone.”
WITH ALL DUE RESPECT………….It would seem that councilman Todd Gloria has become the token,corporate Gay boi. His reply………..or non-reply……..to this obvious homophobic attack on our local heritage seems to indicate the price you have to pay to get a place in the revolving door to the San Diego mayor’s office. Now that that can be added to the resume, he plans to be moving on to Sacramento anyhow. The destruction of the historic site is an outrage, The speed & timing of the demolition clearly indicate that the destruction was intentional, vindictive and deliberate. Kaminski and the Lambda Archives people have all the right in the world to be angry, mad and outraged. WE, GAY PEOPLE, SHOULD BE OUTRAGED. If the site had been meaningful to the African American or Hispanic communities, I’m sure the response would have been very different. How intentional was it that the demolition occurred just in time for Gay Pride month ? Do we have enemies who deeply resent the progress being made ? You don’t have to look any further than El Cajon Blvd. for an answer.
By tearing down at the close of business hours on a Friday, means that that is the most ideal time for anyone trying to stop the demo can’t because all agencies are CLOSED. SNEAKY SNEAKY SNEAKY. H R Fenton is wrong for doing not letting the community weigh in. H R Felon is wrong for corrupting the Historic Process. THE CITY is wrong for indirectly SUPPORTING this corrupt process.
THANK YOU, STELLA, for speaking up. Unless we start voicing our opposition to wrongdoing, it will only continue. WE MUST NOT BECOME COMPLICIT IN OUR OWN REPRESSION.
When did Nicole Murray Ramirez or Todd Gloria get the architectural historian credentials to determine what’s historical? Isn’t that for the State to decide, and weighing in community input? What about the fact that the permit was issued in error by Development Services and that the developer was aware of its application in to the State’s Historic Resources Commission? In court both could be held liable and restitution to the community for this loss mandated. Shame our city leadership and management keep forcing the citizens to take legal action for any redress with their criminal actions.
This article is a disgraceful piece of shoddy and shabby journalism! And before you go ballistic, I’ve been in the publishing business for more than 30 years, and I know a totally one-sided biased hit piece when I see one!
I was at that meeting and witnessed all the back and forth, and your reporter asked clearly biased, pointed and leading questions that predetermined an article that painted Fenton Co et al in a bad light.
And let me add a thing or two that I did not see in the article: Fenton offered to move the building to another site, but the people who wanted to keep the building did not take them up on their offer.
Second, it’s been well known in UH and El Cajon areas that that site was going to be redeveloped for many years! The original development proposal was approved in 2005! So for 10 years the archives had that knowledge and did nothing about it until the last few months is highly suspicious.
Third, I and many members of the UHCA resent the efforts by archive people to hijack our meeting and take over the conversation! You were welcomed guests but clearly didn’t act like guests.
Finally, Fenton had a legally valid demolition permit to do so, and judging from the bitter, divisive comments made at the meeting and the biased report in this article, I don’t blame them for tearing it down as soon as they got the permit. If they hadn’t, we’d have to listen to those people whine and whine for the next five to ten years!
Important for commentators to get their facts “straight”. I can’t say the Archives knew for ten years and can’t say Archives knew the lgbt connection 10 years ago. LGBT social places were never considered in any review. It was only later 2014 when I and others in Archives became aware of the connection to the “Center”. UHCA covers the area in which Lambda is located so Lambda had every right to be there at the meeting and speak as a community organization in UH. Too bad UHCA never saw this development before, that was a comment from the audience. I guess UHCA was not part of any “focus group”? As to valid permit? could be, BUT the City themselves said: property would need an historic review before any demo or building permit is to be issued. Fenton knew that as they have an expensive legal team and pro developer historic consultant who knows the City requirements. As to moving and relocating? History is best served by the place it happened.
Phillip. The developers had 5 years to get their demo permit and didn’t. Development Services issued a demo permit in error (after that period), and admitted that. So, no, it was NOT a valid demo permit.
Community meetings are just that, For the community to openly express their views. If your house was illegally demolished, I’m sure you’d appreciate the possibly one and only opportunity to say something about it. Too bad if that makes people uncomfortable; it’s part of the democratic process. Don’t like it? Don’t go to these meetings.
Also, I resent your using the term “those people.” And, who would that be? Lesbians, liberals, progressives, Democrats, activists, neighbors, Constitutionalists, preservationists, law-abiding citizens or otherwise tax-payers or voters who reasonably expect our laws and government processes to be followed? Please! You’re out of line!