|
|
Featured Items:
| |
RIVERSIDE: Chinatown appeal ruling is a reversal
Published in
The Press Enterprise, 10/27/11
The sale
of Riverside’s historic second Chinatown property to a
developer was legal, but the city’s approval of a medical
building for the site was flawed and invalid, according to a
tentative ruling from a state appellate court.
The news
is a partial victory for the Save Our Chinatown Committee, a
citizens group that sued to block development of the
Chinatown site at Tequesquite and Brockton avenues. The
ruling issued this week by the Fourth District Court of
Appeal reverses both findings of a lower court’s 2009
decision, which said the Riverside County Office of
Education’s sale of the parcel was improperly done, but the
city’s approval of developer Doug Jacobs’ plan for the
property was valid.
The
tentative appeal ruling sets aside Riverside’s approval of
Jacobs’ project and the environmental report on it. Attorney
Raymond Johnson, who represents the Chinatown committee,
said this decision may actually be better for the group,
because it would have been easier for officials to correct
any issues with the property sale and then proceed with
building the project.
M.
Rosalind Sagara, the committee’s chairwoman, said in a news
release she hopes the ruling “will send a message to our
public officials that community members want our city’s
historic and cultural resources to be preserved.”
Jacobs
was unruffled by the decision. He said he expects it will
merely be a matter of correcting any deficiencies the court
found in the environmental report.
Once
those issues are resolved, “My plans are to go ahead and
build the building,” Jacobs said. “Basically the tentative
decision says I can buy the land.”
The lower
court held that the Riverside County Office of Education
failed to follow state guidelines for selling surplus
property and thus the sale of the parcel to Jacobs was
improper. The appeals court opinion said that because the
county office of education is not a school district, the
guidelines don’t apply.
The
Chinatown site is on the National Register of Historic
Places and has city and county landmark status. A mid-1980s
excavation yielded about three tons of items from when the
city’s Chinese community was centered there in the 1890s.
Jacobs
plans to build a medical office complex focused on breast
cancer services. He has said the project would include a
Chinese garden and a museum in the building lobby to display
artifacts from the site.
The
appeals court found that Riverside’s environmental study of
Jacobs’ project did not adequately look at alternatives, as
required by state law.
Under an
indemnification agreement with Jacobs, the city is being
represented by Jacobs’ attorneys. Riverside City Attorney
Greg Priamos noted that the ruling is not final and could
change after oral arguments, which the court requested but
are not yet scheduled.
“We have
not yet determined what exactly is necessary to comply with
the court of appeals decision,” Priamos said, but if it
becomes final the city would work with Jacobs’ attorneys on
revising the environmental report to address the court’s
concerns and then bring it back to the City Council for
approval
For
Immediate Release:
October 27, 2011 |
Press
Contact: M. Rosalind Sagara
951-442-8070 |
Riverside,
CA – On Monday, October 24, 2011, the Fourth Appellate
District of California Court of Appeals issued a tentative
opinion that found in favor of Save Our Chinatown
Committee’s (SOCC) argument that the City of Riverside
failed to comply with the California Environmental Quality
Act (CEQA).
The Court
held that the City failed to consider a reasonable range of
project alternatives, including proposals that would protect
the site’s historic archaeological remains. The opinion
would overturn the project approval and require the City and
the developer, Doug Jacobs, to mend their environmental
documents to come into compliance with CEQA. A final
opinion will be issued after oral arguments are declined or
after they occur as requested by the parties.
“Hopefully
the Court’s tentative opinion will send a message to our
public officials that community members want our City’s
historic and cultural resources to be preserved,” says M.
Rosalind Sagara, Chair of the Save Our Chinatown Committee.
“The court’s tentative opinion encourages us to continue our
work to secure long-term protection for Riverside’s historic
Chinatown.”
Save our
Chinatown Committee is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization
dedicated to preserving Riverside’s diverse cultural
heritage. Since 2008, the organization has led community
efforts to preserve and protect Riverside’s historic
Chinatown, which was listed on the National Register of
Historic Places in 1990, and has State, County and City
historic landmark designations.
### |
|
| |
|
| |
Students,
Educators, and Residents Say No to Chinatown Land Swap!

Nearly 50 people attended the Riverside County Board of
Education (RCBE) meeting on November 10, 2010 to voice
opposition to a land swap deal currently being considered by
the RCBE.
The Save Our Chinatown Committee, students, educators, and
residents came together to urge the Riverside County Board
of Education (RCBE) to reject the proposed Chinatown land
swap. Attendees also called for greater transparency on
matters pertaining to Riverside’s historic Chinatown.
Representatives from Students for Chinatown, a UC Riverside
student club, brought over 150 letters from local college
students, which they delivered to Deputy Superintendent Paul
Jessup following the meeting.
Due to the large number of letters, emails, and postcards
received by the Riverside County Office of Education leading
up to the meeting (including those delivered on November
10th), the RCBE postponed the vote on the land swap to a
future undetermined date.
For more information about the proposed land swap:
Update: To date there has been no response to our
letters to RCBE on this issue. We will be monitoring
the Board for activity on this issue:
|
|
Reckless
digging
Stop defiling
Riverside’s historic Chinatown site |
 |
By SCOTT L. FEDICK
Published in The Riverside Press-Enterprise, February
24, 2009Riverside,
the self-proclaimed “city of arts and culture,” is about to
lose one of its greatest cultural treasures, the historic
Riverside Chinatown archaeological site, located at Brockton
and Tequesquite avenues.
The Chinatown site was
established there in 1885 after ordinances outlawed Chinese
businesses in downtown areas. The community thrived into the
early 1900s, with a population that varied seasonally from a few
hundred to more than 2,500 during the harvest season.
The immigrants, nearly all
males, had fled the dangerous political turmoil that plagued
China at the time, seeking employment and a means to support
their impoverished families left behind. Bringing with them
2,000 years of Chinese knowledge about citrus cultivation, they
enabled the development and success of Riverside’s renowned
citrus industry, which transformed our city in the early years
of the 20th century.
Laws severely restricting the
immigration of Chinese to the U.S. eventually were passed, and
the population of Chinatown dwindled to a few old men by the
1930s.
3-day ‘massacre’
The last resident of Chinatown, George Wong, always
dreamed of reviving the settlement. As the town emptied and the
buildings fell into ruin, Wong invited construction projects to
bury the architectural remains of the site under a thick layer
of protective fill. Wong died in 1974.
 |
|
|
Equipment
Rolls... |
|
Small-scale archaeological
excavations at the site in 1984 and ‘85 demonstrated the
excellent preservation of building foundations, filled-in
basements and artifact-rich trash pits.
Our Chinatown site is featured
in a widely used archaeology textbook as an example of a
historic site that can tell us much of the unwritten and
generally forgotten story about the Chinese contributions to the
economic and social history of Riverside and the western United
States.
A 1990 order issued by the
Riverside County Board of Education (owner of the property) said
the Chinatown site would be preserved for its cultural,
historical and archaeological values.
There is general consensus
among archaeologists that unique and important archaeological
sites should be preserved to the greatest extent possible for
future generations, when excavation and analytical methods will
be far more advanced than those of today.
Everyone familiar with the
Riverside Chinatown site seems to agree that the majority of the
archaeological remains lie preserved beneath the ground.
|
|
 |
|
|
Equipment
Digs... |
Everyone, that is, except the
people who want to push ahead with this excavation and
development project, and who in fact did so over the Valentine’s
Day weekend by bringing in heavy equipment and working at
breakneck speed to dig up the site.
A lawyer representing the Save
Our Chinatown Committee has filed a request for a temporary
restraining order, seeking to prevent irreparable harm to the
site by heavy equipment. The committee hopes to suspend any
construction activity at the site pending the outcome of a
lawsuit filed by residents.
A hearing on the request for a
restraining order was to be held today. Promises by the
developer of a “state of the art” scientific excavation of the
site were ignored. Witnesses saw very little of the careful and
meticulous treatment of archeological features that would be
demanded of such a sensitive site.
The Valentine’s Day massacre —
a three-day earth-moving rampage — had begun.
From what witnesses described,
I believe that what the excavators did could not be considered
acceptable practice for the use of heavy equipment at an
archeological site.
In a recent article in The
Press-Enterprise (”Work halts on office project,” Feb. 18),
developer Doug Jacobs is reported to have said that it was
important to him to excavate ahead of today’s hearing to prove
that there is no archaeological “treasure trove” there.
Ducking the cost?
The “archaeological excavation” sponsored by Jacobs
over that weekend was said to have uncovered only some broken
pottery from a small area that would later be dug up further by
hand to see if there was any more.
Other than that, Jacobs is
quoted as saying, “we’re done” with the excavation.
|
|
 |
|
|
Protester at
the site |
Is it possible that Jacobs is
trying to wipe his hands of any obligation to pay the full cost
of properly excavating the site, analyzing the artifacts and
then properly storing the recovered materials for future
reference and interpretation, which would likely cost up to $2
million?
Fortunately, there is a
possibility that much of the site still remains intact below the
level that was torn out by the mechanical earth movers. Action
must be taken now to put a stop to the wanton destruction of our
city’s cultural heritage.
Scott L. Fedick is a
professor of anthropology and archaeology at the University of
California, Riverside, and a member of the Save Our Chinatown
Committee. He is a resident of Riverside.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Links to News Items:
Steps Toward Victory for Campaign to Preserve Riverside’s
historic Chinatown [ Press Release ] October 27, 2011
From Gold Mountain to Orange Farm: How the Chinese Shaped
California's Citrus Industry KCET.org July 13, 2011
Buried History of Riverside's Chinese Immigrants Threatened
by Development KCET.org July 15,2011
The Last Resident KCET.org. August 5, 2011 Article:
Activists fight to preserve Riverside's Chinatown site.
Los Angeles Times. 6/26/2011
Press Release:
Riverside’s Historic Chinatown Chosen as Top 100 in National
Challenge: Public online vote to decide winner 5/31/2011
"Save
Riverside Chinatown" News and Notes December 2010, Chinese
Historical Society of Southern California. See p. 4.
"When do 'Model Minorities' stand up and fight? The battle for
Riverside's Chinatown continues" by Judy Lee. Riverside JACL
Newsletter December, 2010
A look back: Working to save Chinatown
By NITA HILTNER Press Enterprise
October
2, 2010
"Today's Mystery, Tomorrow's History"
News and Notes [Chinese
Historical Society of Southern California Newsletter] June 2010
"Group gathering at cemetery to honor Riverside's Chinese pioneers"
by David Olsen Press Enterprise April 4, 2010
“Throwdown in Chinatown,” by Erin Tobin, Inland Empire Magazine,
December 2009.
(Reprinted
with permission.)
"Chinese Americans fight for preservation of historic
Riverside Chinatown site" Xinhua News
September 24, 2009
"Apology to Chinese, though some expect more efforts to follow",
The Press-Enterprise,
Monday, September 14, 2009
“Sides debate effect of ruling on Chinatown site in Riverside,”
by Alicia Robinson, The Press-Enterprise, Saturday,
September 5, 2009.
Old Riverside Foundation,
President’s
message about the struggle to save Chinatown. ORF Newsletter,
Spring 2009.
“California’s apology for past discrimination: Saying ’sorry’ says
something: The state’s regret for the way past generations treated
Chinese immigrants may help heal hurts that have festered for
decades.” Los Angeles Times Editorial July 25, 2009
“California Apologizes to Chinese Americans”
TIME, July 22, 2009 On July 17, the California legislature approved
a landmark bill to apologize to the state’s Chinese American
community for racist laws enacted as far back as the mid–19th
century. The legislation was co-sponsored by State Assembly members
Paul Fong and Kevin de Leon.
Judge’s tentative Chinatown findings leave both sides with questions
The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Thursday, July 9, 2009
“Riverside Chinatown Rescue Efforts Continue,”
by Margie Akin, Japanese American Citizens League, Riverside,
Newsletter, June 2009. (Reprinted with permission.)
Work at former Chinatown site in Riverside will remain halted, court
rules The Press-Enterprise May 19, 2009
“Artifact of Disposal: The Historic Riverside Chinatown
Archaeological Site is Under Assault,” by Scott L. Fedick,
Chinese American Forum, Vol. XXIV, no. 4, April 2009.
(Reprinted with permission.)
"Fight to Save Riverside's Chinatown is a Pan-Asian Effort"
Pacific Citizen March 29, 2009
Construction delayed on historic Riverside site The
Riverside Press-Enterprise
March
20, 2009
Tale of Two Sinkholes
DAN BERNSTEIN
The Riverside Press-Enterprise
- March 13, 2009
Judge Orders Work Halted for Project at Riverside’s Second Chinatown
The Riverside Press-Enterprise - February 25 ,2009
Riverside, CA Judge Issues Temporary
Restraining Order to Developer - Angry Citizens Fight to Save
Riverside, CA Historic Chinatown Site Various dates Asianconnections.com
Reckless Digging: Stop Defiling Riverside’s Historic Chinatown site,
an Opinion Editorial by Dr. Scott Fedick The Riverside
Press-Enterprise - February 24, 2009
Work halts for now at Riverside’s former second Chinatown The
Riverside Press-Enterprise - February 18, 2009
Crews cited over noise at controversial Chinatown site in Riverside The Riverside
Press-Enterprise - February
17, 2009
Breaking Out Of the Beltway
DAN BERNSTEIN
The Riverside
Press-Enterprise - February
17, 2009
Opponents of Chinatown site development seek restraining order The Riverside
Press-Enterprise - February
17, 2009
Chinatown Dig Plan Wins Approval The Riverside
Press-Enterprise - February
10, 2009
Lawsuit targets Riverside council’s OK of building over old
Chinatown The
Riverside Press-Enterprise
- November 8, 2008
Hidden Heritage: Riverside lot is center of dispute over old
Chinatown, new building The
Riverside Press-Enterprise - October 6, 2008
Links to SOCC press releases:
Chinese
New Year Celebration part of Local Revival February 6, 2010
Chinese New Year Banquet to Start with a Bang January 26, 2010
Resolution
from the Los Angeles Lodge of the Chinese American Citizens
Alliance, in support of a Riverside Chinatown Historical Park
August 2009
Riverside Chinatown Trial Thursday July 6, 2009
PREPARING FOR
TRIAL July 2009
PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION UPHELD May 13, 2009
Chinatown
Injunction Hearing Friday March 19, 2009
Temporary Restraining Order Granted For Riverside’s Historic
Chinatown February 24, 2009
CHING MING FESTIVAL IN RIVERSIDE February 2009
City to Vote on Controversial Discard
Policy for Riverside’s Historic Chinatown Archaeological Site February 5, 2009
Gala Chinese New Year Banquet Sold
Out January 23, 2009
Ticket Deadline for Chinese New
Year Banquet Approaches January 16, 2009
Major Damage Sparks Legal Action February 2009
Lawsuit Filed Against Planned
Building on Riverside Chinatown Site November 6, 2008
|
|