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Home  Community Voices Saving St. Peter's
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Saving St. Peter's |
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Written by Chris Yang
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Thursday, 11 December 2008 |
The city’s in debt, the parks and recreation department is broke, the country’s in recession, everybody’s broke. Which is why an offer by a private cemetery, Green Hills Memorial Park, to move and restore San Pedro’s oldest church seems like a good deal for everyone involved. But that’s not entirely true. The church, known as Old St. Peter’s, has sat in a city-owned cemetery for more then 50 years, where it’s been left neglected and damaged by local vandals.
There is no doubt, the offer to restore Old St. Peter’s church and open it to the public is a generous offer. Officials with Green Hills Memorial Park, which is in Rancho Palos Verdes, have agreed to cover the cost of moving and restoring the church, which could easily run upwards of $300,000. The idea has the support of Councilwoman Janice Hahn, which is interesting, given that her first instinct was not to let the church move outside of San Pedro proper. But for one reason or other, Hahn relented and now supports the offer, which is under review by the City Attorney’s office.
On top of that, a recent story in the Daily Breeze indicated that at least one city official mentioned the church would not be given to Green Hills, but would instead be relocated as part of a “loan.” Pardon my cynicism, but what makes anyone think that Green Hills would be willing to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to move and restore the church if it is only to be moved back to San Pedro in 5 or 10 years? Furthermore, I’ve never heard of a municipality loaning a building, especially a historically significant one, to another city. If the church is moved, there’s a good chance it won’t ever come back. And even though the church’s new home would literally be across the street from city boundaries, the thought of letting a private cemetery in another city take possession of San Pedro’s oldest church just doesn’t sit quite right, even if they’re willing to pay to restore it. Perhaps the most absurd statement came from one official, who told me she was unaware that the church was ever designated as a cultural-historic monument!
But given the realities of the city’s budget deficit, and the fact that local governments are strapped for cash, moving the 100-year-old church to Green Hills may not be such a bad idea. The public would be able to see San Pedro’s oldest church up close and in-person, and it would be restored to its former glory and preserved for future generations to visit and enjoy. The part that gets me is that the offer by Green Hills Memorial to move and restore the church just doesn’t seem entirely altruistic. In fact, one cemetery official has already stated publicly that people are interested in purchasing burial plots in a part of the park where the church might eventually be placed. How convenient?
If the church must be moved, so be it. But don’t think the cemetery is doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. The place, which by the way happens to be one business that is completely recession-proof, wants to sell burial plots. They’re already probably gearing up to use the church and all the good publicity it gets to market plots to local residents. The possibility of having the church leave San Pedro would indeed be a tragedy, on top of the treatment it has suffered at the hands of local vandals and the neglect by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department. But the removal of the facility should at least be tied to some type of revenue sharing agreement between the city and the cemetery, perhaps one that offers a percentage of the plots sold to a fund that would help maintain the church’s current home, the Harbor View Memorial Cemetery, or to help pay for a seminar so city officials know what buildings are cultural-historic monuments. That would at least lessen the blow of having the town’s oldest church be transformed into a marketing tool for a private cemetery.
Another idea that would keep the church within city boundaries but might cause a meltdown by supporters of a local little league, would be to move the church to Knoll Hill, where it could be open to the public, much like the Point Fermin Lighthouse. Then, we could bury people on Knoll Hill, which would forever preserve it from being bulldozed for Port expansion.
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