Planning Commission to hear update

Complaints, police calls reportedly have declined

At its next virtual meeting Wednesday, the Ukiah Planning Commission will hear another update on the operations of the homeless shelter on South State Street, regular reports that are required to be presented every six months as part of its use permit.

The report was scheduled to be given by Community Development Director Craig Schlatter at the March 14 Planning Commission meeting, but the agenda items could not be discussed due to the meeting not having been properly noticed.

At the last six-month update provided by Schlatter in October of 2020, the Ukiah Police Department reported a 40-percent increase in calls for service at the facility, located at 1045 S. State Street. According to city staff at the time, such calls to the UPD were only recently added to the report at the request of City Manager Sage Sangiacomo’s office.

According to the staff report prepared for the April 14 meeting, the UPD received 135 calls for service at Building Bridges between Aug. 6, 2020 and Feb. 1, 2021. Between February and August of 2020, the UPD reported receiving 189 calls for service.

At the last meeting of the

Ukiah City Council on Wednesday, the board unanimously approved an emergency order allowing the shelter to operate for another 12 months, through April 30, 2022.

“This allows the shelter to continue operating during the summer months… and the shelter will have to operate with Covid-19 mitigation measures in place,” City manager Sage Sangiacomo said. “This order also allows the shelter to utilize the front of the building (which was requested previously to allow proper social distancing). And again, this is all really necessary due to Covid, to ensure there is adequate shelter and resources for our homeless population during this period.”

“Do they have a stable funding source to operate through next winter?” asked Vice-mayor Jim Brown, to which Sangaicomo said, “So far, funding has been available,” but added that he wouldn’t necessarily characterize it as “stable.”

“So far, the county of Mendocino has extended contracts for shelter operations (both in Ukiah and on the coast) that have adequately allowed them to continue operations,” he added.

Council member Mari Rodin then asked about “complaints regarding people loitering out along State Street? I think that we need to have the shelter operate, but what’s been done about that issue?”

“Under the current use permit, there’s a process for complaints and reporting those complaints, then they get reported to the Planning Commission,” Sangiacomo said, asking for Schlatter to comment further.

“Report No. 3 of four total reports will be given Wednesday,” Schlatter said, explaining that for the previous six-month report “we had received a significant increase in the number of police calls, so we had a fairly robust discussion with (Redwood Community Services, the operator of the shelter) staff, as well as police, to address each of those complaints.

“We are seeing improvements,” Schlatter said, describing the “complaints and activities around the shelter” as having decreased in the past six months. He added that “if anyone has complaints, they can bring them directly to me or a member of my staff, and we’ll take immediate action.”

Mendocino County Second District Supervisor Maureen Mulheren called into the meeting to report that the shelter hosts regular trash clean-ups in the area “every second Saturday of the month” at 9 a.m.