Among the findings of the Grand Jury are:

• South Stockton, for many years, has been neglected and underserved by the City
• People outside and inside South Stockton perceive the area being an unsafe place to do business, shop or live
• Code enforcement is inadequately staffed to deal with the problems of South Stockton, enforcement is reactive rather than proactive

Among the recommendations of the Grand Jury are:

• City resources should be equitably distributed based on the needs of each City Council district
• The City, in its present and future budgets, should provide the necessary resources to increase the staff of both Code Enforcement and Stockton Police Department (SPD) necessary to adequately address the longstanding neglect affecting South Stockton

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CRAIG SANDERS/The Record

STOCKTON – The power of a single home was celebrated Monday morning in a crime-infused south-side neighborhood.

For Fred Sheil, it was about taking back a pocket of East 9th Street from slum landlords and drug dealers.

For Michael Tubbs, it was about giving hope to low-income families.
For Carol Ornellas, it was about investing in infrastructure and about positive change in the city’s core.

“It’s amazing what one house can do,” said Ornellas, standing in front of 1642 E. 9th St. “I say ‘wow’ to the finished product. There are still families who want to live in these neighborhoods. They want a place that is safe where they can raise a family.”

Ornellas is president and CEO of Stockton-based Visionary Home Builders, a nonprofit housing development company.

The house, boarded up and neglected for 10 years, was purchased and rehabilitated by Stocktonians Taking Action to Neutralize Drugs, also known as STAND, a grass-roots organization devoted to eliminating drug abuse.

The necessary work was considerable: copper pipe and wiring had been ripped out of the walls, the weight-bearing center beam had to be replaced and a second bathroom needed to be added. A new floor was installed, the kitchen was remodeled and the exterior received fresh stucco. “It was on the verge of collapse,” said Anil Malhotra, a housing specialist with STAND. “Now see it. Many of the neighbors are very happy. This is the best thing in this neighborhood in a long time.”

The work was made possible through a $229,300 UrbanLIFT community grant from Wells Fargo Bank.

City dignitaries, nonprofit group volunteers and business leaders gathered Monday in the front yard to celebrate the infusion of funds for STAND and an equal amount donated to Visionary.

Across the street and behind a fence, Luz Gueria and her 13-year-old daughter, Alexis Perez, looked on.
“At least it is fixed up,” Gueria said in Spanish with Alexis, a freshman this fall at Venture Academy, translating. “It looks better than before.”

Sheil is administrator of STAND. “To regain control of this street, we have to buy up houses,” he said. “We’ve had a fight for years with crackheads and slumlords in control of this area.”

He said STAND was taking particular aim at the corner of Phelps Street and 9th where drug dealing is an everyday enterprise. “This is a target neighborhood for us. It’s been an open-air drug market for years,” Sheil said.

The hope is to sell the three-bedroom, two-bath house for $125,000 or so.

The second $229,300 grant was presented to Visionary Home Builders, which plans to buy and rehabilitate six single-family houses within a mile of downtown.

“Visionary prides itself with its partnerships,” Ornellas said. “Partnerships with the city and with Wells Fargo. UrbanLIFT is about people who care.”

There are three other homes on 9th Street that are about to get a helping hand. Bobby Rhone sat on the porch next door to one of them. He was fixing a bicycle tire.

His dog Schultz lazed nearby.

“I love this neighborhood, but I don’t like the violence and the gangs,” Rhone said. “It used to be nice and restful when I was younger. But it’s senseless with the younger generation.”

Malhotra said illegal immigrants, often 10 or 12 to a house and sleeping on the floor, are often found inside the houses on East 9th Street.

The hope is that the Wells Fargo money will help return the neighborhood to a better time. Together, the two bank grants total a $458,600 investment in Stockton.

Tubbs, a 23-year-old Stockton city councilman, believes it’s possible – and he sees the value of rebuilding neighborhoods one residence at a time.

“There are a lot of houses in the world. One house may not seem like a lot, but it can make a world of difference,” said Tubbs, who this year has launched a Reinvent South Stockton initiative. “It may take 40 years, but my hope is that one day this will be a place where everyone of you will want to live.

Contact reporter Kevin Parrish at (209) 546-8264 or kparrish@recordnet.com. Follow him on Twitter @KLPRecord.

Stockton City Councilman Michael Tubbs, center, talks with Sam Sinyangwe, left, and Anna Nti-Asare at the Reinvent South Stockton summit held at the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds on April 25. CLIFFORD OTO/THE RECORD

The issues in south Stockton aren’t going away. But neither are the opportunities.
This portion of the city has been plagued by crime, poverty, housing issues, blight, lack of services and more for decades.

Help is long overdue.

These facts were expressed once again in a San Joaquin County Civil Grand Jury report issued Wednesday.
The report called on Stockton City Hall to take action to help improve conditions in south Stockton.
“While many civil and religious groups are working to make positive changes in that part of the city, only city government has the resources, police powers and platform for communication to effect real change,” the report stated.

Residents have been consistent in their longtime complaints that the city does not do enough for south Stockton.

The grand jury report, in some ways, echoes a series of special reports by The Record last year called “Why South Stockton Matters.”

In fact, the actual name of the civil grand jury’s report — As the South Side Goes, So Goes Stockton — was word-for-word the same as the headline on a Record editorial on July 27, 2014, after our series of articles on south Stockton.

It’s important to note there are people — from council members to church groups to community leaders — who are working diligently to help the area solve its concerns. But the degree of difficulty for the challenge is immense.

South Stockton leaders allege that, for many years, city hall focused its efforts toward northern and central parts of the city. South Stockton, battling issues of resources and image, has been left with blighted areas, pockets of high crime and lack of businesses.

The report did not drill down to the level of investigating the actual amounts or percentages of funding that City Hall has allocated to south Stockton concerns. That should be a part of the city’s required response to the grand jury.

The body is urging “… a series of public workshop/forums devoted to the needs of south Stockton … with the purpose of developing short- and long-term goals to correct the long neglected areas.”

There have been some of these forums recently, including the “Reinvent South Stockton” event on April 25.

The grand jury is correct in its assessment that south Stockton can be a barometer for the rest of the city. Improvement in such areas as fighting crime, cleaning up blight and increasing city services can go a long way in changing the image of the area.

Many south Stockton residents have intense pride and are willing to do their part to help. City Hall must lead the way.

A two-day basketball camp in south Stockton, hosted by Stocktonians Taking Action to Neutralize Drugs, attracted more than 60 young people.

S.T.A.N.D., or Stocktonians Taking Action to Neutralize Drugs, held its first youth basketball camp in south Stockton on the weekend of March 29.

The two-day camp featured boys and girls ages 5-14 in the Taggart Gym at Edison High School.

Various coaches assisted the 60-plus campers in teaching the core skills and fundamentals of basketball under the leadership of coach Adrian “AB” Brown. Their goal was to reach out to youths whose families would normally not be able to afford a camp of such caliber. The cost was just $20 for the first child and $10 for each additional sibling.

Another camp is scheduled this summer.

Information: adriankbrown2014@gmail.com. To register a child for an upcoming camp visit www.standcommunity.com.

– Information and photos submitted by Brenda Brown

CALIXTRO ROMIAS/THE RECORD

STOCKTON — A global team of students, urban designers and idealists is assembling around 15 vacant lots along Airport Way in the hope of transforming one of the city’s longest-standing corridors of blight. City Hall owns several of the blighted properties.

“We want to create and influence policy that will one day make a beautiful community here,” said Derek Ouyang, a Stanford University graduate student who is spearheading the project. He was standing outside the headquarters of STAND (Stocktonians Taking Action to Neutralize Drugs), an affordable-housing advocacy group on East Eighth Street.

A block and a half away, at Airport and Eighth, Ralph Square, a small, rundown strip mall known for drug activity, is surrounded by vacant lots on each of the adjacent corners. Ouyang, on his first trip to Stockton, surveyed the bleak scene in an effort to understand the on-the-ground challenges ahead.

He was undeterred. “Long term, I am committed,” he said.

Ouyang is co-founder of Cloud Arch, a design company working on urban and architectural projects around the world.

Ouyang, just 22, is hoping to take advantage of what he describes as a chance to capitalize on the recent spotlight thrown on the city’s southside by Councilman Michael Tubbs’ Reinvent South Stockton initiative and the academic need to give students real-world projects to embrace. “We have a window of opportunity to get lots of people out of the safe haven of the academic world,” he said.

Ouyang grew up near Pasadena and was valedictorian of Arcadia High School. In 2013, he graduated from Stanford with a dual major in architectural design and civil and environmental engineering. He was project manager of Stanford’s first Solar Decathlon team. The Cardinal finished fifth in the competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.

On Monday, in addition to launching the Airport Way project, Ouyang begins grad school. He will be studying structural engineering and geomechanics.

He has already learned the value of building coalitions and, after eight months traveling in Europe, he is trying this fall and winter to address one of Stockton’s neediest neighborhoods using resources across multiple academic disciplines from Stanford while also enlisting participation from students and faculty in Ljubljana, Slovenia; Aalborg, Denmark; and Tsinghua, China.

Why Stockton? Why Airport Way?

“The short answer is Michael Tubbs,” Ouyang said. “We were at a TED (technology, entertainment, design) conference in May of 2013. We hadn’t met until then. Michael is an inspiration for doing important things with your life. Instead of making money for himself, he was drawn back to his hometown.”

On Friday, Ouyang walked gritty streets, talked to STAND board members and heard about the long history of failed efforts to rebuild a seven-block stretch of Airport Way.

His idea is to bring a team of up to 20 university students to Stockton, first to gather and analyze information and then to identify the obstacles to change. If all goes well, next spring Ouyang will present the Stockton City Council with a plan for the corridor. Unlike many academic exercises, this one will have a component that addresses funding.

STAND board members expressed enthusiasm for the attention from Stanford and for the prospect of change after decades of frustration over crime, drug dealing and slumlords in the area. Tubbs has generated much of their optimism.

“Michael is a different breed,” said Virginia Gorman, president of the affordable-housing organization. “He is totally committed to south Stockton.”

Ouyang, only minutes after arriving at Airport and Eighth, said he shares that passion. He already has lined up support for the project from the University of Ljubljana. He is trying to recruit student participation from Denmark and China, saying that faculties at the University of Aalborg and Tsinghua University in Beijing have expressed an interest but might wait a year to join.

The Stockton case study will proceed regardless, he said.

“What have other cities done? What do residents want? What does the city favor? This project will not be developer driven. It might help that we are outsiders,” Ouyang said. “We can say it as we see it.”

Ouyang has created what he calls the Global Urban Development Program as an interdisciplinary approach to urban development. He calls it an international, project-based course of learning. In the class description, he writes that “Stockton, California, is looking for strategic solutions to redevelop and revitalize its District 6 neighborhood in the midst of political, economic and social challenges.”

With his eyes wide open, the grad student from Stanford is about to step into the middle of decades of Stockton neglect, decline and misuse.

Contact reporter Kevin Parrish at (209) 546-8264 or kparrish@recordnet.com. Follow him on Twitter @KLPRecord.

Hundreds gathered at the fairgrounds for the Reinvent South Stockton Coalition Summit, where speakers focused on a range of issues from crime and public safety to housing, health care, education and jobs. City Councilman Michael Tubbs, who served as the master of ceremonies, said the event was a positive step toward a better way of life on Stockton’s south side, which has been plagued by violent crime, drug use and other problems.

Darius Williamson, a resident outreach worker with Reinvent South Stockton, also said the summit was a success.

“We’ve seen how Stockton has turned with violence all over the place,” Williamson said. “We want to change that. We want to bring the community together so we can make a difference in life. It’s important for us to come together, and seeing everybody here shows me that they care, they want to make a change, they want to make a difference. This is where it starts.”

For the past few months, Williamson has been going door to door, engaging community members in discussion in an attempt to rally support for Reinvent South Stockton. He was handing out flyers at the Stockton Flea Market on Thursday when he encountered a man who was reluctant to listen.

“He said, ‘No, man, I don’t want one of them flyers.’ He didn’t believe that Reinvent South Stockton or any of us could make a difference,” Williamson said. “I said, ‘It starts with you. It starts with me. We can make a difference.’ So he stopped, he gave me some time and we began to converse, and he had a lot to say about City Hall, our school system and our community.”

When Williamson arrived at the fairgrounds on Saturday, he was delighted to see that man, 54-year-old Jose Andrade, sitting at one of the tables.

“I saw him and I said, ‘Hey, I just wanted to say thank you for showing up,’ and he stood up and gave me a big hug,” Williamson said.

Andrade said he was glad he decided to attend the summit.

“I’ve seen so many things in Stockton that we need to change,” Andrade said. “If we all get together, we can make everything change. If we get together, we can do it.”

— Contact reporter Jason Anderson at (209) 546-8279 or janderson@recordnet.com. Follow him at recordnet.com/crimeblog and on Twitter @Stockton911.

STOCKTON – Daring to rebuild Stockton, particularly its southside, from the foundation up, two groups met separately Thursday to discuss the profound:

How to strengthen the city’s families.

“Part of the purpose for this meeting was to get the community-based organizations talking to each other,” said City Councilman Michael Tubbs, who is spearheading a Reinvent South Stockton project that is under way with a series of roundtables.

Two dozen community leaders met Thursday afternoon for a family-strengthening discussion that focused on what their respective agencies provide, gaps in service, and opportunities to do more.

Tubbs saw value in the connections around the table.

“Everyone can’t do everything,” he said. “I hope they buy in to collaborating on this project for south Stockton. Let’s be strategic. The challenges are too big for one person.”

To that end, the room was filled with nonprofit organizations, government representatives and the leaders of faith-based groups. They were introduced to Tubbs’ vision for change.

One of the participants was Fred Sheil, administrator of Stocktonians Taking Action To Neutralize Drugs, or STAND.

He bought in.

“I’m impressed because Michael is creating a structure that will live on after he is out of office,” he said. Like others, Sheil brought a dose of reality to southside problems.

“People down here feel alone, forgotten and ignored – and because of that they’re cynical,” he said. “They’re looking for concrete success.”

Part of the exercise inside the community room at the Maya Angelou branch library on Pock Lane was to identify assets already in place. Part of that list:

» A strong sense of community and a willingness by neighbors to help each other.

» Passion and energy for improvement.

» Under-the-radar “village” elders who dispense wisdom and advice.

» Community centers that serve as places of comfort, safety and acceptance.

» A proliferation of churches.

» The shared struggle of living in low-income neighborhoods.

Just as easily, the group came up with deficits:

» Family breakdowns that result in grandparents raising children.

» Substance abuse.

» Overwhelmed prevention programs and mentors.

» Lack of grocery stores.

» Lack of knowledge and information about available resources.

» Thugs, even more than gang members, who terrorize neighborhoods.

» Infrastructure failures such as sidewalks, accessible public transportation and clean water.

» Language and cultural barriers.

» City-county government cooperation.

» Trust.

Pastor Amelia Adams of Stockton’s Open Door House of Prayer was the facilitator.

Two hours earlier, a group of faith-based leaders sat around a table inside her church on Poplar Street.

They, too, want to help improve parenting outcomes in Stockton.

“Family life is unraveling,” said Wayne Bibelheimer, co-founder of Stockton Leadership Foundation. “It is the undoing of our culture.”

Bibelheimer introduced a program first adapted in Chattanooga, Tenn., that is known as First Things First.

It is an outgrowth of the newly created Restore California Foundation.

The program strives to decrease the divorce rate, curtail births outside wedlock and reduce fatherlessness.

A Stockton-centered version of First Things First is in the embryonic stage.

Contact reporter Kevin Parrish at (209) 546-8264 or kparrish@recordnet.com. Follow him on Twitter @KLPRecord.