Jail That Held Cesar Chavez at Center of Dispute

SALINAS, Calif. —  An abandoned downtown jail where Cesar Chavez spent 20 days in 1970 for refusing to call off a lettuce boycott is hallowed ground to many historians, labor activists and building preservationists, who want to turn the structure into a monument to his life and his farmworker movement.

But all the Monterey County Board of Supervisors sees in the boarded-up jail is a dilapidated and dangerous relic that should be demolished to make way for an open-air plaza. The county wants to raze the building as soon as next year, despite protests and a lawsuit from preservationists. The building was recently listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The National Park Service surprised the county by adding the jail to the registry in January. Buildings that are listed can still be demolished, but the distinction adds clout to preservation efforts. In March, the county appealed to have the designation overturned.

The fight over the building -- and the memory of Chavez -- has been ongoing in a county that has long been rocked by heated and sometimes violent confrontations between powerful farming interests and the labor movement.

“I think there is still a lot of lingering resentment,” said Jim Colangelo, Monterey County’s chief assistant administrative officer. “I don’t think there is any way to erase the memory.”

Supporters of preserving the jail say demolition backers are intent on tearing down a building that represents a key turning point in Chavez’s career and the farmworker movement, and an important setback for farming interests trying to break the organizing effort.

Salinas architect Salvador Munoz, vice president of the Architectural Heritage Assn. of Monterey County, which has sued to block the demolition, said he believed tearing down the jail could be seen by some as a way to erase a bad memory.

“It would be like having a stone in your boot, for the big agriculture guys,” Munoz said.

Colangelo said the county’s interest in demolition is a pragmatic response to a problem building. Built in the 1930s in a Gothic-revival style with a facade that looks vaguely mission-like, the jail has been closed for years. Today it sits behind a chain-link fence, its concrete walls beginning to crumble in places.

The county began demolition approval in the late 1990s and budgeted $1 million for the task. The county already has spent nearly $500,000 removing such hazards as asbestos and mold from the old building, and figures that another half million would cover the cost of demolition.

Changing course and rehabilitating the building would cost millions more -- money the county doesn’t have, Colangelo said.

“We just don’t think it is an effective use of taxpayer dollars to pour into that building,” Colangelo said. There are other ways to commemorate Chavez, he said, including a memorial on the site or a historical kiosk in another county building.

The jail sits in the middle of a $100-million county building project that includes a new government administration and services complex as well as a courthouse that is undergoing extensive remodeling. That project, however, did not include funds to rebuild the old jail that occupies a corner of the site.

In response to pressure from preservationists, the county last year reviewed the jail’s historical significance and concluded that it didn’t merit saving. The preservationists challenged the finding and sued to block demolition, but a Monterey County Superior Court judge ruled against them. Preservationists appealed last August, and the case is finally nearing a hearing.

Preservationists filed written arguments before the 6th District Court of Appeal in San Jose last month, hoping to convince the panel of the jail’s historic significance.

“This was the site of Chavez’s incarceration, which galvanized the farmworker movement around the country,” said Susan Brandt-Hawley of Glen Ellen, lawyer for the preservationists.

In December 1970, after Chavez refused a court order to call off a lettuce boycott, he was locked up in the jail for 20 days, prompting candlelight vigils outside and a string of celebrated visitors, including Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King Jr., and Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert F. Kennedy. The state Supreme Court finally ordered Chavez’s release on Christmas Eve.

To effectively tell that story requires more than a few artifacts, historians and preservationists argue. What’s needed is the jail itself.

“We want to save the building because of its importance to this area as the real place where the vigils took place in 1970,” said Mark Norris, a Salinas custom-home designer who serves as president of the Architectural Heritage Assn.

Preservationists say they are hopeful of their chances on appeal and look forward to seeking a way to finance rehabilitation. But they know they have lost one round in court, and if they lose the appeal they may lose the building.

“If we win, we are going to offer the county a dollar for the place,” Munoz said. “If we lose, we have to accept it. What can we do? It will be an empty chapter in our history.”