It was standing room only at Tuesday’s San Juan Bautista City
Council meeting as residents spilled into the hallway, craning
their necks to see what was going on inside city hall.
It was standing room only at Tuesday’s San Juan Bautista City Council meeting as residents spilled into the hallway, craning their necks to see what was going on inside city hall.
It wasn’t the installation of new Councilmembers Chuck Geiger and Arturo Medina that brought the throng to the meeting. They were in an uproar over the California State Parks Department’s plan to turn the Castro-Breen Adobe into an interpretive interactive center.
“I’ve always said whenever you want to get a group together, just mention the name Breen and the whole community will show up,” said Georgana Gularte of the San Juan Bautista Historic Society.
Spearheading an emergency action item that was placed on the Council agenda, Gularte spoke as a resident of San Juan.
“We don’t want the Breen home interpreted as an interactive center,” she said. “We take this very seriously.”
Residents sent 29 copies of a letter opposing the plan to political representatives in Washington, D.C., the media and other parties. The letter said the plan is flawed and lacking in respect for the Castro-Breen Adobe’s place in the history of San Juan Bautista and in history taught across America.
The Breen family were among the Donner Party, who left Iowa for California in 1846 as part of the Western Migration. The Breens were the only family still intact from the year-long journey when they arrived in San Juan Bautista, where the adobe was their actual home.
Since the issue reached “uproar” status a few weeks ago, Gularte said state Parks Department officials were willing to listen to them even though they were not in audience to speak for themselves.
Steve Hudner observed how small the rooms were at the Adobe and what type of artifacts were displayed and what a horrible thought to have the adobe look “like a Chuck E. Cheese.”
Another part of the plan residents consider to be flawed is having a group of fourth graders come into the Adobe and having them touch everything, such as cartoon cutouts of the Breen family and a mechanical chicken in the kitchen.
Residents believe park visitors can interact with live chickens in the city’s central plaza and that a place for kids to “jump around and push buttons” would destroy the adobe’s authenticity and historical flavor.
The experience a person gets when they walk in the adobe is a strong sense of place, stepping back into time, Hudner said.
“Look at that place,” he said. “It’s just a place that should stay what it is.
“I’m going to have to use the ‘T’ word – tacky,” Hudner said in a summary of the proposal.
San Juan Bautista resident and volunteer firefighter Scott Freels warned the Council that anytime the state gets involved it becomes a “nightmare” for the city.
Freels said part of his own family’s history was being wiped out, beginning with Old Stage Road, which was renamed De Anza Trail in 2000.
“It was built by Bixby and my great-great-grandfather Benjamin Flint,” Freels said. “Slowly, we are losing our name.”
Worried about losing another piece of his family’s history being altered, Freels said, “Leave the building alone. People worked hard, fought and died to get here.”
Elizabeth Breen, who has a greater stake in the adobe than people not descended from its former habitants, did not use that as a reason for her disdain.
“I’m not here because I’m a Breen,” she said. “I’m here because I don’t like it.”
The Council voted unanimously to send a resolution opposing the Parks Department’s “Disneyland” creation for the adobe, or any other historic building in San Juan Bautista.
