Free Hot Meals Program Told It Must Leave City Facility

A privately-run food distribution program which has served thousands of free meals at the Villa-Parke Community Center to the hungry and the homeless has been told it will no longer be welcome at the city facility after its second anniversary dinner service on April 10.

The United Pasadena Food Bank program, which operates another food distribution program at the Jackie Robinson Center, is led by local entrepreneur and former political candidate Robin Salzer and well-known northwest Pasadena Good Samaritan Walt Jackson.

Salzer said the bad news was delivered to him and Jackson by Pasadena Human Services & Recreation Director Mercy Santoro in a March meeting at Salzer’s Robin’s Restaurant.

“Mercy, after thanking us for putting on this program, said that there were problems,” Salzer said.

“Walt and I were told to our faces that there was molestation close to a rape, a sexual assault from one of the people who was attending the meal program, a homeless person, on a 9-year-old boy in the bathroom,” Salzer said Wednesday.

He said that Santoro then told them that they could use the facility for only eight more weeks ( later that final date was pushed forward to the second Thursday in April).

Shocked, Salzer says he called Pasadena Chief of Police Phillip Sanchez to find out more about the molestation.

“’Robin, that never happened,’” Salzer said Sanchez told him.

“There was no assault, there was no molestation, there was no rape,” Salzer said. “So how can you shut down a program 15,000 meals later based on a lie? That’s not the Pasadena way.”

Pasadena Now was unable to reach Santoro. Human Services & Recreation media contact Lisa Fowler would not comment and referred all inquiries to city Public Information Officer William Boyer.

Boyer applauded Salzer’s efforts to feed the hungry but said that the volume of activity with the once-a-week food distribution program has “a high impact” on the Villa-Parke Center.

“We’re not canceling it,” Boyer said. “We’re asking him to work with us so that we can relocate him to a better facility that could handle the volume of people that he is attracting.”

Boyer said the city has reached out to churches in the area to see if they would be willing to provide Salzer with the adequate space needed for the volume of people coming to the hot meal events.

Salzer, however, said said nobody from the city has ever mentioned helping him relocate. He said he was  told his program had to leave and given a final date, nothing more.

“Wouldn’t you tell the guy who’s putting on the program? Wouldn’t you tell him first?” Salzer said.

The Villa-Parke United Pasadena Food Bank launched April 5, 2012 and marked an expansion of the organization’s successful operation at the Jackie Robinson Center.

The night it opened, a long line of prominent local leaders donned aprons and hairnets to serve meals to the guests, including Pasadena City Councilmembers Chris Holden and Victor Gordo, NAACP Pasadena Branch President Joe Brown, Roberta Martinez of Pasadena Latino Heritage, Manuel Contreras of the Mexican American Historical Society, former Villa-Parke Manager Serf Espinoza, Armenian Community Coalition President Chris Chahanian, Pastor Jean Burch, Pasadena Police Chief Philip Sanchez, Pasadena Fire Chief Calvin Wells, Pasadena City Manager Michael Beck and Mayor Bill Bogaard.

“Congratulations to United Pasadena Food Bank upon the opening of its hot meal program at Villa-Parke,” Bogaard said at the opening. “This serves an important community need and is a source of pride for Pasadena. Keep up the good work.”

Boyer said that the situation with the United Pasadena Food Bank at Villa-Parke will not affect in any way the other food distribution program at the Jackie Robinson Center.

“The great work that goes on there will continue,” Boyer said.

Salzer vowed to fight to continue the program at Villa-Parke.

“We’re going to show up there on Thursday. There’s going to be a celebration of our second anniversary. We’re going to have some well-known people there who care about the community, who are going to help serve that night,” Salzer said. “I hope it’s not a bittersweet evening, that I have to let the people know that’s going to be the last night.”