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Last Updated 8/23/06

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Local Church Member Speaks Out About BMX Bike Park
City officials say the park was shut down because it was operating
illegally

By Allison Jean Eaton
Bulletin Staff Writer

The Bulletin has learned that the BMX bike park that was built in the parking lot of a local Baptist church was in fact shut down due to code violations and not having the correct permits, city officials have confirmed.

The Rev. Frank Starks, pastor of Christian Force Missionary Baptist Church, said last month that he preferred not to discuss the exact reason for Heirs Force Bike Park’s closure, but denied it had anything to do with the city or permitting issues.

“All I can say is that it was the best thing to do at the time,” he said in late July.

But according to Mozelle Audrey Lake, a longtime member of the church, the pastor has not been honest with his congregation or the press about the extreme bike park.

In a telephone interview late last week, Starks admitted that the park was in fact closed due to permitting issues. But he attributed it to Lake’s complaint to the city.

“The city didn’t care [that we didn’t have the right permits]. They knew. We had been there for three years.” But when Lake went to the city with her concerns, he said, the city was obligated to “do their due diligence and answer her complaint.”

He described Lake as “a woman who wants to cause inward strife.” Starks said he can’t understand why Lake would complain when the bike park is helping children.

The oldest member of the church, Lake has been there for 43 years, she said, and can’t sit by and watch what she perceives to be her church being driven into the ground. She fears the religious establishment could lose its insurance or worse if its insurance company discovers what has been taking place on its property.

It was Lake who alerted The Bulletin to the fact that the park was not closed by Starks on his own but by the city for not having the requisite permits. It was also cited, she said, for violating a number of building and safety codes. And according to her, the park was not insured.

“If [the church’s] insurance company found out, they’d drop us because they don’t cover things like that,” Lake said. “It’s not good for our church. It’s too big a liability, and we can’t afford the insurance [required for such a use].”

But Starks claims the park was insured by the church’s insurance company and that all events held at the park were covered by commercial event insurance.

Legality and Liability
Lake said Starks, in her opinion, has not handled the park properly from the get-go. She claims he never came to the congregation and asked if they would give up their parking lot as he told The Bulletin last spring. She said the park, although it’s sitting in her congregation’s parking lot, does not belong to the church but to Starks and his wife.

“He didn’t come to us. He didn’t present the idea to all of us, just to a select few” whom she later described as being people “he knew would go along with it.”

She said this goes against the church’s bylaws, which expressly state that the church is to be “run by the will of the people, not the pastor,” she said. “Whatever the people say is what he has to do. But he never came to us to ask us if he could use our parking lot.

“Only the people who follow the bylaws, those are the people who have a say-so [in the church’s activities]. If you’re not following the rules, you don’t have a say-so. And I don’t know if people realize that. And that’s why I’m fighting so hard. I’m standing on our bylaws.

“You have to go by the rules or you will have a lot of chaos. If [Starks] had gone by the rules, we would not be in the predicament that we’re in now.”

Lake has seen two pastors come and go. Starks is the Christian Force’s third.

Besides holding the longest membership at Christian Force, Lake is highly active in its pursuits. She has previously served as the church’s clerk, is president of the Senior Usher Board and is the Sunday school secretary. She also heads a ministry she founded, the Because We Care Ministry.

Lake said she started questioning the legality and liability of having an extreme bike park in her church’s parking lot months ago when Starks denied the park needed any kind of special permits. She said she knew that couldn’t be the case because “the public was involved. That just didn’t seem right to me.”

And a trip to the Building and Safety Department confirmed her suspicions: no permits for any other use besides a church is on record for Christian Force’s address, 1008 N. Willowbrook Ave. The Bulletin also confirmed this.

So at a general membership meeting held at the church at the beginning of June, Lake presented her findings to Starks and her fellow parishioners.

“I made the statement that the bike park needed to be closed, that it needed to be done right or not at all.”

She said the church membership, a portion of which favors the park, was to vote on the issue, but Starks agreed to close it on his own. But days later, on her way home from work, Lake drove by her church and saw children using the ramps and Starks’ truck parked outside.

“I felt like his word should have been good enough,” she said. That’s when she called and requested an inspector with Building and Safety come out to the property to assess the situation.

Code, Zoning Violations
At this point, the church was cited, Lake said. Starks confirmed that the city gave the church notice, but noted that it was only after Lake started complaining.

“Like I said, the city knew all along,” said Starks. “When I talked with them, they said they had no problems with it because they knew we were doing good in the community.”

A call to Patrick Steward, director of Building and Safety, to inquire whether or not Starks’ claim that the city was complacent with the parks’ violating city code was unreturned as of press time.

According to Joseph Lim, director of the Planning and Economic Development Department, the park was operating illegally for the duration of its existence because it violated two sections of the Zoning Code.

It was his department that shut the operation down once and for all in early July.

“Any type of privately owned recreation parks or centers requires a Conditional Use Permit,” Lim wrote in an email. “No such use permit was ever applied for by the church. Therefore, it was illegal to conduct such activities.”

The other violation is the park’s taking up the church’s entire parking lot. The city’s zoning code requires a set number of slots for a set amount of a building’s square footage.

“The bike park was placed on the parking lot of the church, thereby taking away the required parking for the church operations,” said Lim. “This would have required an additional permit for a variance.”

The city has both participated in and assisted with a number of the competitions and events thrown at the park in the past, and the mayor often touts Heirs Force as an example of the good that is coming out of Compton. Why no one ever thought to check the park’s permits to ensure it was operating legally is unknown at this time.

A Resolution on the Horizon
Lake said it’s not the bike park she’s against, just Starks’ use of the church for what she considers his own personal pursuit. “I don’t mind him having a bike park, don’t get me wrong... just not on our church’s property.”

She said she’s upset that he’s asking for donations. “I don’t want him soliciting funds under our name,” she said. “It’s not Christian Force that’s trying to relocate the bike park — It’s Frank and Cassandra Starks trying to relocate the bike park.”

As far as moving the park, Lake is about to get her wish. Starks told The Bulletin that the city has offered to allow him to temporarily move the ramps, jumps and foam pits to Wilson Park. He said the only hold-up with the move right now lies in obtaining the right kind of insurance.

“Now we’re going to have to get the insurance that will cover it 24-7, 365.”

Regarding his statement to The Bulletin last month that the city and permitting issues had nothing to do with the park’s closure, Starks apologized, saying “I hope that we didn’t cause you to print anything that was false.”