Public grounds arbitrarily closed?

January 5, 2008 5:17 PM

Can a public building arbitrarily declare its grounds closed on the weekends and not accept any public visitors? (Talking about the Diamond Ranch High School in Pomona, CA specifically)

On New Years day my girlfriend and I, both grad students in architecture, decided to drive down to Ponoma, CA to take a look at Morphosis' famous Diamond Ranch High School. Visitors from the east coast, and then having driven an hour south from Los Angeles specifically to see this project, you can imagine our surprise when a rent-a-cop greeted us at the top of the drive way. The building, he said, was closed and we had to leave.

The rentacop called the real cops (and, incidentally, lied to them by telling them that we "ran onto campus," presumably to ensure that the cops actually showed up) who arrived to instruct us that since it's a "closed campus" all visitors must get permission from the school board first. You'd think that a school which is well known to the architecture community, ensuring many archi-tourist visitors a year and also appearing in multiple movies would at least have some mention of visitation procedures on their website...

Mind you, we never asked to go inside the building. We only wanted to walk around the exterior.

If it's a public building (Pomona Unified School District) paid for with public money, is it legal to just close it off like that?

posted by bryanboyer to law & government (14 comments total)

I fail to see why it can't be closed to the public on dates and times when the school's not in operation. It's not there as an architectural museum, but as a school.
posted by missouri_lawyer at 5:22 PM on January 5, 2008

CIA Headquarters in Virginia were paid for with public money.
posted by gimonca at 5:24 PM on January 5, 2008 [3 favorites]

Public places (e.g., parks) close all the time. I'm not sure why a school would be any different.
posted by Doofus Magoo at 5:24 PM on January 5, 2008

Of course it is. There are lots of publicly-funded buildings that are closed to visitors at various times, from the White House to your local library.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 5:25 PM on January 5, 2008

(If you're trying to make points that they should be aware of the cultural significance of the building, and that security guards shouldn't be dicks, I agree on both points, but those are separate from the final question you're asking.)
posted by gimonca at 5:26 PM on January 5, 2008

yes, plenty of sites and structures are paid for with public money that are closed at certain times (museums, parks, the statue of liberty, etc). it's too bad the guard was a schmuck, but you probably should have called in advance to make sure you could come onto the campus. especially since it's a school--the students are minors, so that always adds a layer of complication.
posted by thinkingwoman at 5:36 PM on January 5, 2008

Schools aren't really considered public buildings the way a court house might be. Even teacher certification students must undergo a security background check and show ID to visit schools. There is the Jessica Lunsford act and similar legislation to consider. You were there on a holiday when it was closed and in their mind you were trespassing.
posted by 45moore45 at 5:49 PM on January 5, 2008

If it's a public building (Pomona Unified School District) paid for with public money, is it legal to just close it off like that?

Don't make the mistake that public = "they have to do what I want." Because you, specifically, are not the public. If I lived in Pomona, I'd be part of the public, and maybe I'd want "my" school to be closed to visitors. So then where would we be?

Instead, we elect government agencies to carry out the "public's will." If that will included the will to leave school's open, they would be. However, "the public" doesn't like trespassers, vandals, thieves, etc, so many "public" properties are closed when its reasonable to do so.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 6:26 PM on January 5, 2008

Apparently neither the "rentacop" nor the real police thought your interest in the building's architecture was considered the pursuit of lawful business:

Trespass: Refusing to Leave Public Building when Closed

California Penal Code § 602(p) Refusing or failing to leave a public building of a public agency during those hours of the day or night when the building is regularly closed to the public upon being requested to do so by a regularly employed guard, watchman, or custodian of the public agency owning or maintaining the building or property, if the surrounding circumstances are such as to indicate to a reasonable person that the person has no apparent lawful business to pursue.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cacodes/pen/594-625c.html
posted by seymour.skinner at 6:27 PM on January 5, 2008

Weird, I've never seen security on a weekend on a public school campus before. I cut across highschool/middle school playgrounds all the time when I visit family and take walks around their neighborhoods.
posted by mathowie at 8:22 PM on January 5, 2008

Just to clarify, I am not indignant that I was denied access to the outside grounds of the building, but merely surprised. Especially since in many other places there are plenty of schools which are open to anyone who wants to wander through them on the weekends, as mathowie points out. Again, we're not talking about wandering the halls inside a building, but looking around the outside. Since this particular school happens to be in a place with no sidewalks it was impossible to look at it 'from the street,' as it were.

Chalk this up as another example of the dying notion of a public realm in the US.
posted by bryanboyer at 9:45 PM on January 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

bryanboyer:
Chalk this up as another example of the dying notion of a public realm in the US.

I think you've summed it up yourself perfectly here. How sad.
posted by loiseau at 12:00 AM on January 6, 2008

Bryanboyer... are you new to America? I've been chased off the site of three Morphosis projects now.. Rentacops are not nearly as good at jumping fences as I am.
posted by serial_consign at 2:48 PM on January 6, 2008

I am a former security dispatcher of 6 years. Schools (Texas) do not often have security guards that patrol on-site, but instead have a series of detectors that can in effect alert a guard to promptly arrive.
posted by vanoakenfold at 9:39 PM on January 6, 2008