Members of Neighbors Unite and representatives of Rainbow Recovery Inc. attended the Oct. 9 planning commission meeting to hear a status report on increased occupancy in the Rainbow Recovery group home.

The home houses "criminal justice clients" who choose structured group home living over going to jail for crimes involving drugs or alcohol.

Kilo Avenue neighbors and Rainbow Recovery representatives have been at each other since June 2001, when Rainbow Recovery began operating a group home on that street. Neighbors soon formed the Concerned Neighbors Against Overcrowded and Unlicensed Drug and Alcohol Recovery Businesses for Criminals in Single Family Homes, which is called the Neighbors Unite Coalition for short.

Neighbors Unite claims that Rainbow Recovery's clients are being a nuisance. Rainbow Recovery contends that the neighbors are prejudiced against its clients and subjecting them to harassment.

Rainbow Recovery had submitted a request in March that would increase the number of residents, and the purpose of the Oct. 9 planning commission meeting was to hear a status report on the reduced reasonable accommodation request that was granted following the March request. Currently the Kilo Avenue group home consists of 10 residents, one of which must be a Rainbow Recovery staff member who supervises the home 24 hours a day. The other nine residents may consist of up to six women and their children up to age 10. No more than five licensed drivers may reside in the house at one time.

Representatives from Neighbors Unite told the Resident that they were under the impression that the commission would simply hear the planning department's status report from having monitored Rainbow Recovery over the summer. They were surprised when Planning Commission Vice Chairman Bob Levy opened the floor to the public.

"If we knew there was going to be a chance for the public to speak, we would have had more of us attending the meeting," said Bruce Brunger, who spearheads Neighbors Unite.

Jeffrey Janoff, the lawyer representing Rainbow Recovery, addressed the commission, claiming that Kilo Avenue neighbors have subjected Rainbow Recovery clients to undeserved scrutiny and even gone so far as to invade the clients' privacy by photographing and videotaping their activities.

"There seems to be overconservative scrutiny of the residents by the neighbors," Janoff told the Resident. Janoff was referring to an informational packet distributed by Neighbors Unite. The packet consists of seemingly damning testimony by Rainbow Recovery representatives to Kilo Avenue residents and to the planning commission during earlier public hearings. The packet also includes a list citing incidents that occurred between August 2001 and Sept. 24, 2002.

The list, supplemented with photographs and fuzzy still shots taken from a handheld video recorder, implicates Rainbow Recovery clients in creating nuisances, such as playing the television loud at night and allowing unsupervised children to roam in the street. The documentation also includes 24-hour supervisors being absent for hours at a time, clients necking in cars parked at other houses in the vicinity, the telephone ringing loudly late at night and abandoned shopping carts from the Albertson's grocery store a quarter mile away littering the street.

An Oct. 2 staff memorandum to the commission said that the planning department received the Neighbors Unite packet on Sept. 24 but that most of the packet's information, with the exception of the incident list, was irrelevant. The memorandum stated that the staff wasn't confirming any of Neighbors Unite's claims, but it did say that Kilo Avenue residents within 300 feet of the Rainbow Recovery house were notified on Sept. 27 of the commission meeting inviting input from the public regarding the house's activities during the summer.

Brunger said he and neighbors received a "courtesy notice" from the planning commission staff that stated: "Written comments may be submitted to staff by October 1, 2002 for reference in the Status Report. Please remember, public testimony is not allowed for good and welfare items of the Planning Commission agenda."

Rainbow Recovery's reasonable accommodation status report was filed under "Good and Welfare" section of the agenda.

When Janoff finished, a couple of Neighbors Unite representatives defended their position, stating that Janoff's claims were inaccurate in the sense that no one's privacy was invaded, since all surveillance was taken from inside neighbors' houses from across the street.

"We're very disappointed," said Kilo Avenue resident Greg Misakian. "The number one intent of the Oct. 9 commission meeting was to review a status report."

The commission took no action but, according to the meeting agenda synopsis, "encouraged residents to work with Rainbow Recovery program residents and operators to improve their community."

Brunger claims that the commission staff reminded neighbors in a cover letter and in an email that there would be no opportunity for public testimony.

Planning Commissioner Chairman Jay James was absent from the Oct. 9 meeting—"conspicuously absent," Brunger says.

"[James] was the one who was asking Rainbow Recovery all the tough questions" when the commission first held a public hearing on Rainbow Recovery's appeal for reasonable accommodation on Feb. 28, Brunger said.

James wasn't the chairman in February. Levy steered the Oct. 9 meeting.

"I wonder if the tone of the meeting would have been a lot different if Jay James had been there," Brunger said.

Janoff later told the Resident, "What was important about that meeting was that there weren't really any facts that Rainbow Recovery presented any adverse effect on the neighborhood."

Nuisances such as loud televisions or telephones or cars are just part of the problem Neighbors Unite have with Rainbow Recovery, however.

The coalition claims that Rainbow Recovery is running an illegal operation, as it isn't licensed by the state to provide treatment for recovering addicts.

Rainbow Recovery representative Andy Kubica said the business doesn't need a license, since Rainbow Recovery isn't in the treatment business.

"All Rainbow Recovery does is provide a sober living environment for criminal justice clients trying to make a better life for themselves," Kubica told the Resident.

Businesses operating as "sober living environments" must be certified by the county district attorney, and Neighbors Unite claims that Rainbow Recovery's certification is also in question.

The coalition also claims that Rainbow Recovery is receiving funds from the state that were earmarked for "treatment over jail" programs when voters passed Proposition 36 in March 2000.

"It's all about money," Misakian states. "They're collecting money from the state and county and federal government to provide a service they aren't providing."

Kubica said this is simply not true.

Brunger said he and Neighbors Unite are more than willing to try to get along with Rainbow Recovery's clients. "We just want Rainbow Recovery Inc. to be state licensed, to really ensure proper supervision at the home and ensure there won't be any nuisances in the neighborhood."

"We're not against the residents," Brunger said. "We just have an issue with the way the home's been operating."