Foothills Sentry Page 4 OCTOBER 2025 JOHNSON MOTORCARS 34 Years of Specializing in the Service and Repair of Mercedes-Benz Gary Johnson 714-997-2567 982 N. Batavia # B13, Orange, CA 92867 gary@johnsonmotorcars.com @ramblingroseoc Circulation … 39,000 Published on the last Tuesday of each month and distributed to residences, businesses, libraries and civic centers. Printing by Advantage, Inc. 714-532-4406 foothillssentry.com 1107 E. Chapman Ave., #207 Orange, CA 92866 ©Foothills Sentry 2025 Publisher/Editor Anita Bennyhoff 1969-2013 Editor Tina Richards editor@foothillssentry.com Sports Editor Cliff Robbins sportseditor@att.net Graphic Designer Jef Maddock graphics@foothillssentry.com Advertising Sales Andie Mills advertising@foothillssentry.com 714-926-9299 Office Manager officemanager@foothillssentry.com Guest Commentary Chapman University must be held accountable for student behavior By Jonathan Zimmerman As Chapman University begins another academic year in the City of Orange, its enrollment has grown to nearly 10,000 students — well above the city’s agreed-upon cap of 8,700. This unchecked growth has had a significant and negative impact on our neighborhoods. Investors are buying many homes and cramming five or more students into single-family residences, transforming once-quiet streets into party zones and overflow parking lots. The charm, beauty and livability of Orange are being eroded. Currently, the Orange Police Department bears the burden of addressing student behavior in our neighborhoods. Yet enforcement tools are limited. For example, under the city’s current ordinance, police may only issue a citation for a party disturbance after 10 p.m. This leaves daytime parties unaddressed, and even after 10 p.m., police are often unavailable due to higher-priority calls. Without a citation, the University’s Dean of Students has no grounds for discipline. The result is that many disruptive and disrespectful behaviors — noise, litter, vandalism, public urination and parking violations — go unchecked. This creates a serious budgetary problem. Calls related to student behavior consume valuable city resources that should not be subsidized by taxpayers. Other cities with large universities — including San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), Davis (UC Davis), and San Diego (SDSU) — have already acted by adopting “nuisance party ordinances,” requiring universities to pay into city service funds, regulating high-occupancy rentals as businesses, and establishing official Greek housing to better manage student behavior. Orange can and should follow suit. Neighbors urge the City of Orange to take the following steps: 1. Hold Chapman accountable for enforcing its own Code of Conduct. Chapman’s Code prohibits disturbances, public nuisances and trespassing. Yet these violations occur regularly in our neighborhoods with little consequence. The city should require Chapman to strengthen and enforce penalties for students who repeatedly disrupt the community. 2. Require Chapman University to directly fund city services impacted by student behavior — including police, code enforcement and sanitation. A “university impact fee” or “luxury tax” would recognize that Chapman benefits enormously from being located in Orange but has not adequately shouldered the costs its presence creates. 3. Enforce the enrollment cap that Chapman agreed to, ensuring the university does not continue to grow beyond the city’s capacity to manage it. 4. Designate official Greek housing. Many universities require fraternities and sororities to live in designated housing, which helps concentrate and manage large gatherings instead of scattering them across neighborhoods. 5. Adopt stronger ordinances for parking and large-capacity rentals. Homes functioning as “mini-dorms” should be regulated as businesses, licensed, inspected and taxed appropriately. Cities like Berkeley and San Diego already use this model to protect neighborhood character. It is time for Chapman University to act as a true partner to the community. The university’s academic and civic mission must extend beyond its campus boundaries to include accountability for how its students affect the larger community. Student conduct enforcement should not fall primarily on neighbors or overstretched city resources. With new leadership in the city and the university, we hope there will be a renewed commitment to solutions — enforcement of enrollment limits, financial responsibility for city services, stronger ordinances, and real accountability for student behavior through the Code of Conduct. We want Chapman students to succeed, and we want a positive “Town and Gown” relationship. But this requires the university to take responsibility for its impact on Orange. Jonathan Zimmerman is a 38year resident of the City of Orange. Just passing through Dear Editor: I am writing to voice my concerns about the Chapman students living in my neighborhood. There are many homes that investors have turned into five bedrooms, and rented them to students. Many of these homes have been renovated and remodeled to accommodate the students without obtaining permits. How is this fair? Most often, each rental house adds five cars for the residents and even more for their visitors. The neighborhood is loud and transient. There are many speeders, drivers disobeying stop signs, and parking to block fire hydrants and sidewalks. There is disregard for parking facing the right way, parking on curves, and parking too close to the intersections. Do the college students not know about the city trash service? Often the trash bins sit out all the time, and they place boxes, furniture, household items, and extra trash bags on the curb. Whatever they no longer want gets put out on the curb. There have been so many times that students disturb the peace. They are loud late at night walking or coming home or having backyard get-togethers. What can be done about the increasing number of boarding houses, the increasing enrollment, and the increasing use of our safety services. This drain on city resources, especially with Orange's deficits, needs to be taken care of. Maybe each student should pay a fee to the city to offset the services they all rely on and benefit from. The students need to be educated about neighborhood, driving, and parking etiquette. Maybe this would cut down on the parties, loud behavior, and parking issues. Or, maybe boarding house enforcement, fines, fees and tickets for rule breakers is the way to go. Maybe, investor's student housing should be classified as the businesses they are and taxed and licensed accordingly. Laurie Phillips Orange Dear Editor: I live on E. Fairhaven Ave. in Orange. About three years ago, my neighbor sold his house, and a fraternity moved in. Due to the design of the house, it was seemingly destined to be repurposed as a multi-unit housing facility. As I’m sure you’ve heard, investors are buying up homes and renovating them to squeeze in as many students as possible. This trend is deeply concerning. One of the core issues is that absentee owners are effectively running a business, yet they’re not dealing with the collateral damage caused by the student parties. They should be required to obtain a business license. Licensing would give the city the authority to impose significant fines on these operators — something the current, inadequate penalties fail to do. A recent party became so unruly that trash was strewn everywhere, one of my trees was damaged, and police were needed to break it up. Another major concern is the lack of accountability — the city, the university, and homeowners all seem to point fingers at one another, rather than take meaningful action. I appreciate your efforts to bring attention to this issue and hope you will continue to report on it. Public awareness is sorely needed. This will be a long process. Robert Paul Orange Dear Editor: I would like to bring to your attention some recent disturbing activities in our city. Our formerly quiet family neighborhood is under assault from several business ventures that are allowed to operate in residential neighborhoods. The newest business venture, the Friendly Recovery Center, will house 6-8 men (on a rotating basis) in a mental health recovery home. The Friendly Recovery Center provides treatment for a range of conditions, including substance abuse, anger management, psychosis, PTSD and trauma, borderline and narcissistic personality disorders, self-harm, and emotional disturbances. Nearby, the L'Arche Wavecrest Home for the mentally disabled is located only 150 feet from the Friendly Recovery House. Also, less than 250 feet away are two Chapman University student boarding houses. We have eight children living nearby who may be negatively impacted by the residents of these group homes. I have respectfully asked our city government to consider quickly enacting ordinances that prohibit these group homes from operating so close together in one area and allow buffer zones between them and a nearby elementary school. Similar ordinances have been recently enacted in Fountain Valley (April 2025), Irvine (June 2025), Mission Viejo (March 2025), Santa Ana (April 2025), and the County of Orange (2020). We believe immediate action is necessary to preserve our family neighborhood and keep it from becoming overrun by business ventures. Jim Shoffi t Orange Dear Editor: September has arrived and with it, the return of Chapman students to our neighborhoods, with the very loud afternoon and latenight parties. It is also the one-year anniversary of an incident involving a male Chapman student. What did he do? He did something that other students have done and many residents of Orange have witnessed in front yards, through the years. That is, he urinated in public. He leaned out the window where he lives, where he was visible to anyone walking on the sidewalk, driving on the street or sitting at a bedroom desk. He was visible because he leaned out the window of the two-story house and urinated in full view of the street and his neighbor in the house next door. Though the neighbor pounded her hand on the window and yelled “hey, hey you!” he did not stop. She called police and filed charges against the student for indecent exposure. The Dean of Students at Chapman University was notified, yet the student continued to live in the same house without consequences, nor did he apologize to the neighbor. The resulting weak statements, “we’ll look into this,” and no follow-up from Chapman University added to the disrespect and lack of decency. "Letters" continued on page 5
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