In Santa Paula, a white minority blames the poor for the town's problems

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In the middle is a sweet, tired town of roughly 35,000 people, three-quarters of them Latino and more than half considered low-income under county standards.

For several years, there has been a tide of sentiment that Santa Paula has missed out, that it has become a dumping ground of sagging roofs and 99-cent stores while neighbors like Moorpark and Camarillo have prospered. And some critics -- many of them members of the white minority -- have decided that the poor are the problem.

This summer, about 400 people signed a petition asking the City Council to approve a moratorium on "low-end" housing until it represents less than 15% of the housing stock in Santa Paula. Moratorium supporters say it would take 50 years to achieve that goal -- which would mean a 50-year ban on the construction of low-income housing.

"What we want is a balance," said Larry Sagely, one of the leading voices in town calling for a moratorium. "Let the free market run."

Of particular concern, said community activist Richard Main, 70, is government-subsidized housing. Those apartment complexes, several of which have been built in recent years, are typically not subject to property taxes.

"They're a dead drag on the economy," Main said. "And if your revenues aren't covering your costs, you've got a problem."

Main and the other moratorium supporters have not been shy about introducing race and ethnicity into the debate; they have registered their offense, for instance, when some of those who have asked for additional affordable housing have needed an interpreter to speak in front of the City Council. And all sides agree that a moratorium would affect Latinos and, in particular, farmworkers and their families, more than anyone else. But those who support a moratorium say they are not racists.

"All of us," Main said, "came here from someplace else."

Latinos have been a significant portion of Santa Paula for more than half a century, many of them drawn by the county's $1-billion annual agricultural industry, and they have largely sustained Santa Paula, particularly after the exodus of the oil industry in the 1970s.

The council appears unlikely to approve the moratorium. City officials have concluded that it would be legal only if it could be shown that such construction would have an "adverse impact upon . . . public health or safety." That would be a difficult bar to surpass, said City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz, even if the council was interested in pursuing a moratorium.

But some of those pushing for the moratorium have pledged to take it to a ballot if they cannot persuade the City Council to approve it.

Many in town are aghast at the possibility.

John Nichols has long lived on a hillside overlooking the valley floor. That's how it worked here for years; whites lived in the hills, overlooking denser Latino areas.

In recent years, things have changed. Among other things, Nichols said, 25 farmworkers are now crammed into a single-family house on his street -- a common occurrence here, and not one that is welcome in many neighborhoods.

Still, Nichols said he can think of a host of things the city could do to try to improve its lot, including asking people to spend their money locally rather than driving to the malls and the big-box stores in Ventura and the San Fernando Valley.

What's more, he said, the timing of the initiative doesn't make sense. It was true that Santa Paula development was long stagnant, but in recent years developers have proposed building 4,000 homes -- in a city that has fewer than 9,000 homes today.

The largest development proposal, in an area known as Fagan Canyon, was rejected by voters, but hundreds of those proposed homes are on track for construction in coming years.

Many would be marketed to upscale buyers and would presumably help achieve the housing "balance" that critics are looking for.