VENTURA : Council Kills Plan to Form Tax Districts

After a lengthy and hotly debated public hearing, the Ventura City Council reversed its prior vote and repealed an ordinance that would have allowed the city to establish tax assessment districts.

On a 4-2 vote, the council instructed staff to rewrite the ordinance so that it would be limited to assessment districts to pay for the maintenance of public waterways.

Such a revised ordinance would still allow the council to pursue its original goal of charging the Ventura Keys, a marina community, with part of the costs of dredging silt that has been accumulating for the last eight years.

At Monday night’s hearing, Keys homeowner Ray Russum led a group of 50 residents opposed to the ordinance in a emotional debate, punctuated by jeers against the council members. They argued that the city would use the ordinance, as originally drafted, to impose assessment districts indiscriminately throughout the city.

“You made a mistake in including the whole city in this scheme to take the taxpayers to the cleaners,” Russum told the council amid loud applause.

Monday night’s vote was a reversal from the April 23 meeting in which the council voted unanimously to give the ordinance preliminary approval.

Councilman Todd Collart acknowledged the opposition. “With the applause and harassment, it looks like the public has no confidence in the city,” he said, before proposing that the ordinance be reworked.