OXNARD : 2 Candidates Urge State Intervention

Two Oxnard community activists announced their candidacy Wednesday for mayor and City Council and called for the governor to name a municipal executive to take control of the financially troubled city.

Paul K. Dolan, a distribution contractor who lost a bid for the mayor’s seat in 1988, announced his intention to run again in November. Scott Bollinger, a self-employed investor who unsuccessfully ran for city treasurer two years ago, will run for one of the two council seats up for reelection.

Dolan and Bollinger are the first candidates to announce their intentions to seek office.

Filing for the election begins in July and closes in August.

In a joint news release, Dolan, 39, and Bollinger, 38, called for a municipal executive to take control of the city government while the state investigates the city’s finances, which they say are being drained by incompetent and corrupt city officials.

In a May 14 letter to Gov. George Deukmejian, Dolan and Bollinger asked that the state place the nearest National Guard unit on alert to help reinforce the city’s understaffed police and fire departments.

Dolan said the two men also oppose a proposed 5% utility users tax, which was placed on the June 5 ballot by the City Council to help ease the city’s financial problems.

The tax, which would raise $5 million annually, would only provide the city with a short-term solution and would not forestall the city’s eventual “fiscal Armageddon,” he said.

For the past four years, Dolan has led residents of the Oxnard Dunes neighborhood in a class-action toxic waste suit. Bollinger has served on the Oxnard Inter-Neighborhood Council Committee.