OJAI VALLEY : 80 Ask to Serve on Annexation Panel

More than 80 Ojai Valley residents have asked to serve as advisers to the Ojai City Council during its look this year at whether the city should expand its boundaries, officials have said.

The council will hold a special meeting at 5 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall to consider appointing to the committee two dozen applicants from a broad spectrum of interests.

The new panel will be empowered to hold public meetings and assist consultants who would study the financial, legal and political issues involved in making Ojai a larger city that could include the entire valley.

The council will wait until the study is done to decide if it will seek to expand its boundaries, officials said. The study is intended to determine the strength of support for expansion in unincorporated communities throughout the valley.

Ojai has 7,613 residents; the valleywide population is about 33,000.

Councilman James D. Loebl, who suggested the annexation study last year, said he believes that it should be completed this year.

“I think we should move reasonably quickly,” he said. “You’ve got to move at a speed that on one hand does not appear threatening and on the other is not so glacial it does not appear to be moving at all.”

Following the council meeting in the City Hall council chambers, the county’s Solid Waste Management Department will hold the first monthly meeting of its new Ojai Valley Citizens Advisory Committee.

The committee of representatives from about 20 groups will meet from 6:30 to 8 p.m. to discuss the panel’s role in helping draft a valley plan for recycling trash and garbage reduction.