Council Looks at Fee Hikes to Help Close Gap : Ventura: Developers would be most affected, but so would people throwing wild parties or needing concealed weapons.

Ventura officials said Friday they are considering higher fees for everything from answering false police alarms to zoning changes to help balance the city’s budget.

The fee hikes, which Ventura’s financial planners recommended this week to the City Council, are part of a trend by Ventura County cities to make up for reduced state and federal funding.

Council members already are considering steep cuts in Ventura’s two-year, $101.2-million budget for 1990-92. The city is suffering a shortfall of $1.36 million after the Legislature allowed counties to pass along to cities their expenses for booking prisoners and collecting property tax.

This week Ventura City Council members also began looking at the possibility of raising 95 city fees, which could bring in an extra $225,000 per year, City Manager John Baker said.

Baker said the recommended fee hikes would help the city pay more of the cost of some services it now subsidizes. But the increases would have “zero impact on the average citizen, the majority of people in town,” because most apply to services most residents never use, he said.

Most of the fees being considered affect developers. Those include levies for zoning modifications, grading permits, map making and amendments to the city’s growth plan.

But the council also might raise fees for special police services by charging for administrative costs as well as salaries of officers who patrol events such as the Ventura County Fair, city festivals and movie shoots.

The recommendations also include new fees of $20 for fingerprints, $50 for answering false alarms, $100 for quelling loud parties and $100 for processing concealed weapon permits. “You have to come in and ask for some kind of service or get caught causing some kind of problem, or you’re not going to feel it at all,” Baker said of the proposed increases.

Councilman Gary Tuttle said he favors the new fees but wants to mix them with spending cuts.

But Tuttle, who owns a store selling runners’ apparel, cautioned, “We have to be careful about hitting small businesses with fees in this time of recession. I’m a small business. I know what it’s like right now. It’s not an easy time.”

Councilman Jim Monahan criticized the fee hikes. “We’re right in the middle of a recession, and it’s not a good time to be increasing fees,” he said. “The general public has been hit hard enough, and all fees are eventually passed on to them.”

Monahan suggested that the city should lay off workers in city departments related to building because moratoriums on new water hookups and building permits have stalled such work in Ventura.

But Deputy Mayor Donald Villeneuve said the city should not cut any salaries and should keep Ventura “a full-service city.”

Taxpayers who in 1978 supported Proposition 13 have contributed to the trend of rising user fees, Villeneuve said.

“It isn’t as if people are willing to accept the government they pay for,” he said. “They want the government that, somehow or other, the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny pays for.”