Council Hears Final Keys Plan Testimony

The Ventura City Council on Tuesday ended two days of bitter debate over a proposal to assess each homeowner in the Ventura Keys $1,680 a year to dredge their back-yard waterways.

As of late Tuesday, the council began quizzing city engineers about the proposal and debating the issue among themselves but had not reached a formal decision.

Councilman Jim Monahan appealed to his colleagues not to override the boisterous protests of Keys residents by establishing the special assessment district that would charge the property owners for most of the $2.7-million cost of the needed dredging. But his formal motion died for lack of a second.

The council’s debate began late Tuesday after nearly seven hours of testimony that grew increasingly harsh and accusatory.

“People are talking up here, but you’re not really listening,” Keys resident Paul Masi told the council. “You’ve already made up your minds. You’re arrogant.”

Brad Barnes, president of the Ventura Keys Assn., criticized city engineers for not considering other ways to pay for the dredging. “The residents of the Keys are not adverse to picking up a share of the dredging costs,” Barnes said. “The city has not done their job in looking at a lot of other sources of funding.”

However, some Ventura residents came out in support of assessing the Keys homeowners for most of the dredging bill.

“Yes, the new assessment district will be expensive, and it’s unfortunate that some people will have to move,” said Alan Berk, a City Council candidate. “But it is not a God-given right to live by the sea and have a private boat dock and a boat. Economic times change and we all have to make sacrifices.”

His comments brought jeers from Keys residents in the audience.

The Ventura County Taxpayers’ Assn. also voiced support for a special assessment district that makes Keys property owners pay for most of the dredging. “This is not a new district, it replaces one that was in place in 1964,” said Jere Robings, the association’s executive director.

“Certainly, the city and city flood control benefit from the barranca drainage. But the primary benefit will go to the homeowners,” Robings said. However, Robings said the county flood control district should help pay for the dredging.

Some Keys homeowners have vowed to sue the city to block formation of the district, arguing that the city should pay to remove silt that has washed into their semi-private boat channels from Ventura’s drainage system.

However, city engineers contend that Keys residents are bound to pay for dredging by a 1964 agreement that developer John Klugh signed, establishing the Porto Bello Maintenance District to maintain the channels. The City Council at the time had forced the agreement on Klugh as a condition of approving the Keys development because the homes were being built in a drainage delta.

The city’s plan is to charge waterfront property owners 75% of the $2.7 million that it will cost to dredge the 32 acres of man-made waterways to a depth of 15 feet and to repair the channels’ rock borders.

Protests of the maintenance district proposal have escalated since the March downpours washed tons of silt and debris into the Keys waterways.

City engineers ruled that because Keys homeowners have the most reason to use the channels, they should pay 75% of the dredging bill, while the city should pay only 25% for boaters who use the channels but do not live along them.