MOORPARK : Closed Meeting With LAFCO Canceled

A request for a meeting between Ventura County and Moorpark officials about the city’s proposed expansion has sparked a City Council debate over whether the meeting would include closed-door negotiations.

Robert L. Braitman, executive officer of the Local Agency Formation Commission, had requested a meeting with Mayor Paul W. Lawrason Jr. and Councilman Bernardo M. Perez regarding a proposal to expand the city’s boundaries. The councilmen sit on the city’s Community Development Committee.

Ventura County Supervisor Vicky Howard and other county officials also were expected to attend.

But objections by the city’s other three council members led to a decision to cancel the meeting. City officials instead will invite Braitman and county officials to attend the City Council’s public hearings on the proposed annexation. The hearings are scheduled to begin Wednesday.

“If they want to negotiate our General Plan, let’s do it in public,” Councilman Scott Montgomery said. “It’s very obvious that they’d rather see a much higher-density development” than what is proposed for the areas that may be annexed to the city, he said.

Perez and Lawrason said the meeting was planned to share information, not to negotiate.