Supervisors OK $28,000 to Promote Oxnard Harbor

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to pump $28,000 into advertising the Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard to tourists, whose spending habits in the county have been cramped by the recession.

The supervisors voted 5 to 0 to approve the proposal by Supervisor John K. Flynn, whose district encompasses most of Oxnard and the county-owned harbor.

“We have a large number of people working at Channel Islands Harbor, and that’s good,” Flynn told his fellow board members before the vote. “We must work to keep the restaurants full and the slips full, and keep a good, thriving business down there.”

Slip rentals and property leases, which finance the county General Services Agency’s Recreation Services, have fallen by 20% in the past fiscal year, Flynn reported.

With less of that money coming to Recreation Services, the county may be forced to cut funding for recreation programs, which include parks and golf courses, said Frank Anderson, the harbor’s general manager.

“We draw nothing from the general fund in terms of taxes or fees,” Anderson said. “We tend to operate on the private-enterprise mentality. We are always aware that if the revenue stream isn’t there, we have to cut programs.”

Many boaters are selling their crafts or pulling them out of rented slips to store them more cheaply on land, and depriving the harbor of income, Anderson said.

For instance, Vintage Marina, built in 1985, never reached full occupancy because of the recession, he said. In addition, occupancy is down about 5% from the same time last year.

The recession has not hurt most of the major leaseholds, such as restaurants, to the point where they are affecting the harbor’s revenues, he said.

“Some of them are holding their own, some are doing relatively well and some definitely aren’t making it,” he said.

But since last year’s demise of the Oxnard Visitors and Conventions Bureau, “no one is actively or proactively marketing Oxnard as a tourist destination,” Anderson said.

The cash infusion approved by the supervisors Tuesday will be spent on radio and TV ads, bumper stickers, brochures and signs touting the harbor.

The move was applauded by one of the harbor’s largest leaseholders, MVS Inc., which leases space from the county for 500 boat slips, the Casa Sirena Marina Resort, apartment complexes and the Fisherman’s Wharf shopping center.

“I think that the promotion of the harbor will help everybody,” said Richard Spencer, executive vice president of MVS Inc., which has rented space at the harbor since it was incorporated.

“Retail is not doing as well as it did before for two reasons: one, you don’t have the tourists coming down like you did, and two, retail in general is just down because people are not spending as much in general.”