Still Full of Fight : Activism: Retirees at Leisure Village in Camarillo have become an influential force on issues ranging from health care to the environment.

Moe Kadish, Sandy Okum and Ann Levey care about the world outside the security gates of their Camarillo retirement community.

Although these Leisure Village residents could stay insulated from the rest of the city, they say a drive to help others has spurred them to join causes affecting the city at large.

“I’ve always been that way all my life,” said Kadish, 77, who has lived with his wife in the 3,700-member community off Santa Rosa Road for 3 1/2 years. “I’ve spent more time working for charities and causes and politics than I did at my business.”

Now that they are retired, Kadish and other Leisure Village activists say they have more time to get involved in whatever issue moves them. And because the need to make money is no longer a driving force, they say they can volunteer to help out whenever the urge strikes.

These three retirees are among nearly 200 Leisure Village residents who have become an activist force in Camarillo politics on issues ranging from a proposed hospital merger to development of the Camarillo greenbelt.

One measure of the high level of activism came last year when Leisure Village residents produced the highest voter turnout in support of two unsuccessful Pleasant Valley School District bond measures.

Vice Mayor Charlotte Craven said Camarillo is lucky to have such an active, centralized senior citizen population.

“You so often hear about older people who could care less about everyone else,” Craven said. “I think they have a tremendous impact because they take an interest and because they have the time to spend on research and lobbying.”

Sanford (Sandy) Okum, 78, said he and other Leisure Village activists care about the welfare of all Camarillo residents.

“We’re not out working for money, and the great pleasure we get out of life is helping other people. What else is there to live for?” said Okum, who belongs to a Leisure Village committee known as Concerned Citizens for Certified Paramedic Emergency Care. The group, which opposes the renewal of the Pruner Ambulance contract, wants county firefighters to take over the Pruner paramedics’ duties.

Okum and Kadish, both of whom have had serious medical conditions in recent years, have let neither their age nor ill health deter them.

Okum, who retired 20 years ago from a pharmacy that he ran and owned in West Los Angeles, said his interest in the paramedics and the hospital merger stems from a concern that Camarillo residents will receive substandard medical services.

Despite a recent stroke, Kadish said he could not sit back and watch a proposed merger between Camarillo’s Pleasant Valley Hospital and Oxnard’s St. John’s Regional Medical Center go through without a fight.

When Kadish read about the merger in the newspaper, he said, “I saw red. I knew what was going to happen.”

Kadish, who has more than a decade of experience serving on hospital boards, said he fears that the merger would hurt city residents, and has discussed his concerns in meetings with presidents of both hospitals. He said he still believes that services may be lost if the two organizations consolidate.

“Why do I get involved? I always get involved,” said Kadish, a retired retailer. “Someone calls me up. And off we go. I don’t know why.”

It took just a telephone call for Ann C. Levey, 74, to get involved in the fight against The Sammis Co. factory mall outlet proposal last year. Sammis withdrew its proposal last November amid avid opposition from residents.

Levey said she also opposes Sammis’ latest proposal to build a 1,100-home planned community off Pleasant Valley Road.

“Camarillo is a special place and it should be maintained as such,” she said at a recent Sammis workshop.

When the campaign against Sammis was at its height, Levey said, she worked five or six hours a day for the cause, spending much of her time talking to other Leisure Village residents.

“I had the feeling that they had trusted my judgment,” said Levey, a retired supervisor of budgets and forecasts for a large aerospace company in Santa Monica.

She circulated petitions and attended all five Planning Commission hearings on the Sammis mall proposal, all marked by raucous debate.

Levey said she just can’t let an issue she opposes move along without her getting involved. “I have the feeling that too many people complain without doing anything about it,” she said.

Levey lives with her cockapoo, Panky, whose brother, Hanky, died three years ago. She has stacks of books that she wants to read, but cannot seem to refuse requests for help.

“I don’t know how to say no,” she said. “I keep saying I’m not going to do any outside work. . . . I used to have a wonderful excuse because I would say, ‘I’m working,’ but I can’t say that anymore.”

Before Okum moved to Leisure Village 17 years ago, he was more oriented toward his family and work with professional associations.

“I didn’t get active till I moved to the Village,” said Okum, who lives there with his wife.

For him, he said, “retirement means a chance to enjoy life to its fullest and on the way, help others to do the same.”

Most of the 40 elderly participants in a countywide education program known as SEASONS (Senior Experts and Speakers on Numerous Subjects) live at Leisure Village.

“They share information about their careers, staying in school and even living a full life,” said SEASONS coordinator Cynthia Morgan. “Those are all important messages in our society.”

“Most of the people in Leisure Village are well aware of the importance of good education, and they do contribute a lot to some of the school programs,” Craven said.