Employees Tell Oxnard How to Save $5 Million

Oxnard officials handed $5 million worth of budget-cutting suggestions to the City Council on Tuesday--including proposals that the city switch to county-run fire companies, privatize the Strawberry Festival and close one of its libraries.

The unprecedented flood of ideas came from city employees, through an ad-hoc budget advisory group called the Financial Stability Task Force that could become a model for the way Oxnard runs its affairs in the future.

But city officials appear headed toward making one of these recommendations obsolete and thus angering some black residents.

The task force recommended that Oxnard replace retiring Police Chief Robert Owens with another Oxnard police officer as a way to save money.

But a council-appointed search committee instead has urged the city manager to hire one of four unidentified finalists from outside Oxnard--two from the Los Angeles Police Department, one from Arizona and one from another police agency in Southern California.

Tuesday night, more than 60 blacks loudly demanded that the council hire Assistant Police Chief James Latimer, a black with 26 years on the force, to replace Owens.

“We have someone who has been in the community for years, someone who can show other minorities that you can come through the ranks and be the top,” said Irene Pinkard, an Oxnard resident.

“It’s not a black or white thing, it’s about service,” said Shirley Bumpus, another resident, as the audience cheered her on. “It’s just that we feel the best person is a black man.”

Bumpus said the panel’s choice of two Los Angeles Police Department officers has appalled black residents of Oxnard, who vow to vote against the council members in November if Latimer is not reconsidered.

The council heard those complaints and others without comment.

Earlier in the day, council members received the suggestion to hire the new chief from within along with nearly 700 other suggestions from the Financial Stability Task Force.

Formed seven weeks ago with 44 employees from all city departments, the panel’s mission was to propose ways to streamline city purchasing procedures, erase costly administrative posts and bring more revenue into Oxnard from outside sources.

The suggestions made to the council Tuesday include:

* Contract with the county for fire service, putting city firefighters on the county payroll under administrators paid by the county.

* Eliminate administrative positions by folding the Parks and Recreation Department’s services into other departments.

* Charge a fee for private trash haulers and recyclers to operate in Oxnard.

* Close the South Oxnard Library until it can be adequately staffed.

* Re-establish the Convention & Visitors Bureau.

* Enforce laws that carry fines for infractions such as parking violations or drinking in public.

* Help 20 large local companies that bring in 50% of the city’s tax revenue to make expansion plans.

The reports also included novel suggestions such as selling ads on parks employees’ uniforms to lawn mower companies and trying to entice a theme park such as Raging Waters or an auditorium such as the Santa Barbara Bowl to settle in the city.

“We’re not putting anything or anybody on a hit list,” said task force Chairman Rick Shear, a senior building maintenance worker for the city. “What (we) did was merely pass on the suggestions of the employees of the city of Oxnard.”

Shear said that in the past, Oxnard employees’ money-saving suggestions often were changed by their superiors so much that they were unrecognizable by the time they reached the City Council.

“We should have open lines of communication,” he said.

City Manager Vernon G. Hazen then made suggestions of his own:

* Hire private firms for some city maintenance services.

* Close the South Oxnard Center.

* Share equipment such as backhoes and sewer cleaners among city departments that own duplicate machines.

But Hazen said some task force ideas are too expensive--including one to eliminate the city Word Processing Center and one to give Oxnard vendors a 10% advantage over out-of-town vendors in bidding to sell supplies and equipment to the city.

But he proposed that the city permanently reorganize its administration to give employees more of a say in how the city is managed.

Such “team management” could help the city save money as the state of California asks cities to pay more for services in the face of its rising budget deficit, he said.

“This was an excellent start and has produced a good product,” Hazen said.

Councilman Michael Plisky applauded the team’s work, but said the city administrators should not be reorganized into a team-management framework without being retrained to work alongside their employees.

“I appreciate what you guys have done,” Plisky said. “It’s unfortunate, I think, that we should have to go through this process, because it should be automatic. . . . There should be a response to every suggestion an employee brings forward, and the employees should be encouraged.”

The council plans to hold its first budget workshop at 1 p.m. Thursday, when it will begin putting each of the 700 suggestions by the task force and Hazen to a straw vote.