MOORPARK : City, Schools Agree on Sharing Taxes

The Moorpark City Council and the local school district reached a compromise agreement for dividing future property taxes from the downtown area that the city has slated for redevelopment.

The agreement, reached after a nearly five-hour joint meeting this week, settles a 3-year-old lawsuit that the Moorpark Unified School District filed against the city when it proposed a redevelopment plan for its older neighborhoods.

The redevelopment plan calls for the city to spend up to $300 million over 45 years to rehabilitate a 1,217-acre section of town. The money would come from any increases in property tax revenues in that neighborhood after 1989.

But under the agreement reached Wednesday with the school district, the schools will receive $35.9 million of future increases in tax revenues from the redevelopment area. In addition, the city agreed to build a new maintenance building for the district.

District officials had argued that they will need a new maintenance building once they sell the former Moorpark High School site at 280 Casey Road, where the current maintenance facility is located.

Moorpark’s redevelopment plan also sparked lawsuits against the city by Ventura County, the county’s community college district and the Moorpark Mosquito Abatement District.

Those lawsuits are scheduled to be tried in Ventura County Superior Court on Aug. 3 unless they are settled. Moorpark cannot begin spending any of its redevelopment funds until all of the lawsuits are resolved.