CAMARILLO : City Considers Leaving Agency

Camarillo city officials are considering withdrawing from Ventura County’s public-housing agency because it does not give local residents the first shot at low-income housing units in the city.

At the City Council’s annual goal-setting session over the weekend, council members said they are upset that the county’s Area Housing Authority puts Camarillo residents on the same waiting list as people from other communities for federally subsidized housing in the city.

“They send you people from Fillmore and Ojai and everywhere else,” Mayor Charlotte Craven said. “Our people are not being served.”

Craven and Councilman Michael Morgan said the city should consider setting up its own agency to build and allocate public housing, a move that city staff said would cost about $132,000 annually.

In addition to 319 public-housing units in Camarillo, the local Area Housing Authority manages federally subsidized housing in Ojai, Fillmore, Moorpark, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks.

The cities of Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Ventura and Santa Paula operate their own public-housing agencies.

Besides considering establishment of a local housing agency, the council set a number of other goals, including:

* Organizing community members and school officials to address the problems of youth violence and drug use.

* Attracting new businesses to the city, possibly by spending $75,000 on advertisements in business magazines.

* Developing a pilot program to recycle residents’ yard waste.

* Seeking a developer to build a combined cultural center/sports complex in the city.