Youth Club Gets OK to Run South Oxnard Center

Despite a passionate protest from senior citizens, the Oxnard City Council on Tuesday agreed to allow the Boys & Girls Club of Oxnard to run the city’s South Oxnard Center, including a variety of programs for the elderly.

Council members voted 3 to 1 to endorse the cost-saving move after concluding that the city no longer could afford the $160,000 needed each year to run the facility, which provides senior citizen services, private day care and after-school activities for young people.

Under terms of the three-year lease agreement, the Boys & Girls Club will pay $1 a year and operate all but the center’s branch library. In return, the club will get a rent-free headquarters and be able to collect fees for renting rooms to community groups.

“I do feel that we have an obligation to provide maximum services to our community,” Mayor Manuel Lopez said. “But our finances are such that we really can’t deliver a quality program there.”

But Councilman Bedford Pinkard, who voted against the proposal, said he worried about the city losing control of the 4-year-old center.

“We’re giving away a building, we’re giving away those services for $1 a year,” Pinkard said. “I have some concerns about that.”

Pinkard said he also worried about concerns expressed Tuesday by more than 50 senior citizens that the new arrangement would result in the reduction of senior services at the center.

“This is a business for them,” south Oxnard resident Lee S. Tamoro told council members. “The only thing that we fear is that we may be lost in the shuffle. We feel you should hear us, listen to us, because we feel like that building is our home.”

In addition, some senior citizens said they were not properly consulted about the change in management.

“Our seniors did not get a chance to discuss this,” said Sylvia Feit, a commissioner with the city’s Commission on Aging. “You never sought our opinion.”

Starting March 1, the Boys & Girls Club will move most of its operation, now on East 7th Street, to the 20,000-square-foot south Oxnard facility in the 200 block of East Bard Road. The club’s athletic programs will continue to be operated out of the 7th Street building.

Abe Oliveras, the club’s executive director, said he plans to expand senior programs offered at the South Oxnard Center. The center now offers a variety of arts and crafts, exercise programs and health workshops for elderly residents.

“We have no intention of cutting back,” he told the council. “We are not here to try to take away anything.”

Oliveras said senior services will be offered from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Monday through Friday. The Boys & Girls Club will hire seven staff members to operate the center compared to the three city employees who now run the facility.

In the first year alone, Oliveras said $315,000 of the club’s $445,000 annual budget will go toward operating the South Oxnard Center.

“There are some challenges ahead,” he said, “but we are prepared to meet those head-on.”

Leaders of the cash-strapped city reasoned that the offer was too good to pass up.

“This was never intended to be solely a senior center. It was intended to be a community center for all the people down there,” Councilman Michael Plisky said. “We can ensure that this program can continue despite our budget woes.”