Feud Over Dredging in Ventura Keys Is Reignited : Environment: The City Council insists homeowners should pay to keep their back-yard canals silt-free. They disagree, and want the levy of about $1,700 a year ended.

Ventura Keys homeowners and the Ventura City Council are expected to battle it out at City Hall today, when the council considers taxing waterfront residents for dredging the silt out of their back-yard canals.

“It will be the second annual bloodletting,” said Donald Adams, a Keys resident and attorney who is involved in a residents’ lawsuit against the city.

The conflict started in September, 1991, when the council established a Keys maintenance district amid bitter objections from residents.

More than 85% of the 300 homeowners filed formal objections, but the council overrode their opposition with a 6-1 vote after two days of raucous hearings.

The council must hold two public hearings every year before reimposing the assessments, which average $1,733 annually per household. The council will take public comments today, but will not make a final decision until June 7.

Even as the council considers assessing the homeowners for another year, Keys residents and the city of Ventura are headed for a trial in a few months about who should pay for dredging the Keys. City officials met with negotiators for Keys residents last week in an unsuccessful attempt to reach a settlement.

The suit asks the court to rule that the district is illegal and that the $2.68 million spent on dredging the Keys last year should be returned to residents.

Keys residents contend that the city and the county should pay for the cleanup because runoff from the county’s Arundell Barranca and 28 city drains are responsible for polluting the canals. City officials argue that Keys homeowners stand to gain most from the dredging and should foot three-quarters of the bill.

“It boils down to, ‘Who has the responsibility to pay? Whose pocketbook should it come out of?’ ” said Barbara Fosbrink, the city’s project manager for the Keys. “Should it be borne by all the residents in the city, or should the Keys property owners bear a larger portion of the costs? They’re the ones that have the boats at their back doors.”

Less than a month after the council formed the district, Keys homeowners filed suit in Ventura County Superior Court. The case was due to go to trial in January, but the day before the trial, all Ventura County Superior Court judges disqualified themselves from hearing the case because the entire bench had relatives, friends or associates who live in the Keys.

The case was assigned to a judge from Kern County, but Richard Oberholzer also disqualified himself about two weeks ago after Keys residents charged that his former job as Bakersfield city attorney could make him sympathetic to Ventura’s position. The case is now back before the California Judicial Council, which will appoint another judge from outside Ventura County.

Terry Bird, an attorney representing Keys homeowners, said he is confident that the residents will prevail in court.

“It’s unfair to put this burden solely on the backs of Keys residents,” Bird said. “If this debris was being generated by the Keys residents, that would be different. The Keys has become the ultimate debris basin for the city. The whole city is benefiting from it. Why not spread it out?”

Ventura City Atty. Peter D. Bulens insists that the city was right to create the assessment district.

“There’s a benefit to the property,” Bulens said. “There’s tons of precedent for these assessment districts.”

Until the case is decided, Ventura Keys homeowners have been paying the assessments. Residents were assessed on their tax bills for the first time last year, Fosbrink said.

The assessments are paying for last year’s $2.5-million dredging as well as regular maintenance, Fosbrink said. Money will also be put into a holding account to pay for future dredgings, which are scheduled to occur about every seven years.

When the Keys area was developed in the 1960s, a maintenance assessment district was established requiring property owners to pay an average of $40 per year. The city’s annual contribution was $5,000.

Fees were set according to the market cost of the home, but Proposition 13 in 1978 dismantled the district. Since then, the Keys were dredged in 1982 and again in 1992, paid for by federal, state and city funds.

In 1992, when the city was faced with paying the total cost of the dredging, it turned again to the homeowners.

“Nothing has been collected from the waterfront property owners since 1978,” Fosbrink said. “We knew back in the 1970s that $40 wasn’t going to be enough. It was in the neighborhood of $600 to $700. The council tried to raise it, but it was later rescinded because of a state law that puts a limit on how much you can increase it.”

In addition to the lawsuit over the maintenance district, Keys homeowners have filed a $15-million lawsuit against the city, the county, the state and two other agencies, blaming them for allowing the debris into the Keys.

The debris from city drains has resulted in fecal coliform levels at 24 times the limit permitted by state health regulations, the lawsuit maintains.

Health warnings have been posted for about a year on two public beaches and a park on the waterway because of high levels of coliform, Fosbrink said.

However, recent tests show that almost no coliform remains in those areas, and the signs will come down soon, she said.

Keys homeowners say their waterways should be considered city streets that the city is responsible for maintaining.

The second lawsuit is being put on hold until the assessment district case is resolved, Bulens said.

Legally speaking, the first will not have any effect on the other, but it could make a difference in settlement negotiations involving the second case, he said.

After the first suit is resolved, Bulens said, “Somebody’s frame of mind will change.”