Wilson Plan to Cut Local Aid Protested : Government: A proposal that could cost Ventura County up to $60 million in state funds is criticized at two gatherings.

Hundreds of Ventura County taxpayers rallied at demonstrations in Ventura and Simi Valley on Wednesday to denounce Gov. Pete Wilson’s plan to slash funds to local governments.

More than 300 angry protesters attended the noontime rally at the Ventura County Government Center, while another 150 gathered at an earlier demonstration in front of the East County Courthouse in Simi Valley.

At both demonstrations, the message to Sacramento was the same: Keep your hands out of our pockets.

“I’m a taxpayer and I don’t want to see a penny of my money going up there to Sacramento to support those idiots,” said John Wood, one of the many older people who filled out the flanks of demonstrators in Simi Valley. “They don’t need it and we do.”

Ventura resident Al Gannon voiced similar complaints.

“I’m tired of all of our tax money being siphoned away” by the state, Gannon said. “If I can balance my budget, why can’t they balance theirs?”

The demonstrations were among a series of protest rallies held across the state to decry Wilson’s plan to cut assistance to local governments by $2.6 billion. The governor’s budget plan is intended to offset deep losses of tax revenues caused by the lingering recession.

If the Legislature approves the cuts, Ventura County will lose $50 million to $60 million, drastically reducing fire, police, library and health services.

Ventura County Fire Chief George Lund told the Ventura crowd that his department would be among the hardest hit.

“This would mean the closure of nine to 10 fire stations, and response times would be doubled,” Lund said. “Fires would be larger because of those slower response times, and there would be more loss of life.”

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors has proposed taxing most homeowners $110 next year to maintain Fire Department services.

But many residents, such as Simi Valley senior citizen Robert Carroll, said Wednesday they cannot afford to pay more taxes to make up for the county’s budget shortfall.

“My wife and I live on $18,000 a year,” Carroll said. “And now we have to pay these assessments? I think that’s a bunch of bull. I live on a fixed budget. Why can’t the county and the state live on a fixed budget?”

Ventura County Supervisors Maggie Kildee and Vicky Howard joined the chorus of protesters.

“We must stop the flight of our tax dollars to balance state budget shortfalls,” Howard said during the Simi Valley demonstration. “State legislators need to be assured that you care, and that together we demand that your local tax dollars be spent locally.”

But not everyone approved of the demonstrations.

“This is a farce,” said Fred Gage, chairman of the Ventura County Alliance of Taxpayers. “All this is an effort by the Board of Supervisors to get the heat off them and put the blame on the Legislature.”

Gage said that under Proposition 13, the money that the state wants to take never should have been given to counties in the first place. After voters approved the property tax measure in 1978, he said, the state agreed to soften the blow to counties by providing them with extra money for local services.

“But now the state is saying: ‘We’re broke. We can’t give you that money anymore,’ ” Gage said. “So the county has to do what voters told them to do in 1978, and that is to cut and trim and to live within your means, just as every other private industry has to do.”

Gage said he believes the county can find other ways to make up for budget shortfalls without cutting police or fire services.

“No one’s going to cut fire and police,” he said. “There is so much fluff they can cut without doing that.”

Supervisor John Flynn said the demonstrations probably did more harm than good.

“Protesting is divisive,” he said. “All it does is pit the county against the state. We have to work together.”

To make up for the budget shortfall, Flynn said, the Board of Supervisors should approve an across-the-board pay cut and reduction in fringe benefits for top managers, as he and Supervisor Maria VanderKolk proposed last month. The board’s budget committee has rejected the proposal.

Flynn said he opposes the board’s decision to try to withhold property tax revenue from the state. Other counties, including Santa Barbara, are taking similar stands, even though state officials say that such action is illegal.