Moorpark Will Consider Pool Roads High on Its Priority List : Planning: In an annual review of objectives, the City Council will discuss a 24-page report on goals and pressing challenges.

In the coming year, the city of Moorpark should develop a downtown park, rehabilitate High Street and study the feasibility of building a municipal pool, according to a list of goals to be discussed by the City Council tonight.

As part of its annual review of priorities and objectives, the council will consider a 24-page report compiled by city staff to identify the most pressing challenges facing the city.

The report also calls for a study on how the city could charge developers for road improvements and whether Moorpark should staff its own building and safety and engineering departments instead of continuing to contract out for those services.

“It just gets everybody thinking,” Councilman John Wozniak said Tuesday of the annual review. “It really gives everybody an opportunity to hear what the other council members’ primary concerns are. I think it’s a benefit to all of us.”

Other items given high priority on the staff-generated list are helping the U.S. Postal Service relocate the city post office from Los Angeles Avenue to a spot closer to the heart of historic downtown, and continue to improve the city’s customer service.

The council will discuss its priorities at its meeting tonight beginning at 7 in City Hall, 799 Moorpark Ave.

Like his fellow council members, Wozniak ranked the downtown park and High Street improvements near the top of his wish list but also said the city should try to find a more innovative way to pay for a municipal pool than simply writing a check.

The councilman suggested a possible partnership with the Moorpark Unified School District, or using fund-raising activities for a more fiscally conservative way to add an amenity that he said the community needs.

“I think what it does as far as the kids are concerned is it gives them something to do within the city rather than just hanging around and maybe getting into some trouble,” Wozniak said. “It gives them a place to go, a focal point.”

Councilman Pat Hunter said he was pleased that the council recently agreed to hire an additional detective sergeant under its contract with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

Public safety will remain one of Hunter’s highest priorities in the coming year, he said, as will seeing some of the long-planned improvements to the city’s historic High Street area come to fruition.

Hunter said he and Councilman Bernardo Perez will bring a recommendation to the full council Aug. 2 to begin the High Street renovation by purchasing matching benches, trash receptacles and planters to line the street.

The models he and Perez have chosen appear to be cast iron and wood but are actually made from recycled aluminum and plastic and should be in place in time for the city’s annual Country Days celebration in October.

For his part, Perez said that he will look for increased affordable housing opportunities and the possible implementation of a first-time home-buyer program through the city’s newly activated Redevelopment Agency.

Perez also said that the council should again study the feasibility of taking over control of the city’s waterworks district, which is operated by the county. The city has studied that option before but has never found it feasible.

Mayor Paul Lawrason said the city should push to install a citywide traffic mitigation fee program that would charge developers for road improvements.

“That’s extremely important,” Lawrason said. “Because that will pull all of the required circulation improvements together and summarize them and put dollar values on them, so that as we begin to build out the city we can begin to collect fees to support those improvements.”

Councilman Scott Montgomery said one of his top priorities is an overhaul of city financing methods to foster more accountability from each city department, more closely tracking how much money is being spent and how spending corresponds with approved budgets.