MOORPARK : City Rejects Hiring Plan for Cleanup

The Moorpark City Council is refusing to hire Environmental Coalition members with the proceeds of a state grant jointly awarded to the city and coalition.

At last week’s council meeting, some council members said they were surprised to learn that the city was planning to hire seven members of the coalition’s local branch to perform some of the work aimed at cleaning up a six-mile strip of the Arroyo Simi flood-control channel.

Coalition members said they would have donated most of their time spent on the project and had only planned to accept minimal payment. But some council members said they never realized the community activists were seeking any financial reward.

“What happened here is we went down the line and somebody forgot to get back to the policy-makers to verify that the decisions made by staff were what the policy-makers wanted to do,” Councilman Scott Montgomery said. “I’m kind of upset.”

Mayor Paul Lawrason said he also was dismayed to learn recently that nearly all of the paid positions outlined in the $64,000 grant were slated to go to coalition members.

“I’m still somewhat disturbed by how the process went,” Lawrason said. “I really don’t recall it being clarified that there would be so much involvement of the Environmental Coalition folks in regard to the paid positions.”

The council instructed staff members to draft a contract between the city and the coalition outlining each agency’s responsibilities under the grant. The council said any individual agreements under which coalition members would be paid for their work should be between the members and the nonprofit organization.