Panel Backs Dropping Port Hueneme Beach Tax

A citizens advisory group has recommended that Port Hueneme drop its controversial beach maintenance district and instead make property owners across the city help maintain public beaches and parks.

Creation of a citywide assessment district could help mend a rift between the city and beachfront residents who charge that the maintenance fees amount to a view tax.

“Hopefully, we can now start the healing of the wounds that were created when the city formed the beach maintenance district,” said Dorothy Blake, who sued the city over the beach district and served on the advisory group.

In a report to be presented tonight to the Port Hueneme City Council, the Blue Ribbon Task Force will urge the city to merge the beach and park assessment districts and spread three-fourths of the cost across all the city’s residences.

The proposal would lower taxes of residents within the beach district by as much as $150 a year but increase taxes on other residents by roughly $18 a year.

“The consensus was that a single citywide district would be more equitable,” said Councilman Dorill B. Wright, chairman of the seven-member advisory group.

Under the terms of the proposed district, each of the city’s 7,100 residential properties would be assessed an annual tax of $54.77. Owners of property near four parks and the beach would be charged an additional tax ranging from $9.40 for neighbors of Bubbling Springs Park to $47.33 for residents near the beach.

With a combined base rate and proximity fee, the new district would closely resemble the existing park district that was approved last year.

Port Hueneme property owners now pay an annual tax of $36.78 to maintain the city’s parks, and an additional fee of between $9.28 and $13.66 depending on their proximity to the parks.

Last year, the city raised $300,000 from residents in the park district.

Since the council approved the beach maintenance district in 1991, coast-area owners have paid between $79 and $207 a year, depending on how close they live to the beach. Last year, the city raised $157,000 in revenues from beach district property owners.

Total revenue from the new district is designed to match the $457,500 the city now collects from the two separate districts.

Members of the task force, who were chosen to represent five neighborhoods in Port Hueneme, differed in their views of the city’s two assessment districts.

“The notion that the maintenance of a public beach that is an asset to the whole community should somehow be paid for by people living across the street is unfair,” Blake said. She and eight other beach residents have sued the city over creation of the beach district.

Blake’s viewpoint contrasts sharply with that of Penny Bohannon, a task force member who lives north of Channel Islands Boulevard.

“We don’t benefit that much from the beach,” said Bohannon, who added that her neighbors must pay a $4 parking fee when they visit the Port Hueneme beach. “We thought the Beach Maintenance Assessment District was fair.”

Bridging the two viewpoints was important, if not easy, participants agreed.

“There was not total agreement, but we all agreed that what we proposed we could all support,” said Councilwoman Toni Young, a critic of the beach assessment district who served on the task force. Young described the proposed district as “an 8 on a fairness scale from 1 to 10.”

Blake said the task force strived to reach a fair settlement.

“In reality, a 75-25 split is the best we could hope for,” Blake said. “In a democracy, compromise is what it’s all about.”