OXNARD : School District Asks Again for City Water

Seeking to overturn an earlier decision, the Oxnard Union High School District will ask a state planning agency next week to approve hooking up the new Oxnard High School campus to city water.

District officials will appear before the Local Agency Formation Commission at 9 a.m. Jan. 19 in the county government center in Ventura. They will ask commissioners to reverse their previous decision against annexing the new school site to the Calleguas Municipal Water District, which supplies water to the city of Oxnard.

The commission, a state-sponsored panel that regulates all changes in boundaries for cities and other agencies, voted 3 to 2 in November against the school district’s request to annex the new campus located near Patterson and Gonzales roads to Calleguas.

At the time, commissioners argued that the district’s decision to build the new school in the middle of agricultural fields flouted county efforts to preserve farmland.

Annexing the campus to the Calleguas water district would spur further development in that agricultural area, LAFCO officials said.

If LAFCO upholds its earlier decision against the annexation, Oxnard school officials plan to drill a well on the site to supply the school’s water, said Richard W. Canady, the district’s assistant business manager. Drilling the well would cost about $80,000, he said.

But school officials have said they would prefer to be annexed to Calleguas because that water comes from state reservoirs, a cleaner and more reliable source than wells.

The campus is slated to open this fall to replace Oxnard High School on Fifth Street.