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Valuable Center

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This is in response to K. L. Greenstreet’s letter of April 19 on the subject of the controversial Port Hueneme RV park proposal. In that letter, the writer equated the Wright Cultural Center with the projected RV park as another Port Hueneme City Council plan to make money for the community.

The cultural center was never conceived as a money-making business operation. Quite the reverse is true.

The center came about in connection with the city’s determination, beginning some 20 years ago, to clean up and consolidate the several types of properties and to form an integrated plan to develop the neighborhood in ways in which the city and its residents could take pride.

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Since Port Hueneme already had a traditional community center, it was thought unwise to duplicate it, but rather to construct the excellent multipurpose center that exists today. The new center would not only provide cultural activities for everyone, but it would enhance the image of the city.

No statements or promises about the center’s potential to make money were ever made by the City Council. In fact, it was fully understood that not only could the center not be expected to show a profit, nor even break even, but, according to experience in other towns and places, it would have to be subsidized by the city. The council thought that the values of the center, many of them intangibles, certainly made the venture worth the risk.

No one who admires this splendid facility and the values it represents, and cares for its fate in the months and years to come, could possibly argue that the council was wrong. In the opinion of this writer, a theater is at least as important to a community as a church, a school or a hospital.

And, as bleak as things may appear at the present time, the Wright center does have the potential to pay for itself and to realize the great twin goals that the council (members) did envision when they planned its building.

MARY LLOYD EVANS

Port Hueneme

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I would like to address an issue with regard to the proposed Hueneme Beach RV Park. I walk regularly in front of Surfside II and III, and have noticed the inordinate number of unleashed and uncurbed dogs in the beach area designated for the RV park. Not only are the dog leavings unsightly and unsanitary, but dogs off their leashes are trouble waiting to happen. It is only a matter of time before one bites someone or mauls another dog.

I can understand the city taking a stand to leave this area unpatrolled in order to illustrate the abuse residents have heaped upon this undeveloped parcel. It makes the plan to erect a 143-space RV park look less nightmarish. However, by not attending to the unleashed animals (and their owners), the city is inviting a lawsuit when someone finally does get hurt. Let’s not let it get that far.

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I encourage the city to take responsibility for enforcing its leash law. As with many laws, when they are unenforced, people feel they can abuse them. How can the city expect to be able to police an additional 143 RV owners and their pets when they cannot confront the existing problem?

ELIZABETH S. ISNEC

Port Hueneme

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