Residents Plead to Be Left Out of Oxnard Plan

More than 100 residents of Oxnard’s La Colonia barrio crowded City Hall on Tuesday to beg city officials to exclude them from a proposed redevelopment area they fear would expose them to bulldozing or higher taxes.

Speaker after speaker, many of them addressing the City Council in Spanish, made emotional pleas to be left out of a redevelopment district that would collect extra property taxes to help renovate blighted neighborhoods.

“The project purports to give us services which we as taxpayers are already paying to receive,” said La Colonia resident Patrick Barrios. “We did not ask for this project. It’s being imposed on us.”

After nearly two hours of similar comments, the council decided to move forward with the redevelopment district that could include much of the city, but would exclude La Colonia and the Cal-Gisler neighborhood in south Oxnard.

Only two council members actually voted for the plan because a majority of the council withdrew from the discussion on the advice of City Atty. Gary Gillig. Mayor Manuel M. Lopez and Councilmen Bedford Pinkard and Thomas E. Holden own property within the redevelopment district boundaries, and Gillig urged them to exclude themselves from the discussion and vote.

He said the state Fair Political Practices Commission had adopted provisions for such circumstances that allow just two members of an elected five-member board to approve a redevelopment project.

Specifically, Tuesday’s action instructs city staff to pursue the second phase of a redevelopment plan that was initially approved last December. During the second phase, staff and consultants can spend $227,000 to determine exactly what areas are blighted and come up with a list of potential redevelopment projects.

Most of the funding for this study will come from general fund reserves. But the city would also borrow $180,000 from the Ormond Beach Redevelopment Fund and repay its reserves with interest next year.

Redevelopment agencies generate extra tax revenue for cities by drawing a line on property taxes, then diverting what additional taxes are paid over future years when taxes rise because of increasing property values.

Community Development Director Richard Maggio said the proposed district could raise tens of millions of dollars over the next several decades to be used for various projects to give face-lifts to specific neighborhoods or business areas.

Agencies often borrow against the anticipated increase in property taxes and spend the money on renovations in blighted areas.

“It’s a funding tool which allows current improvements to be made with future tax revenues,” City Manager Thomas Frutchey told the council.

But many residents do not see it that way.

Eleanor Branthoover of the Rio Linda Neighborhood Council said the plan would create “another layer of debt we don’t need.” She also complained that residents never get a say in how the money is eventually spent.

Others criticized project consultant Vern Hazen, who was hired to sell the plan to neighborhood leaders after quitting as city manager late last year.

Hazen’s reports to the council that most of the 17 community groups approve of the plan are “inaccurate, incomplete and misleading,” said Alfred Zarate, who said he owns four lots in the La Colonia neighborhood.

But Councilmen Michael A. Plisky and Andres Herrera, the only two council members left to vote on the matter, agreed with Frutchey.

“It is a good tool for cities and governments to use in their planning processes,” Plisky said before suggesting La Colonia and Cal-Gisler neighborhoods be left out. “But if the community doesn’t want it, I don’t think we should force it on them.”