VENTURA : City May Increase Fees to Dredge Keys

Owners of waterfront homes in the Ventura Keys may have to pay more this year for the city to dredge their back-yard canals under a proposal going before the Ventura City Council today.

The proposal would raise the annual assessment to $2,000, a $300 increase over the 1993-94 assessment.

In past years, notice of a fee increase has drawn many irate Keys residents to City Hall, where they have berated council members for considering raising their payments.

Some Keys residents plan to oppose the fee hike today, but they say a pending lawsuit settlement may negate the fee increase.

Under terms of the settlement, stemming from a lawsuit filed by nearly one-third of the 300 homeowners in the assessment district, Keys residents would pay $685 for last year and $749 for this year’s dredging assessments, with an increase of no more than $64 per year after that.

Harvey Wilson, co-chairman of Save the Keys, a neighborhood coalition active in the settlement negotiations, said he plans to attend the council meeting despite the impending settlement. He said he will protest specifics in the engineer’s report that calls for the fee hike.

“We have to pay (our assessments) until those negotiations are completed,” he said.

The report states that the fees should increase to pay for repairs to the walls of the channels, future dredging costs, and the possible installation of a plastic liner at the site where the city dumps silt dredged from the channels.

Don Adams, a local attorney and Keys homeowner with a lawsuit of his own lodged against the city, said he too will attend the hearing.

Adams said his lawsuit would push the city not just to lower assessments, but to clean up a barranca that feeds into the Keys. Adams alleges illegal dumping in the barranca causes the buildup of silt and other debris in the Keys.