VENTURA : School May Move for Street Reopening

Hoping to pressure the Ventura Unified School District to reopen a section of Poli Street, a Ventura City Councilman has called for school officials to consider moving Ventura High School.

Councilman Jim Monahan will raise the issue of moving the school at a meeting of the council’s transportation committee Friday.

But Monahan said Tuesday that he has no real interest in relocating Ventura High School, which has been at the same spot on Main Street since the 1920s.

“I don’t think it’s wise to move the high school,” the councilman said. “In fact, I don’t support that at all.”

Rather, he said, he wanted to show that the school district was insincere when it agreed in April to consider moving the school to reopen Poli Street.

The City Council first decided to barricade the four-block section of Poli Street that intersects the campus between Catalina Street and Seaward Avenue in February, 1993, closing the street during school hours to traffic.

Although school officials say the closure boosts security and reduces traffic noise on campus, residents in the hillside neighborhood behind Ventura High have complained that the barricades would create a safety hazard in the event of a fire or other emergency in the area.

In April, the City Council accepted the recommendation of a committee of residents and public officials to keep Poli Street closed indefinitely.

But the committee also said that the best long-term solution was to build a new school to replace Ventura High School, a move that would cost tens of millions of dollars.

Monahan said the committee, which included some school officials, was not serious about the proposal to move the school but wanted only to delay any decisions to reopen Poli Street.

School board member Velma Lomax, who served on the committee, disagreed. She said the panel proposed relocating Ventura High as a long-term solution that would take at least seven years to complete.