RV Park Blues

I have been reading a number of articles about the city of Port Hueneme’s proposed RV park on Hueneme Beach. Also, there seems to be growing discontent about the performance of city leaders.

I came across an Economic Profile in the Los Angeles Times that seems to possibly bear out some of Hueneme’s citizens’ beliefs:

The following are some of the statistics provided in this article:

In the past year in Ventura County, Camarillo had the lowest population growth at 1.1%, with Santa Paula having the highest rate at 3.4%. Hueneme had 2.9% growth. Keeping in mind the median home prices in the period of January and February, 1994, had Camarillo enjoying the largest value of increase by 20.3% versus Port Hueneme having the largest loss of value, dropping 19.8% in the same time period. The housing vacancy rate was the highest in Port Hueneme in that same period at 10.3%, while Simi Valley enjoyed the lowest at 3.1%. In the critical tax base area of retail sales, Port Hueneme was down 6.7% from one year ago.

Our city manager and council should look at these performance profiles as a pretty dismal record. No wonder they want residents to pay special taxes for police, park, beach, etc.

Come Nov. 7, throw the bums out.

EDWARD B. BORDEN

Port Hueneme

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I give credit for the upgrading and revitalization of Port Hueneme to the people who paid top dollar for their primary or secondary homes in this now-beautiful beach area and who have continued to maintain and make quality improvements to their homes as well as to the public areas.

These same people are paying large property taxes, probably more than the average Port Hueneme homeowner who is not in the so-called “beach area.” These beach residents are also paying their share or more of the other taxes (schools, Fire Department, police and sales). This in turn has fed the local economy and helped build the lovely parks and the eye-appealing municipal and commercial buildings.

It now appears that Dick Velthoen has decided that he wants an RV park on the beach whether or not the citizens of Port Hueneme agree with him. We think that it is time for our city manager to either listen to us owners and residents or move on to some other city willing to pay him the obscenely inflated salary and perks that he now gets from Port Hueneme amounting to almost $200,000 per year.

PEGGY DOWELL

Port Hueneme