City Tourism Campaign Stirs Debate : Oxnard: After a series of complaints, officials agree to include minorities in brochures aimed at attracting more visitors.

Slick brochures aimed at luring tourists to Oxnard will be changed to include Latinos, blacks and Asians, who make up nearly two-thirds of the city’s population, officials said Monday.

Directors of the Greater Oxnard & Harbors Tourism Bureau said they would add minorities to the next phase of their marketing campaign, a promotion begun this past spring to attract Los Angeles and Southern California tourists to the city.

Nearly 30,000 informational brochures and a television spot broadcast 4,200 times in Kern and Los Angeles counties feature about 10 white models lounging on a beach, playing golf, lolling on rafts in a swimming pool or enjoying other activities. The television ads are scheduled to stop running on Sunday.

Representatives of the local chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and the Ventura County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce complained that minorities were excluded from the $135,000 promotion, which was paid for with city bed-tax dollars.

“When we have (almost) 58% of the community, we should be taken into consideration,” said Ray Rios, executive director of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

He said many chamber members were stunned when they saw the publicity brochures.

“It was a trying moment,” Rios said. “We were very concerned, not only for our (Latino) community, but also because we represent a lot of the businesses that support the tourism board.”

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In addition to bed tax dollars, the tourism board relies on business contributions and volunteers.

About 55% of the Oxnard population is Latino, another 8% is Asian and about 5% is black, according to the 1990 U.S. Census. Whites make up less than one-third of Oxnard residents, the census said.

Carol Lavender, the tourism board executive director, said she was looking forward to working with minority representatives on the next shoot. But she said the campaign has always been aimed at promoting Oxnard, not at publicizing or hiding its ethnic makeup.

“The destination is not the color of someone’s skin,” Lavender said. “It’s the amenities, the beaches, the harbor. We’re marketing Oxnard to Southern California.”

The ad executive who drew up the campaign, called “Upcoast,” said the issue never came up in discussions with the tourism board.

“There was never any intent to exclude anyone from this campaign,” said James Graca, who owns the Ventura advertising agency that produced the video and brochures.

Nonetheless, Graca and tourism board officials pledged to re-shoot some of the photographs in the brochure to include blacks and Latinos, a move praised by minority community leaders who attended a Monday news conference announcing the changes.

“I wasn’t coming in to raise hell if they are going to do something about it,” said John R. Hatcher III, president of the Ventura County NAACP chapter. “We’re here to talk about a resolution, not the problem.”

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Graca said there is no money to produce or air new television commercials. But a second printing of brochures, scheduled for later this month, can be changed to include minorities at no extra cost to the tourism board, he said.

The new brochures will feature minority children outside the Gull Wings Children’s Museum and a quartet of minority golfers at the River Ridge Golf Course, Graca said. Callers can receive the pamphlet by calling 1-800-2-OXNARD.

Graca said a variety of factors contributed to his decision not to use minority models, including a tight shooting schedule and the availability of talent. He said he intentionally selected a deeply tanned white male model to blur the man’s race.

“I took people that were very dark-skinned, tanned, so there would be an allure of ethnicity,” he said. “I don’t know how anyone could have known that these people weren’t Hispanic.”

Sergio Sanchez, a member of the tourism board who is president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said the lack of minorities in the original promotions did not bother him “because of the positive image I got from the video.”

“We all want to go ahead and bring in that revenue to the city,” Sanchez said. “We need to promote business.”