Port Hueneme Council Facing Tough Decisions : Budget: Panel’s options include closing the Police Department, cutting city services or raising taxes after voters narrowly rejected parcel tax.

With budget pressures mounting, the Port Hueneme City Council tonight faces the difficult choice either of shutting down the city’s Police Department, making deep cuts in other city services or raising taxes.

City staff has presented the council with an array of options since the city’s voters narrowly rejected a parcel tax that would have raised $500,000 the city needs to keep its 21-member police force.

The council can shut down the Police Department and arrange police protection from the county sheriff’s department or from the Oxnard Police Department. The council could also make widespread cuts in other city services or adopt a utility tax to cover the $500,000 shortfall.

In the past two weeks, council members have received more than 400 letters from residents urging them to save the Police Department.

“Our position is that the city hangs on until the economy turns around and we will have more money to support the department,” said Valorie Morrison, chairwoman of the Save Our Port Hueneme Police Department committee.

“Once the Police Department is gone, they are gone,” she said. “We can’t get them back.”

The move to adopt a utility tax came after a property tax measure aimed at preserving the city’s police department failed just short of the two-thirds voter majority in the June 7 election.

City Council members Dorill Wright and Toni Young said they may favor a utility tax because of strong support of residents to maintain an independent police force.

“A large majority of the people voted to keep their own Police Department and that is an indication of what residents want,” Wright said.

Young said she will do anything she can to keep the Police Department. “Although I am not convinced that the utility tax is the right answer,” she said, “I will do whatever it takes.”

Young said the city may have other options such as curtailing park maintenance until the economy turns around. “When the economy improves, so will the city’s finances,” Young said. “We may just have to sit and wait.”

But City Manager Richard Velthoen strongly opposed cutting back on maintenance and because public property allowed to deteriorate would cost the city more money in the long run.

“The only services cut that will not affect the enhancement of public property or public safety would be to reduce services or close the community center,” Velthoen said. “Everything else would just cause more problems.”

Velthoen suggested that one benefit of adopting a city utility tax could be persuading the Navy, the largest landowner in the city, to contribute to city revenues.

“There could be some arrangement made that the Navy would pay some utility tax,” Velthoen said. “But they would have to agree to it. I don’t think we have any power to tax federal property.”

If the city contracts with the sheriff’s department, some residents fear it would take longer for the deputies to respond to calls for help and that deputies wouldn’t bother with some of the friendly gestures of the city’s police force, Sgt. Ken Dobbe said.

Often, Dobbe said, Port Hueneme police officers arrive at accidents and fire scenes before the ambulances or the Fire Department. The officers also help residents when they are locked out of their cars and check on their houses when they go on vacation, Dobbe said.

In the past two weeks, the more than 100 residents who make up the Save Our Port Hueneme Police Department committee have mounted a public relations campaign to win support of the council.

With donations from local businesses and residents, they paid more than $300 to run ads in newspapers. One of the ads asked residents “to make the will of the people a reality” by cutting out a printed letter to the council, signing their names and mailing it to City Hall.

“We have been beating the bushes. Hopefully, people will pack the City Council chambers,” Morrison said. “We want to make it clear what we want.”

FYI

The Port Hueneme City Council will meet 7:30 p.m. today at City Hall, 250 N. Ventura Road. Residents will be allowed to speak on the fate of the city police force about 8 p.m.