District Loses Over $9,000 in Horse Sale

The Ventura County Community College District lost more than $9,000 after being forced to auction off 23 horses leftover from a defunct equine program, district records show.

Last month’s auction netted about $11,000. But the district spent more than $20,000 preparing for the sale, consulting lawyers and investigating the program’s former director.

And the costs are still piling up because officials plan to hold another public sale next month to dispose of four more horses owned by the college and discovered after the August auction was advertised.

Those horses are being boarded at Foxfield Riding Academy, the Thousand Oaks stable that bought the animals under a prior deal with Don Anderson, the equine program’s former director.

Under state law, surplus public property must be sold to the highest bidder.

Records show the district spent more than $7,800 to care for the animals until they were sold. Taxpayers also spent $1,825 advertising the auction and appraising the animals, and more than $7,400 in legal bills, Chancellor Thomas G. Lakin said.

The district also paid private investigator William Hansen more than $3,100 for a weeklong investigation into sales privately negotiated by Anderson, which were later voided by trustees.

Hansen’s probe resulted in a three-page report to officials concluding that Anderson broke no laws. But Trustee Karen Boone was not pleased with Hansen’s effort.

“There are some aspects of the report that do not go deep enough,” she said at Tuesday night’s board meeting. “I was disappointed.”

The Ventura County district attorney’s office dropped its investigation into the sales negotiated by Anderson after reading Hansen’s report.