ELECTIONS CAMARILLO COUNCIL : Candidates Fired Up Over Airfield Use, Creek Course

The two most fiery issues to emerge in this year’s Camarillo City Council race are proposals whose ultimate fate may be out of the council’s hands.

A $10-million plan by a local developer to alter the course of Calleguas Creek and build an estimated 1,000 single- and multi-family houses, and a proposal to develop joint civilian and military use of the airfield at the Point Mugu Navy base have sparked the most interest among the six candidates seeking three seats in the Nov. 8 election.

Because both projects involve county, state and federal approval, incumbent candidates Charlotte Craven, Stanley J. Daily and Charles K. (Ken) Gose have warned that the City Council may have little say in deciding their outcome.

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Under the Calleguas Creek proposal, a one-mile stretch of the creek would be moved and made deeper by developer Pardee Construction Co. The company wants to build about 100 of the 1,000 houses on the former creek bottom.

Before the complicated project can go forward, however, Pardee must gain approval from the county Board of Supervisors and state and federal environmental agencies. The city has jurisdiction over only zoning, layout and architectural aesthetics of the subdivision.

The Point Mugu proposal, which recently was declared technically feasible by a citizen investigative committee, must be approved by the county Board of Supervisors before being formally presented to the U.S. Navy and the Department of Defense for consideration.

But the three City Council challengers, Richard L. Lundberg, Jackie W. Mathis and Robert P. Radnoti, have argued that the City Council needs to be more assertive in representing the views of its constituents, many of whom oppose both projects.

“Dodging the issue is easy to do,” said Mathis, a 42-year-old business executive and Air National Guard pilot who wants to bring a more businesslike approach to the city’s operations.

“What we need to do is to express the city’s opposition to this directly to the Board of Supervisors,” Mathis said. “We need to enlist the help of other cities to do this. Collectively, we could bring a change in their plans.”

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Likewise, Lundberg, 65, said that despite the position of the incumbents, the public can impact matters directly out of the control of the council.

“I’m very supportive of the idea of having strong neighborhood associations,” Lundberg said. “And if the public really cares (about Calleguas Creek) they’d better make some noise and let their views be known.”

But although the candidates differed on how much influence the council may have over the Calleguas Creek project, all six were united in their opposition to the proposed joint military and commercial use of the Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station. They say the plan will lead to increased noise, air pollution and safety problems for the city.

Only Mathis said he would consider the merits of the airport plan if flights over Camarillo could be prevented. If they cannot be avoided, he said, he will oppose the proposal.

The candidates also agreed that the city should fight to maintain the greenbelts and prime agricultural land that surround the city. And incumbents and challengers alike said the city should involve itself more in helping to provide better recreation for young residents.

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But, Craven, 50, said it is easy to fight against something if taking such a position is politically popular.

“Until you get on the council and you find out how things work and you start spending the kind of time necessary to study the issues, you don’t really know,” said Craven, a two-term council veteran. “Sometimes you are most effective when you know when to pull your punches.”

Radnoti, a 36-year-old quality control specialist, has been seen campaigning door-to-door in a pair of in-line skates. He says the council needs a member with expertise in technological fields.

“I like our council. I think they are fine, honorable people,” Radnoti said. “My candidacy, however, is about bringing some technical expertise to the dais. I know a lot of the stuff that the current council has to rely on staff or consultants to understand.”

Lundberg, a semi-retired missile systems engineer, last year joined in a successful lawsuit with an Oxnard businessman to block the city from providing tax rebates to the developers of a factory outlet mall. As a council member, he said, one of his major issues would be to decrease crime in Camarillo.

Citing a recent rash of violent crimes in the city, Lundberg said out-of-town criminals are finding easy prey in Camarillo because of its accessibility from the Ventura Freeway.

“We need to prevent these people from flying off the freeway and assaulting our citizens,” Lundberg said. “We need to increase patrols near the freeway on- and off-ramps.”

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Lundberg said Camarillo would be better served by its own police force than by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department because officers would have less area to patrol and response times could be decreased.

The incumbents, all of whom have campaigned on their records, said they are asking voters to examine their service to the city and then vote their minds accordingly.

Craven has been the city’s leading opponent of the proposed joint use of the Point Mugu Navy base airfield.

“I think we have something here to worry about,” Craven said. “They are projecting this facility to serve as many as 2.5 million people a year. I don’t want to see our town turn into another South Gate or Compton. We have to try and stop this thing.”

Craven also pointed to her role in helping to establish the city’s first anti-graffiti, skateboarding and smoking ordinances.

Daily, 59, who was mayor for five years and is seeking his fifth council term, said one of his primary concerns will be preservation of the greenbelt and prime agricultural land around the city of 56,000 residents.

“I’ll try to preserve that greenbelt until my last dying breath,” Daily said. “I think it’s an important part of our history and it’s an important symbol of our city’s agricultural heritage.”

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Also high on his agenda, Daily said, is finding stable sources of commercial tax revenue for the city--sources such as the $500,000 anticipated revenue from the factory outlet mall now under construction on Ventura Boulevard. And he said he supports the city’s recent efforts to lure businesses to Camarillo from elsewhere in Southern California.

Gose, who is completing his first term on the council and currently serves as the city’s mayor, is attempting to walk the city in a door-to-door campaign as he did when he was elected four years ago.

A 73-year-old former Navy intelligence officer and high school civics teacher, Gose often lectures his council colleagues using colorful and passionate speeches in support of constitutional and individual rights.

And he has often cast the lone opposing vote on issues such as increases in employee salaries, which he says should be in line with salaries for similar jobs in neighboring cities.

“I’m not afraid to vote alone and I’ve demonstrated that quite a few times,” Gose said. “It’s not that I like voting against the majority, it’s just that I feel you have to stand up for what you believe in.”