City Council Votes to Kill Proposal for RV Resort : Port Hueneme: Two new members fulfill a campaign promise and join the mayor in opposing the plan.

Fulfilling campaign pledges, two new members of the Port Hueneme City Council turned the tide against a proposed recreational vehicle resort Wednesday and voted to kill the project.

In a 3-2 vote, the council directed city staff to submit a letter immediately to the California Coastal Commission, asking the agency to cancel the city’s request for a permit to build the 139-space park on a 10-acre beachfront site.

“I think it’s time we put this project to rest,” newly elected Councilman Robert Turner said. “I’m committed to what I campaigned for and to the constituency that elected me.”

Wednesday’s vote followed through on a promise that Turner and another new council member, Jon Sharkey, made during the fall campaign, when they swore to join with Mayor Toni Young to drop the project. Council members Anthony Volante and Orvene Carpenter supported the RV park.

The vote could end a bitter, five-year debate over the $2-million project that supporters said would add $400,000 a year to city coffers but which opponents feared would spoil the character of their community.

The project roused oceanfront homeowners into political action, drawing crowds to City Council meetings and generating a heated political campaign in which 14 council candidates lined up for or against the RV resort.

A week after November’s election, a lame-duck council voted 4 to 1 to seek the state commission’s final approval for the project. But with three new members seated this month--two of them firmly opposed to the RV park--the new council reversed last month’s decision.

Although city leaders agreed to send a letter to the Coastal Commission today asking that the proposal be withdrawn, the commission may not be able to take the matter off its January agenda, said Tom Figg, the city’s director of community development.

Last week, Figg informed the City Council that the commission, which must approve a coastal zone and grant the city a permit to build the park, had given the city until Dec. 22 to withdraw the matter.

Otherwise, the request would appear on the Coastal Commission’s agenda for its January meeting and would be expected to pass automatically.

On Wednesday, Commission Executive Director Peter Douglas said he has already put the item on the panel’s agenda for its January meeting in Los Angeles. Douglas said he was not aware of the Dec. 22 deadline.

“The item is on the commission’s agenda and the commissioners have to act on it,” Douglas said. “I’m not in a position to undo what I’ve already done. I have no choice. It seems to me though, if the city reverses the action of the previous City Council, the commission may agree with them, but that has to happen in our January meeting.”

Mayor Young said she was shocked with the commission’s decision and that she, City Manager Richard Velthoen and possibly other council members will address the commission during its January meeting.

Young also said she believes that former Councilman Dorill Wright, who was a strong supporter of the project and is a member of the Coastal Commission, asked Douglas to add the item before Dec. 22.

“I’m disappointed with the way things have gone,” Young said. “And I have been informed (by Coastal Commission staff) that Dorill Wright convinced Douglas to put the item on the agenda. His goal is that the project is approved before he leaves the commission.”

Wright denied asking Douglas to put the matter on the agenda.

“I did not request Mr. Douglas to put that item on the agenda,” Wright said. “He simply followed the normal process.”

Wright left the council earlier this month after choosing not to run for reelection.