2 Cities’ Tug of War Grows : Revenues: Economic concerns intensify discord between Oxnard and Ventura, which vie for development.

Imperfect though their city may be, many Venturans say there is one boast they can always make: Compared to Oxnard, that citadel of crime and chain stores, Ventura exudes beauty and charm.

“Ventura realizes we’ll never be as good as Santa Barbara,” said Ted Temple, an architect and Ventura planning commissioner. “But as long as we’re better than Oxnard, we’ll be OK.”

Across the Santa Clara River, however, a new confidence has emerged among Oxnard’s citizens, sparked by steady business successes and resurgent civic pride: The city with the ugly name has caught up to its arrogant neighbor, and residents say Ventura had better worry about the future.

“We have always been accused of being out of step with other parts of the county, marching to the beat of a different drummer,” said Oxnard Councilman Andres Herrera. “But now it turns out that (Ventura) is marching with us. It’s the same drummer. We heard the beat a long time before them.”

The rivalry between Oxnard and Ventura is intensifying, as dwindling funds, growing urban ills and the rise of eastern Ventura County have pitted the two cities against each other in a tug of war over money, prestige and political pull.

Though for years Ventura was content to rest on its standing as county seat and quaint mission town, rejecting a state university campus and other projects likely to result in growth, Oxnard developed from a small agricultural community into the business force of the west county.

Now a sense of urgency is striking Ventura’s business community, which reluctantly acknowledges that the city is losing ground to Oxnard economically.

“It appears that Oxnard’s become much more aggressive than Ventura in attracting new businesses,” said Ed Warren, director of the Ventura Chamber of Commerce, which discussed Oxnard’s surge during a recent retreat. “Everybody’s concerned about the image and the competitiveness.”

After Proposition 13, sales taxes became a critical source of money for cities, which could no longer rely on property taxes to balance their budgets. Consequently, the bidding for retailers among neighbors such as Ventura and Oxnard became more cutthroat than ever.

Ventura’s sales tax revenues, which peaked in 1990 at $14.3 million, have leveled off at $12.7 million the last two years. Meanwhile, Oxnard’s sales tax income has steadily increased from $11.6 million in 1990 to $11.9 million last year, and with its new factory outlet mall, the city is poised to best Ventura for the first time in their competition over retail dollars.

Oxnard is Ventura County’s largest city, with 152,000 residents, compared to 97,000 in Ventura, and Oxnard continues to grow at a rapid rate. Since 1984, 2,953 residences were built in Oxnard--compared with Ventura’s 2,325--and that included many high-priced homes.

Oxnard has also been the site of more commercial and industrial development, with 488 buildings constructed there the past 10 years, contrasted with 336 in Ventura. And Oxnard still has ample room to grow within its 24-square-mile boundary, while Ventura’s 20.8 square miles is largely developed.

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Despite those advances by Oxnard, Venturans argue that their city has maintained a better quality of life, with a wealthier, more educated population, higher property values and a lower crime rate.

Per capita income in Ventura is $19,091, compared to $12,096 in Oxnard, and only 6% of Ventura’s dwellings are classified as overcrowded, while 25% of Oxnard housing--more than double the state average--is too crowded, according to 1990 census figures. And the average price for a home in Ventura was $211,727 in 1994--about $16,500 more than the Oxnard figure of $195,230.

The 1994 crime statistics for Oxnard are still unavailable, but in 1993, Ventura reported 396 violent crimes, compared to 1,446 in Oxnard--which accounted for 46% of the county total.

Ventura leaders say they are taking the high road, refusing to compromise their city’s image as a charming seaside community in pursuit of a few fleeting bucks. Oxnard, they say, has grown recklessly and faces a future of financial hardship.

“Ventura has determined that its future is not in strip malls,” said Ventura Councilman Gregory L. Carson. “We don’t have the land that Oxnard has available to build those square blocks with seas of asphalt around them.”

Oxnard leaders say Ventura simply is jealous of their city’s recent accomplishments.

“They were trying to build that asphalt in Ventura,” said former Oxnard Councilman Michael A. Plisky, now serving on the Oxnard Harbor District’s board of commissioners. “A lot of that is just plain old envy. We have built a good base. I don’t think we’ve gone helter-skelter. I don’t think we’re growing out of control.”

The rivalry between Oxnard and Ventura originated around the turn of the century, historians say.

San Buenaventura, the ninth of 21 Franciscan missions founded in California, had a colorful 115-year history by 1897, when the Oxnard brothers began building a sugar beet factory in the fertile plains between Ventura and Port Hueneme.

By the time it was incorporated in 1866, Ventura had grown from a remote mission community to a vibrant little town. And, after city leaders battled Santa Barbara County for independence, Ventura became the seat of the newly formed Ventura County in 1873. When the Southern Pacific railroad built a line through Santa Barbara and Ventura in 1887, Ventura boomed with possibility.

But the Oxnard brothers’ sugar factory was an ambitious undertaking, attracting hundreds of immigrant workers from throughout the state, and a boom town popped up around the site seemingly overnight. Dozens of Ventura and Port Hueneme merchants moved their shops to “Sugar Town,” including Achille Levy and his bank--much to the dismay of many Ventura residents, who felt threatened by the new community, newspapers reported at the time.

The names La Colonia, Anacapa and Bayard were among those considered and discarded, and the city was named Oxnard when it was incorporated in 1903.

The new city--the site of frequent shootouts, lawless saloons, gambling dens and brothels--quickly developed an unsavory reputation as the county’s cradle of sin.

But it was not until a group of Oxnard leaders tried to wrest the county seat from Ventura in 1910 that tensions between the cities truly flared. The plan was scrapped after proponents realized they lacked county support, but Ventura residents were furious, and the rivalry sizzled, newspapers reported.

In the 1920s, Ventura realized it was sitting on one of the richest oil deposits in California, and residents’ worries about Oxnard and its economy quickly dissipated.

Good jobs were abundant in the oil fields of Ventura Avenue, and thousands of workers flocked to the city by the sea. Oil became the foundation of Ventura’s economy for decades, and Oxnard, with its agricultural base, could not match Ventura’s middle-class standard of living.

“Growing up, people from Ventura felt they were more worldly, and Oxnard was the muscle town, the blue-collar place,” said Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez, 67. “They felt we were some kind of cultural backwater.”

The demographic difference between the cities--Ventura is more than three-fourths white, Oxnard more than half Latino--sometimes surfaces in an undercurrent of bigotry or fear.

“I don’t feel safe (in Oxnard) with all the minorities,” said a Ventura woman who identified herself only as Betty. “I have friends who are Mexican--they are nice people. But these young Mexican kids in Oxnard are always into trouble.”

Richard Parsons, general manager of the Ventura Port District, said some older Ventura citizens used to speak about Oxnard as if it were another country.

“I gather from talking to old-timers that going to Oxnard was like going to Tijuana,” Parsons said. “It was dangerous, a different type of people.”

The prejudice comes from within Oxnard as well. When the city’s visitors bureau held a contest asking citizens to rename their hometown in 1988, one person suggested “Ghetto by the Sea.” Another took a verbal shot at the city’s Latino population.

The longest-running source of rivalry between Ventura and Oxnard--the economic jostling--waxes and wanes with changing city councils but never disappears, according to current and former leaders from both cities.

Indeed, the rivalry has been on the rise since the late 1980s when Oxnard began moving forward with plans for the Oxnard Town Center--a $500-million complex including high-rise office buildings, a cultural arts center, restaurants and a regional mall.

The 265-acre project--next to the Santa Clara River and north of the Ventura Freeway--was envisioned by the developer as the largest commercial development in Ventura County.

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Instead, it became a fiasco for Oxnard in 1991 when the developer stopped making payments on a city-issued $14.8-million bond, left the property largely unfinished and fell into bankruptcy.

Oxnard leaders concede that the recession ultimately did in the Town Center, but they say that the project could have been completed by the time the economy soured if Ventura had not delayed it with a lawsuit. The suit alleged that the Town Center would harm Ventura by creating a constant traffic snarl on the freeway.

“We were trying to develop the Town Center,” Lopez said. “Then they sued us and that ruined everything. We could have shared sales tax.”

Former Ventura Councilman Richard Francis said he and other Ventura officials were only trying to ensure that Oxnard’s unbridled growth would not hurt their community.

“Ventura said, ‘Wait, you have to think about the impacts on our side of the river,’ ” Francis recalled. “Oxnard said, ‘No we don’t.’ ”

Today, it is the sprawling network of shopping centers and office parks skirting the freeway between Oxnard’s Rose and Rice avenues--dubbed “Sales Tax Canyon” by urban planner William Fulton--that is sparking the most rancor.

“A lot of people moved to this area because they wanted to leave the San Fernando Valley, just cars and concrete,” said Cheryl Brandt, a Ventura environmental activist. “To me, Oxnard is just a bunch of shopping centers.”

Oxnard, which had room to grow along the freeway, hired an economic development director in 1983 and began aggressively courting retail businesses.

With the exception of a movie-theater and shopping center development along Johnson Drive, Ventura had little room to grow along the freeway after building strips of office parks in the early 1980s.

Gripped by a slow-growth fever, in 1990 the city even turned down the chance to build a Cal State University campus on the west end.

This anti-development approach was heavily influenced by the city’s water moratorium of 1990-93, according to then-Ventura Councilman Todd Collart.

“The very first thing I was confronted with . . . was, ‘Hey, we’re out of water,’ ” Collart said. “That was the killer right there.”

Oxnard, connected to the more bounteous Calleguas Water District, had no such problems. Consequently, when retailers such as the Price Club looked to build in west Ventura County during the late 1980s and early 1990s, they almost invariably settled on Oxnard.

With real estate tycoon Martin V. (Bud) Smith’s two high-rise towers and the Esplanade Mall already lining the freeway, the Oxnard corridor became a booming business sector.

Then in 1992, Wal-Mart--a sales tax cash cow--came to west Ventura County and began negotiating with Oxnard. Tensions between Ventura and Oxnard flared as Ventura’s business community worried that Oxnard was about to score a critical coup.

Days before Oxnard was to ink a deal with the mammoth discounter for Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores, Carson--then Ventura’s mayor--wrote to Wal-Mart attempting to lure the store to his city.

Oxnard officials say they were surprised but not threatened by the letter.

“It was no big deal because any reasonable businessman would have laughed that off,” Plisky said. “This was an act of stupidity on their part, and we ignored it. We heard about the letter, in fact, because we received a copy from (Wal-Mart). . . . It made them look foolish.”

Carson said he wrote the letter at the request of another council member, adding that he and other city leaders were not even sure they wanted a Wal-Mart.

Four years later, however, Ventura Mayor Tom Buford says he is enthusiastic about a developer’s plan to bring a Wal-Mart to eastern Ventura.

Developers also have filed applications to open a Wal-Mart-size version of K mart on Victoria Avenue, much to the delight of city officials. And Ventura has decided to hire an economic development director to court businesses.

Steven Kinney, who heads Oxnard’s Economic Development Corporation, said he is not concerned.

“Before Wal-Mart came in, we were talking to Super K,” Kinney said. “But once we realized we would have Wal-Mart, we didn’t care about Super K. We’re generous. We can share the wealth with them.”

Critics of Oxnard say the city’s generosity with developers--who have been given substantial tax breaks to build shopping centers in Oxnard--has been foolish and shortsighted.

To lure Wal-Mart, the Oxnard City Council agreed to refund $2.4 million in sales tax to the retailer--money many residents say should have gone to improving the roads around the Shopping at the Rose center.

And to ensure that the Oxnard Factory Outlet would open before a rival discount center in Camarillo, city officials allowed the mall’s builder to postpone paying its development fees for five years.

A growing number of former Oxnard leaders and residents are voicing concerns about the city’s growth policies.

“Development is the current Holy Grail of city government in Oxnard,” said Robert Cote, a former aide to Supervisor John K. Flynn who lives in the city. “But their approach is like a pyramid scheme: With every development, more development is needed to pay for what the first developer should have paid. They are either going to get off and running or fall flat on their face.”

Oxnard officials argue that such incentives may hurt the city initially but will pay off later, when the increasingly coveted sales-tax dollars start pouring in.

However, the stretch of the Ventura Freeway that passes through Oxnard is already overwhelmed with traffic, as intersections built for lemon and strawberry trucks are being overloaded with an ever-swelling number of shopping center customers.

Rebuilding the freeway connectors at Oxnard Boulevard and Rose and Rice avenues, along with widening the Santa Clara River bridge, a perennial bottleneck, is expected to cost more than $100 million. But Caltrans--which will share the costs of the improvements with Ventura and Oxnard--has delayed the project until at least 1999 because seismic retrofitting work has become its top priority since the Northridge earthquake.

Ventura leaders say their cautious approach may not yield much short-term growth, but will keep the city from falling into a long-term financial crisis. Furthermore, city officials say, Ventura has maintained its reputation as a pleasant place to live.

“If you look at Oxnard 10 to 15 years from now, they’ll have this shopping mecca, but they’ll also have lots of traffic, people coming in and out,” said Terry Adelman, Ventura’s director of management resources. “You’ll want to shop there, but you won’t want to live there.”

John McWherter, who served on the Ventura City Council from 1987 to 1991, said Ventura leaders never thought they had to give retailers and developers any breaks to move to the city: Ventura’s reputation was enough.

“The council was not in favor of bribing any businesses to come to Ventura,” McWherter said. “We felt that the city spoke for itself.”

But such attitudes, dealers at the Ventura Auto Center say, have them ready to defect to Oxnard. Despite making up 9% of Ventura’s sales tax revenue, the car dealers say they are taken for granted, and they complain bitterly that the infamous Johnson Drive off-ramp leading to the auto mall has yet to be improved.

“Other cities want businesses,” said Frank Kirby, who owns several dealerships at the auto center. “It seems like Ventura doesn’t. You want to remodel--anything--they’ll have fees. . . . To get something done in Oxnard, it’s one-tenth the price.”

Kirby said he has spoken to Oxnard officials and is considering a move to the highly successful Oxnard Auto Mall. One former Ventura dealer, Vreeland Cadillac, has already moved to Oxnard.

Jack Weber, who owns six car dealerships in Ventura and Oxnard, said Oxnard is the better place to do business. Ventura charged him exorbitant fees to build his showroom, he said; Oxnard helped him purchase land and shared sales tax with the dealers to build roads around the area.

The most recent Ventura-Oxnard rivalry--the duel for survival between Oxnard’s Esplanade and Ventura’s Buenaventura malls--is set to boil over as both cities work on expensive projects to transform their outmoded facilities, vying to become home to the west county’s top shopping center.

“It’s a war out there,” Oxnard Councilman Tom Holden said.

Homart Development, one of the largest mall builders in the country, recently bought a majority interest in the Esplanade. Homart has unveiled plans to expand and modernize the shopping center by adding a second story and one or two department stores.

Oxnard leaders say they are thrilled with the proposal--which may involve a multimillion-dollar city contribution for a parking garage--and construction could start as early as this summer.

In Ventura, city officials have been working for months with the Buenaventura Mall’s owners to convert the shopping center into a regional attraction--also by adding more department stores and finishing the mall’s second floor.

But negotiations have been difficult, and Ventura officials concede that the renovation, which would take millions of dollars in city subsidies, may never happen.

“This deal may not be workable,” Adelman said. “Maybe this (owner) is the wrong party. Maybe they have too much invested. It’s up in the air.”

Ventura city leaders say their most promising hope for the 1990s--the plan that will set Ventura apart from Oxnard and every other Ventura County city--is the revitalization of its downtown.

Five years ago, the city launched plans to renovate its old business hub with cute shops, trendy restaurants and affordable, attractive housing.

But that vision failed to materialize, and other than a new state appellate court building, some sidewalks, palm trees and a spate of small coffeehouses, little happened in downtown Ventura until December.

That is when two developers proposed constructing a multiple-screen theater downtown, surrounded by a cluster of shops and restaurants, on the condition that the city spring for a $6-million parking garage.

Ventura officials say this--along with renovation of California Street designed to give it a new look and tie the downtown more closely to the ocean--may be the boost that spurs a renaissance in their picturesque downtown. In any case, Ventura officials say, their downtown is already superior to anything in Oxnard.

“We have a little more historic significance and . . . there’s the hillside and the ocean,” Carson said. “We have more of a sense of place.”

Meanwhile, Oxnard leaders say their downtown is also on the verge of a major resurgence--spurred by a plan to build a movie theater in the city’s core.

But while Oxnard and Ventura were fighting to become Ventura County’s top city, the east county in many ways eclipsed the west county, maturing into a populous, politically savvy network of wealthy bedroom communities with good schools and little crime.

Once virtually ignored by west county politicians, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley and Moorpark now demand an equal share of public services and are formidable adversaries in the competition to lure businesses.

With that in mind, Oxnard’s mayor is among those who say the tussle between the two biggest cities in the west county seems misplaced.

“I think that the natural alliances are gone and Ventura and Oxnard have to band together,” Lopez said. “What is good for Ventura is probably good for Oxnard. . . .I think the rivalry now will be the east county and the west county.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Voting Breakdown

Registered voters Democrat GOP Other Oxnard 52,198 28,278 16,067 7,583

Oxnard has 15% of county’s registered voters and 21% of its population.

Registered voters Democrat GOP Other Ventura 59,270 27,722 23,403 8,145

Ventura has 17% of county’s registered voters and 14% of its population.

Registered voters Democrat GOP Other County 351,921 144,791 155,468 51,662

Source: Ventura County elections office

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Sales Tax Revenue

Ventura Oxnard 1994 $12,767,690 $11,945,742 1993 $12,753,547 $11,321,343 1992 $12,932,188 $11,742,153 1991 $14,138,760 $11,680,301 1990 $14,275,920 $11,633,308 1989 $13,802,764 $9,993,192 1988 $12,403,017 $9,786,578 1987 $11,348,452 $8,877,338 1986 $10,514,174 $8,128,706 1985 $9,769,894 $7,738,226

Source: State Board of Equalization

City Rivalry

For nearly a century, Oxnard and Ventura have eyed each other warily across the span of the Santa Clara River. Even while the cities strive to keep their communities livable, they continue to compete for economic dominance of the west county.

VENTURA

“Ventura-by-the-Sea”

FOUNDING FATHER: Father Junipero Serra, who founded Mission San Buenaventura in 1782

BIGGEST ATTRACTION: Beaches

Ventura Profile

POPULATION (1994): 97,000

RACIAL PROFILE

* 1980

Anglo: 83%

Latino: 12%

Other: 2.5%

Asian: 1.5%

Black: 1%

* 1990

Anglo: 77%

Latino: 18%

Asian: 3%

Black: 2%

AREA

20.8 square miles

WORK FORCE

Per Capita Income: $19,091

% Below Poverty Level: 6.6%

% High School Graduates: 84.1%

% College Graduates: 24.6%

% Managers & Professionals: 32.0%

% Workers in Agriculture: 2.1%

% Workers in Manufacturing: 11.2%

% Workers in Retail: 16.4%

HOUSING

People Per Dwelling: 2.55

% Crowded Dwellings: 6.1%

Average Home Price (1994): $211,727

CRIME (1993)

Homicides: 10

Forcible Rapes: 30

Robberies: 139

Aggravated Assaults: 217

Burglaries: 1,274

Auto Thefts: 402

Thefts: 2,999

Arsons: 58

Total: 5,129

Crimes Per 1,000 Residents: 53.4

BUILDING PERMITS (1994)

(see paper for chart)

OXNARD

“More than just a pretty name”

FOUNDING FATHER: Oxnard brothers, who founded the American Sugar Beet Factory in 1897

BIGGEST ATTRACTION: Channel Islands Harbor

Oxnard Profile

POPULATION (1994): 152,000

RACIAL PROFILE

* 1980

Latino: 44%

Anglo: 43%

Asian: 6%

Black: 6%

Other: 1%

* 1990

Latino: 54%

Anglo: 32%

Asian: 8%

Black: 5%

Other: 1%

AREA

24 square miles

WORK FORCE

Per Capita Income: $12,096

% Below Poverty Level: 12.5%

% High School Graduates: 61.3%

% College Graduates: 13.0%

% Managers & Professionals: 18.2%

% Workers in Agriculture: 12.2%

% Workers in Manufacturing: 16.8%

% Workers in Retail: 14.8%

HOUSING

People Per Dwelling: 3.56

% Crowded Dwellings: 25%

Average Home Price (1994): $195,230

CRIME (1993)

Homicides: 19

Forcible Rapes: 55

Robberies: 464

Aggravated Assaults: 908

Burglaries: 1,615

Auto Thefts: 1,148

Thefts: 4,425

Arsons: 56

Total: 8,690

Crimes Per 1,000 Residents: 58.1

BUILDING PERMITS (1994)

(see paper for chart)

Source: U.S. Census, cities of Oxnard and Ventura