Drive Launched to Reinstate Planning Panel

A coalition of former Oxnard politicians has begun a petition drive to reinstate the city’s Planning Commission, which was abolished in January by the Oxnard City Council despite widespread opposition from residents.

The group--which includes former Oxnard mayors, city clerks and planning commissioners--hopes to place the issue before the city’s voters in November. To do so, it must gather the signatures of at least 10% of Oxnard’s registered voters in the next six months.

Supporters of the drive say the decision to replace the commission with the Land Use Advisors was clearly made to allow more city business to be conducted behind closed doors.

Some land-use rulings formerly made by the Planning Commission will now be decided by one person--a city official serving as hearing officer on the Land Use Advisors--a move critics say will keep Oxnard citizens in the dark.

“We want more access, not less,” said drive organizer Jane Tolmach, a former Oxnard mayor.

“Most of those actions have an important effect on the residents,” Tolmach continued in a written statement. “Some can lower the value of our homes, decrease services, increase the enormous debt.”

The petition seeks to bring back the Planning Commission in its original all-resident, seven-member form. The City Council had reduced the commission from seven to five members last year before the panel was disbanded. The petition also seeks to reinstate the Planning Commission’s function as the environmental quality protection commission.

Tolmach, who filed the intent to circulate a petition with the Oxnard City Clerk’s office Tuesday, said she and other backers are confident their drive will succeed.

“A whole lot of people are in favor of this,” Tolmach said. “And they are all going to get out there and gather signatures.”

Tuesday night, meanwhile, the Oxnard City Council met with the Land Use Advisors to define the panel’s future duties and powers. The panel is made up of four residents appointed by the City Council, and Richard Maggio, Oxnard’s community development director, who was appointed by City Manager Tom Frutchey to serve as hearing officer.

Rejecting residents’ claims that such unchecked power may result in corruption, council members said they are seeking to give the hearing officer the authority to make some decisions on his own. The council will vote on the proposal at its March 28 meeting.

If the council approves the vote at that meeting, they said they will decide May 9 whether to give the hearing officer additional powers.

“The last thing this council or agency desires to do is reduce public input,” Councilman Tom Holden said. “I think we have made this clear from the beginning.”

Council members disbanded the Planning Commission in January after two months of debate, arguing that its members were amateurs who were slowing down progress without cause.

Yet when the City Council appointed the members of the Land Use Advisors two weeks later, it chose three former planning commissioners and a local mathematician with no land-use experience.

Ethel Dale, who served as Oxnard’s city clerk from 1944 to 1972, said she began organizing the petition drive with Tolmach because the city’s staff was usurping too much power from the citizens.

“I didn’t like the way things were going,” said Dale, who is active in several Ventura County Republican organizations. “The city manager was getting everything in his hands.”

At the heart of the critics’ opposition is the argument that the existence of a city staff member on the panel would inevitably lead to ethical dilemmas.

“It’s just as wrong as it gets,” said former City Councilwoman Dorothy Maron. “Richard Maggio is an honorable person, but the idea of having a city staff member making policy is questionable.”

As an example, she cited the panel’s inaugural meeting last week, where Maggio, serving as hearing officer, listened to a report by City Planner Matthew Winegar on a proposed apartment complex. Maggio is Winegar’s supervisor and the two had prepared the report together.

Mayor Manuel Lopez, the only council member who voted to keep the Planning Commission, said the petition drive shows residents’ concerns.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Lopez said. “I know there was a lot of ill will generated by (that) decision.”