Oceanfront Residents Reject Talk of Merger : Communities: Only one of 80 at a meeting on the future of the beaches raises a hand to support joining either Port Hueneme or Oxnard.

Residents of the oceanfront communities known as Silver Strand, Hollywood Beach and Hollywood-by-the-Sea are a fiercely independent lot.

A few die-hard individualists once tried to peddle a flag to represent the area, home to 6,000 people. And one of the beaches’ longtime elected leaders once facetiously said he would like to erect a fence around the entire community and enlist an army to defend it.

So it came as no surprise Saturday when only one of 80 residents who attended a town hall meeting on the future of the beaches raised a hand to support a merger with Port Hueneme or Oxnard.

Complaints over rising utility costs have led the beaches’ elected leaders and top manager to question whether residents are willing to pay more for their independence, and the meeting was held to explain the communities’ options.

Gerard Kapuscik, general manager of the Channel Islands Beach Community Services District, outlined an array of choices: enlarging the district staff to provide more services and become more politically active, scaling back district operations to save money, contracting with nearby cities for trash and other services, or joining Port Hueneme or Oxnard. He suggested a ballot measure next March to determine the district’s future.

Patrick Forrest, one of the district’s five elected directors, said the beaches were at a crossroads and residents had to make some important choices in coming months. And while he said he was once loath to consider annexation and still does not support it, he wants to be flexible.

“Times are changing at the beach,” said Forrest, who once jokingly referred to the area as a nation-state.

But those at the meeting were not eager to discuss major changes. “This is a very unique, unique community,” said Sheryl Hamilton. “And I think we should think very carefully about annexing to Port Hueneme or Oxnard.”

The neighborhoods, founded in the 1920s to cash in on the beach’s reputation as the site of Rudolph Valentino’s “The Sheik” and other Hollywood films, formed a community services district in 1982.

The district, which now has 11 employees and an annual budget of $2 million, was designed to provide basic services, such as water and trash removal, and to make annexation by Oxnard and Port Hueneme more difficult. Both cities attempted to annex the beaches around 1980.

Now one of the principal reasons for the district’s existence may be ending with a proposed $13-million joint-powers agreement on water supplies by the communities, the Navy Seabee base and the city of Port Hueneme.

Because the district already contracts with Port Hueneme for sewer services and a private company for trash removal and hauling, its purpose should be re-evaluated, board members say.

Residents said they would like the district to study providing more services, such as animal control and beach cleanup. Residents also want to study contracting with other agencies for all the district’s services.

But they say they have no interest in a ballot measure and denounced any thought of merging with Port Hueneme or Oxnard.

“In all the years I’ve been here I’ve never seen Oxnard do anything for all the people that go out there to their council meetings and complain,” resident Richard Roberts said. “I don’t know why we would want to do that.”

Others chanted “View tax, view tax” several times as Port Hueneme was mentioned, referring to the city’s levy on landowners who live near the beach.

Whether they opt for the new system or keep the status quo, residents will have to pay more for water, according to a district report. So, residents may want to contract with Port Hueneme or Oxnard, which have lower water rates because of their larger size, or simply merge with the cities, district officials said.

Kapuscik and the board members, however, warned that while the cities may have cheaper fees, the district probably would have to pay to be placed within their borders, and the cost might be too steep. For the same reason, the cities might not be interested.

The properties of the beach communities are valued at about $400 million, Kapuscik said. But because of Proposition 13, the cities would only receive about $200,000 a year from the beach communities--hardly enough to cover connecting them to the city’s water system and other services.

“In terms of a business decision, it would not make sense,” Port Hueneme City Manager Richard Velthoen said last week. “But politics and business are sometimes mutually exclusive.”

But residents said Saturday they were not interested in analyzing the merits of annexation, holding that the independence of their beachside hamlet was more important than saving a few bucks.

“I, for one, hope that ‘one beach indivisible’ remains,” said former board member William Higgins, recounting the anti-annexation call of 1980. “I hope this community stays unbroken.”