Chamber Draws Fire for Leadership Ranks Living Out of Town : Oxnard: Business group’s president and much of its executive committee are non-residents. A top official, however, says all members take part in the city’s financial and social life.

Tireless booster of Oxnard business and development, the Oxnard Chamber of Commerce has long enjoyed an influential position in the city’s political circles.

Yet to Mayor Manuel Lopez and some former Oxnard politicians and other residents, the chamber is beginning to be seen as a group of outsiders with just a little too much influence in city affairs.

Half the chamber’s eight-member executive committee--including President Mike Montoya--live in or near Camarillo, and many of its directors and members live outside Oxnard.

Lopez, a chamber member for 33 years, sides with critics of the group who say that chamber leaders should reside in Oxnard.

“They’re making their money here, so we would like them to live here and put more back into the community,” Lopez said. “It’s not just about taking.”

In recent years, the Oxnard Chamber of Commerce endorsed plans to bring big-time casino gambling to the city and to combine the police and fire departments--stances that placed the group in direct opposition to most Oxnard residents.

Had the endorsers been residents, they would not have backed the casino, Lopez said.

Because of the chamber’s sizable out-of-town leadership, critics also say the group has no business influencing development policies by supporting such moves as the recent dismantling of the city’s Planning Commission.

“It’s always the people outside of Oxnard telling the people of Oxnard what to do,” said former Mayor Jane Tolmach, who is spearheading an initiative drive to reinstate the commission. “People in the community don’t want all this fast growth.”

Don Facciano, the chamber’s executive director, said membership is equally divided between residents and non-residents. And all of them take part in the city’s business and social life, he said.

“I’m a resident of Oxnard,” said Facciano, who recently moved to the city from Ojai. “I live here. You’ll see me at all the charity events. We’re involved. We’re active in the community.”

Curtis P. Davison, a former chamber president and 40-year member, said the directors who live in Camarillo are seriously committed to improving Oxnard and their motives are beyond question.

“A lot of these people are the pillars of Oxnard, even though they don’t live here,” Davison said.

The Chamber of Commerce was founded in the 1920s, sprouting from the old Oxnard Board of Trade, created by the city’s founders. Its purpose then was the same as it is today: to create networking opportunities for local business owners and influence regional politicians to benefit commerce.

The chamber has occupied offices at the current Carnegie Art Museum, on downtown’s A Street and at Martin V. (Bud) Smith’s Oxnard Financial Center. It moved back to downtown last year, settling into Heritage Square, a courtyard of turn-of-the-century homes from old Oxnard that have been remodeled and moved to the center of the city.

The group gets by on membership fees and receives no money from the city, but it does share its office space and receptionist with the Oxnard Economic Development Corp., a privatized arm of the city still sustained by government funding.

Chamber members have played an important part in luring companies to Oxnard. Last year, for example, the chamber worked with the Economic Development Corp. to convince GTE to move its customer-contact center to Oxnard--a coup that will bring 900 jobs to the economically struggling city.

The chamber has served as a springboard for numerous candidates for the City Council. The most recent was Michael Plisky, a former chamber president who was a councilman until last November.

Councilman Dean Maulhardt, a chamber member, was urged to run for council last year by Plisky and former chamber President Stephen Maulhardt, his cousin.

The chamber’s governmental relations committee has also been active in local politics by tracking legislation and city ordinances that affect businesses and working with regional organizations on campaigns like the drive to save the Point Mugu Navy base.

Although the chamber recommends policies to local politicians, it does not endorse candidates, Facciano said.

Stephen Maulhardt, descendant of the pioneering Maulhardt and Borchard farming families, said he joined the governmental relations committee in 1986 to learn about development in Oxnard and meet local politicians.

“I found out who all the people in the city were. I met all the council members,” said Maulhardt, whose father, John, was chamber president in 1948. “It met my needs in meeting those people. You just never know what sort of relationship you will need later on.”

Maulhardt soon found himself in financial trouble when he could not pay several hundred thousand dollars in back taxes and assessment fees on his Maulhardt Industrial Center.

But partly due to the political contacts made through his chamber membership, Maulhardt said, he was able to steer through the government bureaucracy and stave off foreclosure on his office park. The Maulhardt Industrial Center, which was largely undeveloped a few years ago, is now beginning to fill up, and his financial situation is improving, Maulhardt said.

Maulhardt’s experience with the chamber has benefited the city as well.

When Camarillo first proposed building a factory outlet mall along the Ventura Freeway, Maulhardt, then chamber president, sued that city for conducting an inadequate environmental study and failing to deal with the traffic impact of the project.

After spending $200,000 of his own money, he won. The development was stalled, and Oxnard’s factory outlet mall opened before its Camarillo competitor.

Maulhardt, who lives in Las Posas Estates near Camarillo, said critics who complain that he has no business dabbling in Oxnard politics are being ridiculous, since his ties to the city go back four generations.

“I resent when they call me a carpetbagger, because my family has had roots in Oxnard longer than any of them,” said Maulhardt, who thinks of the chamber as a special-interest group. “I have a broader consideration of Oxnard. I think of the Oxnard Plain, and Las Posas is in the Oxnard Plain. It’s very parochial of them, but it doesn’t bother me.”

Echoing a complaint made by several out-of-town chamber members, Maulhardt said he could not find a decent high-end home in Oxnard when he moved his family back to the area from Los Angeles in the mid-1980s. The city now has several upscale neighborhoods, most notably River Ridge, he said.

Robert Cote, who owns an Oxnard-based computer-consulting business, said he has not joined the chamber because its members are more interested in spurring new development than helping existing entrepreneurs.

“They equate business with development,” Cote said. “They are so fixated on new business that they work to the detriment of existing business.”

South Oxnard resident Paul Chatman said the chamber often takes pro-growth positions directly in contrast with the views of the community.

“They say it’s for the betterment of Oxnard, but really it’s for the betterment of their own pocket,” Chatman said. “They live in cities that would never allow some of these things to take place. There’s plenty of open space where they live. If I were to ask five of my neighbors how they felt about tearing up some field to build something, all five would say, ‘No way!’ ”

Eleanor Branthoover, a 33-year resident of northeast Oxnard, said that the chamber has shown no sensitivity for communities adversely affected by Shopping at the Rose and other large developments.

“None of them live around here so they don’t have to put up with the results,” Branthoover said. “They don’t want that type of development in their neighborhood, but they don’t mind putting it in ours. I can’t afford a gated community.”

Former Oxnard Councilwoman Dorothy Maron said that if the chamber’s leaders truly cared about Oxnard, they would live in the city.

“A chamber director once told me, ‘Oxnard is a nice place to do business, but who would move their family there?’ ” Maron said. “That’s the attitude they have. They make their money from Oxnard, and they take their money and spend it somewhere else.”