Panel Drops Backing of Centralized Smog Testing : Inspections: Car dealers and shop owners welcome Air Pollution Control District’s decision not to support a plan for countywide centers.

To the relief of car dealers and smog shop owners, the region’s air pollution board on Tuesday junked its plan to encourage centralized smog testing.

“It’s about time. It’s been a long, hard fight,” automotive shop owner Randy Johnson said after the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District board reversed its stance on the issue. The board voted to stop supporting legislation that would require motorists to drive to countywide, “assembly line” centers for smog tests.

Nearly a dozen auto dealers and smog inspection station owners turned out at the Tuesday meeting to protest the proposal to centralize, which proponents argue would help clean the air by cracking down on faulty inspections.

But smog shop owners said new state regulations already call for them to upgrade inspection methods by next year. Centralized testing stations, they claim, would take away business and be a hassle for motorists, who might have to drive farther to get a smog check.

“I think the public will be very sadly inconvenienced [by] this project,” longtime Ventura automobile dealer Charles McConica told the board, adding that smog inspectors and repair personnel take their trade seriously. “It takes a real trained professional, not a $6-an-hour man.”

A majority of the board’s 10 members backed the proposal when it was introduced in January, with proponents claiming the plan would save motorists money on smog tests.

Since then, board members have talked to auto dealers and smog shop owners, who said centralized stations would take customers away from the county’s 235 inspection and repair shops. Board members have also heard about future state programs, such as roadside surveillance of polluting vehicles and mandatory new and expensive detection equipment for smog shops.

“We listened, we learned, we studied,” said member Judy Mikels, also a county supervisor, before the board voted unanimously--with three members absent--to abandon support for the legislation.

Mikels denied that the decision was influenced by political pressure from the smog inspection industry.

“I personally don’t ever have a problem in changing my mind,” Mikels said. “I think it’s a bigger mistake to stick your head in the sand.”

Supervisor Maggie Kildee, also a board member, expressed futility in supporting legislation that the public opposes.

“Before there can be public support of a program, there has to be public confidence in a program,” Kildee said.

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The board did not rule out the possibility of eventually sending some cars to a centralized testing center if the state requires the move to meet air pollution control guidelines. Members set discussion of that proposal for later this month.

Richard Baldwin, the county’s air pollution control officer and centralized testing’s main supporter, maintained Tuesday that “production line” inspections at countywide centers could reduce car emissions by 35%. New state regulations call for cutting auto pollution by 28%.

In a September letter to the board, Baldwin wrote that a survey showed the average smog test in California took about 30 minutes and cost an average of $32.42.

In 12 states using centralized smog testing, Baldwin wrote, the inspection took an average of 12 minutes and cost an average of $10.94.

“There is a change,” Baldwin said Tuesday. “There is an impact.”

The proposal had suggested setting up stations that would be open six days a week and strategically located across the county to make commutes to the centers no longer than five to 10 minutes.

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A few spoke from the podium in favor of centralized testing.

“A centralized approach is the most efficient, least prone to abuse [approach] . . . ,” said Paula Lite of the Ventura County League of Women Voters.

Lite added that the countywide stations would create jobs.

But Johnson and others said centralized testing would punish all smog inspection and repair workers, even though only a small number may be responsible for performing faulty inspections.

According to Johnson, state regulations will require him to purchase nearly $40,000 in new detection equipment by next year. Although the centralized testing centers would test cars, he would still have to spend the money on detection devices to repair them.

“How would I know if I had repaired the problem?” Johnson said. “We’d be duplicating each other’s work.”