Making a Stink : Restrooms: Park’s facilities are a disgrace, says Peter Merva, who is collecting money to buy a new toilet. Oxnard officials say repairs will not be made because the bathroom will be demolished next spring.

Peter Merva is waging a one-man war against City Hall, a passionate, door-to-door crusade to right what he sees as an unseemly and terrible wrong: the disgusting state of the public restrooms in Plaza Park at the heart of the city’s downtown.

He has brought the issue to the attention of Oxnard officials and the City Council, only to be belittled and snubbed, he said. Now, Merva is making good on a threat to take his cause to the people and do his part to improve the restrooms by raising money to install a new urinal.

Moreover, he appears to have found support: He already has a quart-sized jar almost filled with change to show for his efforts.

“I’m picking up nickels, dimes and quarters from everybody I can to buy that new toilet,” Merva said. “I’m going to go to the City Council with that toilet and leave it there for them to see.”

Meanwhile, the restroom building in Plaza Park--site of the Oxnard Farmers’ Market, political rallies and cultural events--has become little more than a walk-in latrine.

The bathroom is open only on weekends, and the men’s section, which used to have a urinal and a toilet, now has just a single, overused toilet.

It is continually clogged, leaving the desperate, mostly homeless patrons with no alternative but to relieve themselves in the sink, on the floor, or in the street--a tremendous health hazard and a disgrace to the residents and merchants of downtown Oxnard, Merva contends.

“Something very dangerous is happening out there with all that filth and germs,” said Merva, 80. “That’s a public place. They need to do something about that. It’s the filthiest place in town.”

Oxnard officials defend their decision to leave the bathroom in disrepair, saying it will be demolished next spring anyway as part of a downtown redevelopment project.

They do not intend to ever replace the public bathrooms, officials said.

For now, city maintenance workers alleviate the stench by frequently rinsing the restroom with a high-powered hose.

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Michael Henderson, Oxnard’s parks superintendent, said the bathroom would always be a mess regardless of what city officials do because it is used by a homeless population that seems to lack bathroom etiquette.

“It is a nasty restroom,” Henderson said. “When you have homeless people that use the restrooms, like you do there, it wouldn’t matter if you had 50 urinals in there. They would still use the floor.”

He said few, if any other people use the restroom, because they are frightened away from the park by the high concentration of transients who sleep on park benches and huddle on the grass.

Carol Roberg, associate director of the Ventura County Rescue Mission, said she realizes that Oxnard officials are frustrated because they have been unable to move the homeless and panhandlers away from downtown. But denying the homeless adequate bathrooms is inhumane, she said.

“I understand that they don’t want the homeless people downtown, and maybe that’s a way to get them out,” said Roberg, who is working to raise money for a downtown homeless dormitory. “But they deserve the same dignity as anyone else.”

Juan Morales, a 22-year-old farm worker who lives in the park, said that like everyone else, he has no choice but to go--somewhere.

“We just go over there and do it,” he said, pointing to a wall across from the park’s famous pagoda. “It shouldn’t be like this. We need something clean.”

Merchants near Plaza Park say the restroom situation reeks of government apathy and neglect. The homeless people who gather in Plaza Park are finding other places to relieve themselves, they say, and downtown businesses are being affected.

“They go right in the bushes, in the trees,” said Edwina Arredondo, manager of the Plaza Laundromat across the street from the park. “They [relieve themselves] right in the trash containers behind our store.”

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Anita Shaffer who manages her husband’s optometry office beside Plaza Park, agreed. She said the transients who gather in the park would surely use toilets if there were enough of them in working condition.

“They go near the trash area” as a substitute, she said. “They’re continually using that. It’s revolting to see. There’s kids around here. They [the transients] obviously need somewhere to go.”

Dorina Ayala was visiting Plaza Park for a noontime stroll on Monday with her 2-year-old daughter Saphire and her 1-year-old son Jose when she saw a man relieving himself against a wall.

Disgusted that her children were subjected to such a lewd sight, Ayala said she was planning to leave the park when Saphire announced she needed to go to the bathroom.

Ayala said she walked her daughter to the restroom--only to find that it was locked shut. Her anger shifted from the transient to the city, she said.

“Of course they are going to [relieve themselves] outside!” she said. “They’re homeless! They have nowhere else to go. For that reason alone, the bathroom should be open.”