HIGHER FINANCE: Got a dog? It could...

HIGHER FINANCE: Got a dog? It could cost you $3 more for a pet license. Want to reserve a field for your local baseball team? That could run an additional $5 an hour. . . . These are just a few of the more than 300 fee and service rate hikes the Board of Supervisors will consider Tuesday (B1). . . . “I don’t want to say that the cost of government is going up,” Supervisor Frank Schillo said. “It’s more a case where we’re behind on increasing fees over a number of years.”

CYBER SANTA: For youngsters wanting to make that last-minute plea to Santa, the Internet Cruising & Coffee Joint in Ventura is offering free access to the information superhighway. . . . Owner Martin Duran came up with the idea while cruising the Net and stumbling across a half-dozen e-mail addresses for St. Nick. He said the Internet is faster than the U.S. Postal Service and more convenient than standing in line at the mall to sit on Santa’s lap. . . . “We want kids to keep believing,” Duran said. “This just brings them into the ‘90s way of believing in Santa.” More information: 650-5981.

MAKING A STINK: Who says you can’t fight City Hall? Peter Merva’s one-man war to get working restrooms in Oxnard’s Plaza Park has hit a royal flush. . . . City officials last week installed portable toilets in the downtown park, following the Oxnard resident’s door-to-door crusade to raise money and support for improvements to the public restrooms there. . . . “They had me down in the 11th round,” Merva said, “but I scored a knockout in the 12th.”

BUSY SIGNALS: Cellular phone theft, especially from automobiles, is increasing at a sharp rate (B1). . . . Last year, 90 cellular phones were reported stolen in Thousand Oaks. That number jumped to 150 during the first 10 months of this year. A similar increase was reported in Simi Valley. . . . Employees at Ventura’s Advantage Cellular Inc. fielded about one call a week in 1994 from customers reporting stolen phones. . . . “Now we get a call a day,” co-owner Sig Askvik said.