Plans Moving Ahead for Charter Measure

Enamored with the potential financial benefits of becoming a charter city, Port Hueneme officials have set an ambitious schedule to write a charter by the July 6 deadline for placing the issue on the November ballot.

The City Council held its inaugural meeting as a charter commission Tuesday and requested consultant Douglas Ayres to bring a draft charter to its next meeting, Feb. 27.

“We’re going to go full-speed ahead,” Mayor Bob Turner said. “Our main concern is to have a charter with the consensus of the charter commission and advisory committee. If we have that consensus, we feel comfortable we can market it to the electorate.”

Switching from being a general law city to a charter city would give Port Hueneme more freedom from state mandates and more control of its financial destiny, municipal officials say.

Several speakers at Tuesday’s meeting raised concerns about the financial implications of the switch and the way voters will view it.

“It is going to be a serious perception problem, [seen as] a little thing City Hall wants,” resident Dolores Ward said.

The initial cost of writing a charter--Ayres charges $3,200 a meeting--is far outweighed by the potential benefits, City Manager Dick Velthoen said.

“We have no intention to go out and start taxing,” Turner said. “We’d like to raise revenue with a no-tax type of situation.”

He cited the impending transfer of more than 30 acres of Navy land, which the city intends to use to attract businesses, as one example of how the perennially cash-poor municipality can raise money without tax increases.

Ventura is the county’s only charter city, but Oxnard is also looking into the idea. Although general law cities far outnumber charter cities in California, more than 75% of the state’s urban population resides in a charter city, Ayres said.