Ventura Keys Dredging Fee Flap Defused but Unsettled

Like a bad allergy, the nasty fight between Ventura Keys homeowners and city officials comes every spring.

Each year in June, angry residents demand that the City Council rescind a $2,000 tax levied annually on their property to pay to dredge silt from the waterways behind their luxury homes.

They usually lose.

But in a surprise move last week, the council waived the assessment for one year. City leaders said the hefty tax was unfair, even though a Superior Court judge ruled last month that the city can charge the homeowners, since they derive the greatest benefit by having the channels free of debris.

The council’s action was a sweet victory for the feisty neighborhood of 299 property owners, who have used every legal and political tactic to lower the assessment in their five-year battle with the city.

“One thing the city doesn’t understand is that the people down here won’t give up,” homeowner Paul Masi said. “You get a guy pretty well PO’d and he’ll do whatever he can to rectify the situation.”

Since the Porto Bello Assessment District was created in 1991, about one-third of the property owners have filed lawsuits alleging that the tax is unfair and illegal and has lowered their land values.

The legal fight has cost the city $1.25 million--the most expensive court case in recent Ventura history.

The residents have also taken a keen interest in City Council elections by voting en masse, walking precincts and making generous campaign contributions to the candidates they support.

“We spent a lot of money down here,” said Masi, a retired union leader. “We are going to keep going until we get people who represent the city.”

Their efforts did not pay off until recently, when the council majority decided to waive next year’s assessment, saying the residents were being taxed unfairly.

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The council also questioned a $3.6-million estimate to dredge the channels in 1999 and told city engineers to find a cheaper way to pay for it.

“I think the complexion of the council has changed to the point where people are looking at it differently,” said Councilman Jim Friedman, who voted against the $2,000 levy. “To have an assessment as high as it is seems incredibly out of line.”

Councilman Steve Bennett, who voted to continue the tax, said that waiving the assessment would unfairly shift the responsibility from Keys homeowners to all city taxpayers.

“I think the action makes it very difficult and unlikely that the council will ever assess the Keys people the proper amount,” he said. “I think the council sold the Ventura citizens down the road catering to special interests last Monday night.”

When the subdivision was developed in 1964, Keys homeowners were charged $35 a year for maintenance of the waterways. The assessment was dropped in 1979 and then started again in 1991.

By that time, the siltation problem had become severe: Five years worth of lemon rinds, leaves, garbage and other debris had washed down the Arundell Barranca drainage channel into the marine community.

After a series of raucous public hearings, the council voted 6 to 1 to tax the homeowners $1,680 a year for the dredging. Under the plan, the residents would pay three-quarters of the dredging cost and the city would pay the other quarter.

The ratio is lopsided, residents argue, since they do not create the bulk of the mess that accumulates behind their waterfront homes.

“The underlying issue is who pays for cleaning up dirt in our backyards,” said Peter Cannon, urging the council to drop the assessment last week. “We do not make the mess. Please stop charging us to clean it up.”

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The Keys residents have traditionally had a vocal presence at the podium during the council’s annual review of the assessment.

But outside the council chambers, they have also found a strong voice as a political group. The Keys neighborhood is among the largest voting blocs in the city.

Last fall, Keys residents funneled more than $1,500 into Mayor Jack Tingstrom’s reelection campaign chest, which totaled about $45,500. And this spring, they spent more than $1,600 on Councilman Jim Monahan’s $26,000 race for county supervisor. Monahan and Tingstrom have been longtime critics of the assessment.

“We don’t agree with the fairness of it,” said Tingstrom, who said he has never made campaign promises to the homeowners. “I have had this position all along.”

This year, he and Monahan were joined in their votes opposing the assessment by Friedman and Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures. Measures’ campaign in 1993 was largely self-financed, and she has received no outside contributions since.

Friedman said he was wooed by residents in the upscale Keys neighborhood when he ran for office last year and was asked to sign a statement saying he believed the assessment was unfair.

“They specifically refused to back me because I refused to sign,” he said. “I never made promises to them.”

Keys residents said they were startled by the council’s 4-3 decision to postpone the assessment. Councilmen Bennett, Ray Di Guilio and Gary Tuttle voted to continue it.

“I was shocked that they put it off, to be honest,” said Ray Ellison, a former resident who still owns property in the Keys. “It will calm the natives for at least a year.”

What happens after a year, however, is a tricky question city officials are struggling to answer.

Before the vote, Tuttle cautioned that unless the city can find a cheaper way to dredge the channels, residents may be assessed twice the amount two years from now to make up the difference.

“I would really hesitate on the side of underbilling and then having to go back and double up,” he warned.

City engineers say it will cost $3.6 million to dredge the narrow channels in 1999, and the city now has about $1.3 million set aside for the project.

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But an outside dredging expert says it could be done for as little at $700,000, which would eliminate the need for further assessments.

Outgoing Ventura Port District General Manager Richard Parsons, who is an independent dredging consultant, wrote a proposal to city officials in March saying the Keys could be dredged for about a fifth of the city’s estimate.

His report cast doubt on the city engineer’s report and contributed to the council’s decision to postpone the assessment.

“There have been enough arguments and disparity in the reports,” Measures said during the debate, “that it warrants further evaluation.”

Parsons and city engineers agree that the permitting process is to blame for the inflated dredging estimate. The city is now required by state agencies to dump the dredged silt at an upland site about a mile from the subdivision.

During the last dredging in 1992, it cost the city more than $2 million, or about $15 a yard, to truck and treat the fine-grained silt.

By comparison, it costs the Ventura Port District less than $5 a yard to dredge silt from inside Ventura Harbor because the agency has permits to dump it near the mouth of the Ventura River.

“We have told [the council] that there may be substantially less expensive ways to dispose of the material,” City Engineer Rick Raives said. “The problem with that is we don’t have the permits. That is where it gets a little bit complicated.”

Engineers are unsure whether the silt in the Keys is suitable to be dumped at the river mouth. Testing of the material is expensive and must be done within a year of dredging.

If the material is not deemed suitable, officials would not know until right before the scheduled dredging, Raives said.

“It may fit down there, that would make everybody happy. But it is a bit of a gamble,” Raives said. “What we are struggling with now is our council saying, ‘You go study this cost.’ But we felt we had really good numbers.”

City officials and the Keys homeowners have a year before the bell will ring again and they will resume the fight.

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In the meantime, the homeowners have appealed Kern County Superior Court Judge Sidney P. Chapin’s ruling on the legality of the assessment. And they plan to continue their efforts on both the legal and political fronts.

“One thing it does do is give us a breathing spell to go ahead and enforce what’s right,” said Ellison, who has been embroiled in a separate dredging lawsuit with the port district for 26 years.

Homeowner Masi said one thing is certain in his mind: The residents have no intention of giving up.

“The people down here are mad,” he said. “All the people that are responsible--they are the ones that should pay. All they do is shove it onto us.”