Supervisor Mikels Calls Truce to End Bad Blood With Mosquito District

County Supervisor Judy Mikels and the Moorpark Mosquito Abatement District called a truce Wednesday in their argument over the district’s future, saying they will work together to decide whether the city needs its own bug-control program.

Mikels and her staff will attend the district board’s meetings, review the services the district provides and scrutinize the program’s cost. They will also discuss whether the district needs the full $1.4 million it has socked away in reserve, said Mikels aide Keith Jajko.

The informal agreement, hashed out during a Wednesday morning meeting, gives board members a chance to prove the worth of their program, established in 1960 to combat the clouds of flies and other pests breeding on local chicken and horse ranches.

“We’re pleased we finally had someone listen to us instead of hurling accusations,” board member Bill La Perch said.

For Mikels, the agreement is a way to ratchet down emotions surrounding the district’s future while remaining focused on the questions she raised in January:

Does Moorpark need a pest control program of its own? Could the county’s bug program, which covers every other Ventura County city, provide the same service to Moorpark for less money?

“The issue is not whether they do a fine job,” Jajko said. “They do. The issue is: Why do you need two?”

Currently, Moorpark residents pay an annual assessment of $14 to $18 to fund the district’s work, which is higher than the $1.12 fee the county charges residents of other cities to monitor their pest problems.

La Perch contends that the county’s program could not offer Moorpark residents the same level of service they now receive.

“The county does not have the resources to do what someone in the meeting called our customized program for Moorpark,” he said.

Although many of the local chicken ranches have closed down, board members say the Moorpark area is still rife with potential insect breeding grounds: stagnant water along the Arroyo Simi, garbage bins behind restaurants, horse ranches north and west of town. The district’s two full-time employees keep tabs on the insect population through inspections that can come once a week for major bug sources or once a month for lesser ones.

One recent morning found the workers ankle-deep in brown water, checking for mosquito egg clusters in bamboo thickets flooded by January rains. The wet winter has been good to mosquitoes, with insect traps showing a larger population than normal for this time of year, said District Manager Mark Westerline.

Although many people consider mosquitoes a minor annoyance, Westerline said they can cause serious health problems. One local mosquito breed is known to carry encephalitis, he said.

Some portions of the temporary swamp, sandwiched between the Arroyo Simi and a mobile home park, were clean. Others revealed small black clumps that broke into thousands of mosquito eggs when touched. Westerline and his co-worker sprayed a thin film of nontoxic oil on the water, forming a barrier that would suffocate the mosquitoes.

Next, Westerline checked for flies at some of the nurseries lining the arroyo’s path through Moorpark.

At one spot west of Tierra Rejada road, 6-foot piles of drying horse manure--to be used for potting soil and fertilizer--stood less than 100 yards from nearby homes.

“Flies are nasty creatures,” Westerline said. “They crawl all over [the manure] with their hairy little legs, pick up all kinds of organisms. Then they get hungry, so they go find someone’s sandwich.”

La Perch said the fact that Moorpark has not been overwhelmed by disease-bearing bugs shows that the district’s efforts work. It should not be taken as a sign that the district is no longer necessary, he said.

“Is our success going to kill us?” he said. “We’ve had no outbreaks, and that’s the reason for shutting us down?”

Jajko said the easiest way to disband the special district would be for the district board to vote for dissolving the agency. Otherwise, Mikels could petition the Local Agency Formation Commission to do so.