City to Poll Residents on a Park Assessment

If residents of Moorpark’s Villa Campesina neighborhood want a park for their children, they will have to vote for it.

The city will poll property owners in the small downtown neighborhood to determine whether residents are willing to pay for maintenance of the long-planned and long-delayed Campesina Park.

The vote was inspired by a tax-cutting initiative, passed by California voters last year, that limits local governments’ ability to raise taxes. With Moorpark’s park maintenance budget already stretched thin, city leaders have been loath to take responsibility for another park.

To ease those fears, Moorpark officials will mail ballots to the neighborhood’s 62 property owners, asking if they would support an assessment to fund maintenance of the park. Public Works Director Ken Gilbert said he hopes to send the ballots within two or three months.