County Will Likely Keep 805 Area Code

The overwhelming majority of Ventura County residents would not be affected by the impending split of the 805 area code, according to a proposal submitted Wednesday to the California Public Utilities Commission.

The California-Nevada Code Administration, the telecommunications industry group that has overseen regional telephone number distribution since 1984, submitted a proposal to keep using the 805 area code for the vast majority of Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

A new area code would serve the Lockwood Valley and other small parts of the uppermost, scarcely populated regions of Ventura County, as well as most of Kern County and the northern portion of Los Angeles County, such as the cities of Palmdale and Lancaster. The new code would also include small slivers of Kings, Tulare, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.

The proposal needs final approval from the Public Utilities Commission, but the panel has never gone against an industry recommendation, according to California-Nevada Code Administration spokesman Chris Kniestedt.

“That’s never happened before, and we have received a lot of community input, so I don’t see why it would happen now,” Kniestedt said. “The CPUC usually approves the industry recommendation.”

The commission is expected to issue a final decision by Nov. 1, and the new area code would go into effect in 1999.

The industry group, which represents more than 30 telecommunications companies including Pacific Bell, GTE and AT&T;, unveiled two plans this spring to divide the 805 area code, both of which would have kept Ventura County largely intact. The plans were then discussed at a series of public meetings, including a May 29 hearing at Camarillo City Hall.

One plan would have divided the 805 area code on a north/south basis, lumping Ventura County in with portions of Los Angeles and Kern counties.

The other, a plan to split the code on an east/west line, proved more popular with Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo leaders, who fought to keep the coastal counties under the same code.