Oxnard Growth Management

On Jan. 27 the Oxnard City Council was presented with a general plan growth management review as a follow-up of the Oct. 25 joint meeting of the City Council and former Planning Commission on Growth.

My impression of the review was that the former city manager’s “transformation” is still at work. Remember he said, “We are a for-profit organization. Our employees serve our customers.”

Some of his supporters still view the developers as their customers. The city’s customers are really the people in Oxnard and this municipal corporation of Oxnard exists to provide services to the people in Oxnard, not to provide profit for developers.

The report appeared to be written by the developers and their attorneys.

First, there is no need at this time to make any major changes in the General Plan because the growth rate has been slower than expected. Any adjustment should only be to drop some problem areas from the General Plan, such as the project involving development of 3,500 homes and other projects in the Ormond Beach area.

The report is designed to let the developers’ proposals proceed promptly and just delete the fantasy proposals.

The only thing that would really help control growth at the edge of the city would be to get an urban limit line adopted by referendum.

The City Council should come back with a growth management report on the procedure for a referendum with alternative urban limit lines.

The report conveyed the impression that the City Council would not come up with a proposal acceptable to the people in the community without a vote of the people.

JANE TOLMACH

Oxnard