Board Considers Ending Harbor Water Pact

Wading into a long-brewing debate over water rates, Ventura County supervisors took the first step Tuesday toward canceling a contract with the district that provides water to Channel Islands Harbor, where tenants have long complained that they pay too much at the tap.

On a unanimous vote, supervisors agreed to study how much it would cost to withdraw from a 1996 contract with the Channel Islands Beach Community Services District.

The board also directed county administrators to meet with officials in Oxnard and Port Hueneme to determine if they can provide water at a cheaper rate. However, the board stopped short of notifying the district that it would withdraw from the contract, setting a 60-day period to negotiate a better deal.

“Once we give that notice, we can’t backtrack on it,” county administrator Lin Koester told supervisors. “We have to be careful how we tread down this road.”

Channel Islands Beach Community Services District board members say that water prices were agreed upon years ago and that rates for 11,000 residential customers could spiral if the county pulls out.

Tension between the harbor’s businesses and community services district board have simmered for years. The most recent argument stems from a 1996 decision by the district’s board to join with the city of Port Hueneme and the Navy in building a $30-million water treatment plant.

Although harbor businesses have received water service from the district since 1963, the tenants argued that they would get better rates and service from Oxnard, where their businesses are located. Despite such opposition, the Board of Supervisors approved the 1996 agreement that continued service with the district.

“The supervisors knew that this new treatment plant was going to increase costs substantially,” district General Manager Bill Higgins said after the board meeting. “They went into this agreement with their eyes wide open.”

Although the district projected that water rates would increase 37%, the fees have gone up only 17% in the past three years, Higgins said. A residential customer typically pays $33 a month for water, while a restaurant at the harbor pays about $400, he said.

But harbor tenants have stepped up demands to break from the district, having grown frustrated with what they say is a pattern of the district’s board ignoring their concerns, said Randy Short, owner of Anacapa Isle Marina.

“After years of frustration, we are taking what we think is our only course,” he said.

The dispute has split the normally laid-back residents of Hollywood Beach, Silver Strand and Hollywood-by-the-Sea. Some side with Higgins and the district’s board, saying the current dispute is merely a political exercise by malcontents.

“This has been made into a circus, and it is really at the destruction of the district,” resident Lee Quaintance said.

But other residents back the harbor tenants, saying the district’s board has been taken over by a majority that prefers litigation to compromise.

“The [district] is out of control,” said Patrick Forrest, who served on the board for 17 years before being voted out of office for supporting a water rate increase. “I am ashamed. I am embarrassed.”