Seeds of Controversy Over Farm Museum

Chuck Covarrubias knows the value of farming in Ventura County. Now he wants to share his knowledge.

To that end, Covarrubias has been working with the Ventura County Museum of Art and History to open a satellite that would showcase farm implements dating back to the 19th century.

After a series of failed attempts, farm museum proponents think they’ve found a place to put it--College Park in south Oxnard.

But first they must make their case for a spot on part of the 75-acre park, which is already the subject of fierce competition among many local groups.

Covarrubias says such a museum would make the county’s largest industry more real to those who aren’t directly involved in it.

“We are looking at more than lining up tractors,” said Covarrubias, a past president of the Ventura County Museum, who grew up on an Oxnard farm and owns 30 tractors. “What we have needs to tell a story. It has to come alive.”

But first, museum proponents must gain approval for the site.

After the city of Oxnard acquired College Park last year from the county and Oxnard College, it formed the College Park Advisory Committee, made up of community members representing an array of interests, from youth soccer advocates to golf enthusiasts.

The committee will make recommendations on how the park should be used to the Parks and Recreation Commission by January and to the City Council by February.

Area Needs Youth Facilities, Some Say

Among the critics of the museum proposal are those who say the land should be used for programs and facilities for youth in south Oxnard--an area lacking in such venues.

“To me, [the museum proposal] is outrageous,” said Martin Jones, a member of the College Park Advisory Committee. “This would be an arrangement where the land is used . . . for people to run around on tractors on land that should be used by children and their families.”

The idea for the farming museum originated in the 1970s with a small group of people who had a passion for the county’s agricultural history.

The longtime leader of the effort was Bob Pfeiler, a lemon rancher who is now living in a Thousand Oaks boarding home, Covarrubias said.

After Pfeiler could no longer lead the effort, Covarrubias became one of the leaders.

About 900 tools have been gathered over two decades from all corners of the county and stored in three locations.

Recently, Covarrubias pulled open the wooden gate of an old barn near Oxnard to show off some of them.

There was a 40-foot lima bean thresher that dominated the middle of the crowded barn. There were wooden wheelbarrows, plows once pulled by horses and rusty four-wheel tractors.

The group and the Ventura County Museum have tried numerous times to find a location for the satellite--looking at sites in Moorpark, Fillmore and Camarillo in addition to College Park.

Some of the locations were too small or too remote, or the land wasn’t legally allowed to be used for a museum.

“There has always been some kind of problem in the way,” Covarrubias said.

For example, one particularly promising site was at Faulkner Farm near Santa Paula.

But late in the negotiations, it was determined that the mission of the Hansen Trust, which owns the farm, did not allow for a museum.

Museum proponents had discussed the College Park land even before the city acquired it. So last year, when the county turned College Park over to Oxnard, proponents decided to try again.

The Ventura County Museum, which would operate the satellite, originally asked to lease 20 acres. Now, it is asking for 10 acres in an area of the park that has three historic Petit houses. The lease would essentially give the Ventura County Museum a long-sought expansion.

A Focus on Crops, Pioneers, Technology

The museum, which would be called Farm Heritage Park, would develop programs for adults and children on such things as Ventura County’s traditional crops, pioneer farm families and farming technology, said Tim Schiffer, executive director of the Ventura County Museum.

“I think [the museum] would add a different element that would make the park attractive to a much wider group of people and complement what’s there,” Schiffer said.

The Ventura County Museum has made presentations to the College Park Advisory Committee. Other suggestions have ranged from an Olympic-size swimming pool to soccer and softball fields to a dog park.

The museum “is just one of the many proposals that have surfaced,” Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez said. “But from my perspective, we seem to be sensitive to the recreational needs of the city.”

There has been about an equal amount of support and opposition to the museum at the community meetings, said Armando Garcia, a vice chairman of the College Park Advisory Committee.

“The anti-museum people say, ‘This park is for recreation, not for museums,’ ” he said. “It’s all going to come down to the last minute.”

Martin Jones and his wife, Lois, live near the parkland and are among the most critical of the museum proposal. Outsiders should not have a say in how Oxnard land is used, Jones said.

“This is a point that needs to be driven home,” he said. The Ventura County Museum “will have a major influence on what is going to happen on a city-owned park.”

But the museum’s proponents say that serving the broader community is a worthy use of the land.

“I think some of the people who have opposed the project see us as coming from the outside,” Schiffer said. “But we are a nonprofit that is just a gathering of people [who] have a passion for history.”