Funding for Boating Safety Center Sought

Ventura County officials said Friday they are moving quickly to secure funding for a boating safety center at Channel Islands Harbor that was approved this week.

The California Coastal Commission voted 7 to 3 on Wednesday in favor of the two-story, 20,000-square-foot center that county officials hope will breathe new life into the aging county-owned marina near Oxnard.

Ventura County is the largest coastal county in California without a boating safety center. It will offer sailing instruction and marine research in partnership with Cal State Channel Islands and space for parties, meetings and other public uses.

County officials are looking to the boating center to bring retailers back to a harbor that has seen increasing vacancies in recent years.

And they hope it will end years of debate over where the center should be located. Harbor-area residents have tried to get it moved to the marina’s eastern flank, saying it would spur retail activity and be less disruptive to nesting herons.

But state commissioners sided with the Board of Supervisors’ preferred location near Bluefin Circle on the harbor’s western end. Citing sailing experts, supervisors say the western side is safest for beginning sailors because it is partially sheltered from prevailing winds.

“This has been analyzed to death,” said Kathy Long, chairwoman of the county board. “With the commission’s vote, the debate over east side versus west side is now moot.”

Long said the county would now focus on coming up with its share of the estimated $6.2-million cost. The state is kicking in $4 million.

Detailed blueprints must be drawn and contractors chosen, Long said. If all goes as planned, construction could start in about a year, she said.

But opponents say the battle isn’t over. They are challenging an environmental analysis of the project in court, and the suit is expected to go to trial in late June. One critic, Lee Quaintance, said conditions that the Coastal Commission imposed on the project do not ease concerns.

For instance, to reduce noise, the commission has required that second-floor windows be kept closed and that only acoustic music be played at banquets.

“A bad project has been made better, but we are not satisfied and will continue to fight this,” said Quaintance, spokesman for the Beacon Foundation, which filed the lawsuit against the county.

Quaintance said many residents are convinced that supervisors are hatching a “grandiose scheme to take over the harbor with major development.”

County officials say they have no such plans. They are merely trying to revive a harbor that has fallen into disrepair, Supervisor Steve Bennett said.

The long fight over the boating center project underlines the ferocity with which a minority of residents have tried to stop those plans, he said.

“There is an impression that there is some sort of environmental disaster going on there,” Bennett said. “It’s just that some people have been able to hold up the construction of a building. They’ve been very clever at doing that, but those charges didn’t pass scrutiny with the Coastal Commission.”