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Collective Reactions are popping up about how our city fathers spend your hard earned tax money into things that serve a very few. 
...................................................................... Read More Here .................................
 

The Pie Is Your Money - in a story that is developing every minute....the Oxnard Journal will assist you in understanding all the Hub-Bub.

THE STORY ON THE PARKS THAT ATE OXNARD.....is coming soon....
 

December 12, 2006

Mr. Editor:

After reading the Ventura Star article yesterday about the City Council's approval of a $9.5 million loan by the City solid waste department to the River Ridge Golf Course we made it a point to listen to the rebroadcast of the Oxnard Council's Tuesday meeting.

We listened carefully to the Council and Mayor Holden's reasons for why the Council voted to give City money for the loan, which included the following not necessarily in this order: 1. If the city's golf course was sold, the private owners would only care about the bottom-line; 2. the new private owners would let the golf course go to ruin; 3. once the private owners ruined the golf course the costs to the Oxnard taxpayers would increase greatly; 4. the Council needs to consider all Oxnard residents' needs including golfing; 5, a $1 million annual debt will be paid off in 2006; and 6, the golf course doesn't operate at a loss.

Let's examine the reasons. First a private owner would be concerned about the bottom-line. Yes because this is the American way and what our democratic capitalism is all about. After all this Council supported private companies such as Fry's Electronic and Wal-Mart by giving them millions of taxpayers tax dollars to entice them to come to Oxnard.

Next  Holden's second reason, that the new owners would just ruin the golf course, assumes that a private party would pay $15 million for a golf course just for the opportunity to ruin it. Didn't Mr. Holden believe in what he stated about the benefits of private ownership? Isn't he the same Mayor that wants Big League Dreams to operate College Park because, according to him, private business can provide recreation services at a better economic balance than government operated recreation? Once the City sells the course to a private concern what should not happen is anymore City tax dollars being dumped into the golf course. So we don't understand how Mr. Holden can say that if the private owners ruined the golf course, which isn't likely, taxpayers would have to pay for poor business management. We do understand that the golf fees would need to be increased to the market-rate and golfers would need to pay the market-rate golf fees instead of the artificially low rates subsidized by
us taxpayers. Since less than 3% of Oxnard residents use the golf
course, let's not make 97% of Oxnard resident who do not use the course subsidize the 3% who do use the golf course. (Oops, forgot that all the City Council members are golfers.)

The last points are really creepy. Mayor Holden claims that since the City will stop paying a $1 million debt in 2006 that money will be freed up to be used to pay for the new $9.5 million golf course loan. The debt he refers to here is the annual payments which Oxnard volunteered to pay for the owners of the Hotel next to the River Ridge Golf Course. The Hotel issued bonds to improve their parking lot in the early 1990s so the Raiders Football team could practice there. But after the bonds were sold the Hotel owners somehow convinced the City to pay 100% of the debt by threatening to close the Hotel  unless the City took over the $1 million annual payments. Legal or not, the City agreed to pay off the debt and to return the improved parking lot to the Hotel owners after the bonds are fully paid AT NO COST to the Hotel owners. So let's think about this.

Once this debt is paid off why not use the $1 million dollars for the much needed road improvements instead of for more golf course improvements?

Mayor Holden said the golf course is operating at a profit but that the golf course enterprise is operating at a loss. What? OK, we looked at the City's own audited financial statements to see what the facts are and we found out that the Municipal Golf Course operates at a loss of $862,854 until the City kicks in $550, 000 to cover expenses. The City also kicks in another $400,000 to cover the principal of the outstanding golf course bond annual debt payment plus the $1,000,000 for the parking
lot bonds we discussed earlier. We don't understand Mr. Mayor. Are you saying that the golf course would operate at a profit if it didn't have to make payments for the mortgage, equipment, grounds maintenance, building repairs, infrastructure maintenance, etc? Well wouldn't every business operate at a profit if this was the standard to determine profit or loss? OK, so the Mayor said that the golf course is operating at a profit because he wants it to operate at a profit. Kind of like the
fable about the Emperor's new cloths.

We cannot logically apply any of the Mayor's "reasons" for using
taxpayers' dollars to justify continued subsidies of $1,000,000 of our tax dollars for the golf course, which by the way the City knows is used by less than 3% of Oxnard residents. Our roads are used by virtually all of us and the roads need improvement now.

Respectfully,

Mr. Ventura Fernandez
Mr. Bert Perello
Mrs. Rebecca Ralph

... are you willing to sign your name to what you believe in.¿

Located in the Former
Marie Callendar's Restaurant on South Oxnard Blvd. & Statham  -
CITY BUFFET IS NOW OPEN and serving a tremendous selection of seafood, fried and a tasty Mongolian style plate that you pick your ingredients COME EXPERIENCE THE ALL YOU CAN EAT TREATS.

Take your family and guests -- there is plenty of room and plenty of good food................

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Oxnard Faces 2006 Challenges

by Bill Winter
      Former INCF Chair (2004-2006)
 

Oxnard is entering its second century.
The city that holds the majority of Ventura County's total population is still fighting the top slots in all categories. You could make a list of negative categories: crime, traffic, housing, and quality of life. Or you could speak positively of the city that put in a movie theatre which runs all feature length films to attract more folks to the downtown and is striving to make us a new a shining city in the next century.

Oxnard gives you a voice and opportunity to make a difference in its neighborhood council program. This is where you come in. Oxnard’s neighborhood council program that gives you an opportunity to do something positive for your city and to make a direct impact on how we live and how things evolve city-wide.

Oxnard's Neighborhood Council program is administered and funded by the City Manager’s office and the program is made up of two bodies. The main unit being the local individual neighborhood councils with an umbrella organization known as the INCF which consists of Neighborhood Chairs and Vice Chairs who meet to discuss the general neighborhood issues that affect everyone

As Chairman of the city's Inter-Neighborhood Council Forum (INCF) for the past two years, I've had the unique perspective on goings on in Oxnard. By being a so-called "Volunteer Mayor", the INCF Chair gains a valuable insight into the neighborhoods from a focal point of being able to assist and be of service. This perspective is sharpened from hearing the concerns, addressing the issues with city officials and the community at-large, while trying to figure out how best to solve the myriad of issues, problems, and concerns as they are presented.

I encourage each and every one of you who has not attended a neighborhood council meeting to do so. If you don't get a flyer for the next meeting call city hall, they'll get you in touch with your specific neighborhood council. Oxnard's Neighborhood Council program does lots of great things and always needs more participants. Don't wait for a problem or issue to develop before you get involved. Plan to attend at least two meetings in 2006 and help out with things like the annual neighborhood clean-up or neighborhood watch. The city's neighborhood program is alive and well.

Neighborhood Councils meet to discuss local development, traffic, schools, parks and quality of life issues in a close community setting and style. The INCF meets once a month on the first Wednesday in City Council chambers to discuss general neighborhood issues, devise plans and methods to preserve the neighborhoods, and communicate directly with city officials, planning, and the City Council regarding concerns in their neighborhoods.

On the horizon, the INCF will have to deal directly with the proposals for College Park, for South City development, for new proposals for North Oxnard, and to fight to make the corner of Gonzales Road and Oxnard Boulevard a Sports Park as the City as has planned, promised and zoned for the last 15 years. The INCF will be addressing the issues of permit parking, development and re-development, schools and parks, traffic, housing, and just about every imaginable quality of life issue.

Oxnard is growing fast. We face more severe and steady challenges to our neighborhoods as pressures from developers and planners try to force feed us into covering every available lot of land with something other than open space or farmland. Many of us who came to Oxnard for the open fields, and country feel are becoming more disenchanted with the vision we thought would be Oxnard. SOAR saved us up to this point, and the operative word "in-fill" has driven the most recent spate of "housing units" and compacted homes which sprout onto what once was open space.

What can you do to affect change? The neighborhood council is best way to become pro-active with your concerns to positively impact how life is in your hometown of Oxnard and more importantly, in your neighborhood.

Bill Winter completed his term as
Inter-Neighborhood Council Chairman on Jan. 4th.
 

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AGENDA
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