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The Board of Defectors [sic.
Directors) of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Oxnard and Port
Who-Needs-Me decided to pull the plug on Operations at the 7th Street
B&G Club and let every one know about it yesterday (Monday 12-16).
Families and children of this
club, who got this nice Christmas present from the Board, filled the
Oxnard City Council Chamber to voice their shock and disgust at how
the Board notified staff, fired them, and gave the close order for
this facility. Coming to the Council was the only thing they could do
to seek help, assistence, intervention and basic human caring and understanding
What they got was a lot of
bottom-line bla-bla-bla from Seated B&GC Board Member and current
re-elected Councilmember Dean Maulhardt stating that the premise of
the closing was to do a feasibility study on the site and to review
some needed modifications and upgrades to the site.
- BUT - there appear$
more at $take
than just a review of the facility.
Prior to this devastating and
sudden closure - the Board of the B&GC had sold off some prime
play-field property to a housing development for LOW INCOME (Housing)
ala Cabrillo....so
with the Field of Dreams and the prime play-field gone, what could
be next???? . . . . . . . Access
to the street.
Most likely the B&GC's Board
is going to make a sweetheart deal to sell-off the property of the
current ClubHouse to some palm-greasing developer under the guise of
DownTown ReDevelopment. SAD!
But the grim reality of this
situation is that the affected families and children had
no where else to go tonight but to
the Council.
Oddly enough - Dino Maulhardt,
Ed Sotello- the city mgr., - Tom Holden. - and OPD Cheif Art Lopez
are all on
the B&GC Board of Defectors -
After the comments were heard,
the Council told the gathering that IT, as a body, had no
jurisdiction over this Non-Profit Organization.
Yet with so many City Officials
on the Board -in essence- the folks who came to speak to the Council were
aiming their comments in the right direction as the B&GC Board is
really crossing the line by providing seats to City Officials with
the power to approve new development, easements, re-zoning and the
re-use of city property with all the rights of eminent domain in the
back pocket along with developer contributions.
What is happening to the
DownTown Boys and Girls Club is - it's being
sweetheart-dealed into another
new downtown project...another powerpoint presentation and more
boring architecture.
The Lesson in all this for our
young people is- the dollar rules over the hearts of those who value
dollars more than the hearts and lives of the young.
With his life's work of three
decades of dedicated service to the people and City of Oxnard, as is
the case with Mr. Ruben Herrera, the Board just tossed it and him out
in one day of incredibly swift and insensitive vivasection as well as
the rest of the paid staff. No transfers to other Club facilities
were offered to the off'ed employed staff. Out you go and leave the keys.
What are we showing our kids?
That people are disposable and can be told to leave as if sending
them out to the basura with next week's junk.
The
(expletive implied) humans who make
decisions to fire and remove dedicated B&GC Staff with only a
moment's notice are very uncaring and the citizens who came to
Council - did so to ask: "Why does Oxnard have this motto, the
City that Cares" - when in essence, the City does not.
Mayor Manny Lopez and
Councilmand John C. Zaragoza do care, but they are only two votes
against three other way-off swing-hitters.
Andres Herrera was not present
at this meeting - nor was Pinkherd...but
Maulhardt was and he had to keep his CITY COUNCILMAN hat on while he
tried to justify the action of the B&GC Board of Dissectors. Dean
should have recused himself and both he and Ed Sotello should drop
off that Board that cares-less for Oxnard and what this 7th street
facility has done for the City.
Being on the Boys&GirlsClub
Board is akin to saying "Strom Thurmond should've become
President in 1948" - it's Political anathema to be a "city
official" and to actually allow this horrid Board action to take
place while you have the power to do something.
The Oxnard Journal is asking
Dean Maulhardt - Ed Sotello and Chief Art Lopez to drop off the
Boys&GirlsClub BOARD and take a stand for the kids and citizens
of Oxnard.
Seeing children come to the
Council and cry for an important part of their life to be saved and
not ripped from them is enough, seeing Gary Gillig just sit and read
a report and to see no action or direction taken by the Council to
remedy this is hurting and hurtful.
Oxnard, the City that Cares -
yeah right !
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the Oxnard Journal supports the
new Theatre Project.
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