Snub of Oxnard Real Estate Tour

Thank you for the article “Oxnard’s Identity Crisis” (Thursday). I honestly wish my efforts to attract real estate brokers to see Oxnard had generated a different result.

As a member of the Inter-Neighborhood Council Committee representing Oxnard Shores and the Colony at Mandalay Bay, I was disappointed to read INCC Chairwoman Eleanore Branthoover’s remarks that she couldn’t be happier about not attracting land-buyers. I believe her remarks to be personal and not representative of INCC.

Real-estate buyers are also borrowers for local lending institutions, are taxpayers for local governments, are consumers for local merchants, are advocates for preserving the quality of life that attracted them and us to the Channel Islands area in the first place.

These real estate buyers are also employers or key employees who influence the future locations of their companies’ facilities. Their decisions to locate businesses in the area create job opportunities for our citizens. Those companies become borrowers for local lending institutions, taxpayers for local government, “consumers” for local merchants.

“Fast-” or “slow-”growth positions are bad business and/or quality of life decisions. We need “thoughtful growth” which comes from having alternatives on how we grow and at what rate.

Oxnard--indeed Ventura County--is a fast train on its way to “discovery.” Are we going to “engineer” the growth or let it run over us?

TOM CONWAY

Port Hueneme