Planning Panelist Resigns in Oxnard

Upset at the rapid pace of development and a string of controversial business deals in Oxnard, Manuel Perez resigned from the city’s Planning Commission Wednesday in the hope that his departure will force officials to rethink planning policy.

Perez, who held the post for a decade, delivered letters of resignation on Wednesday afternoon to the mayor and city clerk.

“This city is growing too fast and I fear we aren’t going to leave anything for our children,� the 65-year-old retired firefighter said. “Instead of farming, we’re planting concrete and asphalt and buildings.

“I was fighting a lost cause and I just didn’t want to be a part of it anymore.�

The resignation by Perez follows protests by some Oxnard residents and other members of the city’s seven-member Planning Commission about pro-growth positions taken by the City Council.

One recent protest involved a decision to permit auto center dealers to receive 50% of the sales tax money they generate as an incentive to set up shop in the city. That money normally would go to city coffers.

But Perez said he is concerned about more than just business policies. He said he is concerned about the loss of prime farmland being swallowed whole by new commercial projects in some areas of the city.

And he said he is worried that Oxnard’s working class has few places to work and even fewer places to live.

“This is a city of poorer people and they are being shoved out,� Perez said. “I’m not having a fistfight with the council. I just wanted to make a point and the way of making that point was to resign.�

Mayor Nao Takasugi and other members of the City Council said they are sorry to see Perez leave his job. But Takasugi defended the city’s business dealings and development practices as a necessary step in recharging Oxnard’s slumping economy.

“No city today can afford to sit still in view of current economic conditions,� said Takasugi, who added that recent business deals have generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in new tax revenue that didn’t exist before development. “To sit still today is to go backward,� he said.

Perez said he believes that Oxnard already is going backward. Longtime residents can’t find places to live, he said, and remodeled garages house two and three families.

He said he had thought for months about resigning so that he could devote more time to community activism. But a couple of recent project proposals pushed him over the edge.

He opposed plans to put a major shopping center, anchored by a Wal-Mart store, on 62 acres near Gonzales Road and Rose Avenue. He didn’t even bother to attend the meeting where the project was discussed because he believed that the decision had already been made, he said.

The commission approved the project in a 4-1 vote.

And he continues to oppose a 15-story office tower proposed for seven acres near the Ventura Freeway and Vineyard Avenue.

The $57-million high-rise, which is set for Planning Commission review later this month, is expected to create 2,600 jobs and increase city revenue by more than $13,000 a year. The project as proposed, however, is larger than the city now allows and would require amending the city’s General Plan.

Perez said the tower will compound area traffic problems and, with vacancies at office buildings throughout the city, the last thing Oxnard needs is more office space.

But he expects the project to sail through the planning process and win City Council approval.

“That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about,� he said. “We’re just not giving a whole lot of thought to our future.�

Commenting on Perez’s resignation, one prominent Oxnard community leader said Wednesday that she agrees with him that the city’s business deals are backfiring.

“You just can’t spend what you don’t have and that’s what we seem to be doing,� said Eleanor Branthoover, chairwoman of the Rio Lindo Neighborhood Council. “We’re like yuppies with unlimited credit and now it’s just catching up with us.�

Selma Dressler, chairwoman of the Oxnard Planning Commission, also supported Perez’s position, saying the city is allowing developers to pave over farmland in exchange for promises of new tax dollars.

“All cities are feeling the financial pinch, but it’s almost as if we are looking for a miracle solution,� she said. “But developers come and go and they leave their mistakes behind them. The people who have lived here and will continue to live here will be the ones who suffer.�