Centerplex Throws Taxpayers for a Loss
The Jan. 6 Ventura City Council meeting was just another addition to the tableau of surreal sports seemingly played out in Alice’s Wonderland on the fields of celery at the Stuporplex.
One can only imagine the discussions that must have occurred between Community Services Director Everett Millais and City Manager Donna Landeros, when it was decided to have the City Council overturn its certification of the environmental impact report for the extension of Olivas Park Drive (the “stealth EIR†for the Centerplex). It was Millais and his fellow city department managers who last fall cavalierly rejected citizens’ objections to this EIR, and intentionally dismissed the California Environmental Quality Act.
The touting of potential court actions by EIR appellants (the litigious city of Oxnard and CalTrout) by Ventura officials seems like exclamations of the Mad Hatter. Please note that no Ventura resident was able to surmount the steep and punitive appeal fees the city inflicts on those who have the temerity to seek redress of their grievances before the City Council.
The $2.7 million of additional, yet unnecessary, roads approved for the auto center, will cost nearly two years of the taxes currently collected from auto center businesses. No objective evaluation shows that the city will ever get any return from this public investment. Auto center visitors should be able to more conveniently tour the surrounding celery fields, though. This must be part of the city’s tourism program for vegetarians.
The city promoted, and public monies paid consultants for the costly Centerplex “stealth EIR.†Neither developer John Hofer nor his auto center cronies have paid the city’s costs for the futile Suckerplex debacle. And what about all the city staff time invested in this dubious undertaking? Now the city will confer a further $2.7 million boon of public funds on these characters with the tour de celery.
As Alice might have said, “This isn’t Wonderland--it’s Ventura!â€
NEIL A. MOYER, Ventura
