Moving Oxnard Forward

The editorial board applauding the City for admitting its mistake now – after losing a four-year court battle with us – is comparable to praising an embezzler for admitting his crime after the jury found him guilty and the judge sentenced him to prison.

Imagine everyone in town pays this gardener to mow lawns. You agree to pay the man additional money for ENHANCED services, such as planting trees, removing weeds, trimming hedges, etc.

But he doesn’t perform the extra work. Soon, he’s only mowing your lawn half as often. Instead, he spends the money on a slick marketer to sell you SUPER-ENHANCED services.

Sounds like a load of fertilizer, right?

Welcome to Oxnard’s Landscape Maintenance Districts (LMDs), where for the privilege of paying an additional assessment on your property tax bill, you too can pay extra for services that are over-promised and under-delivered.

For years residents have complained to Oxnard City Council about various abuses within LMDs.

Imagine this. You learn that your child pocketed 36 cookies that did not belong to him ... and he ate 32 of them.  After you confront him, he returns the remaining four cookies and proclaims what a good boy he is for doing so.

Does returning ONLY SOME of what he took excuse him … or even make him noble?

Of course not! But that’s what Oxnard City Hall would have you believe about its utility rate refunds.

We have a development to report since our last update.

As you know, the Ventura County Superior Court ordered Oxnard City Hall to reduce your utility rates by June 16 by the amount of the Infrastructure Use Fee (“IUF”) – an embedded charge that Judge Matthew Guasco described as “illegal and unreasonable” – and to report back by July 31 that it had done so.

Predictably, the City did not reduce utility rates … and did not report back to the court ... it simply defied the court order.

But suddenly – only after we scheduled a court hearing to address their noncompliance – the City begrudgingly filed a report with the court on Tuesday.  So, what’s the City’s reported excuse to the court for not having yet reduced utility rates?

Oxnard City Hall was ordered by a judge to lower your utility rates by June 16 ... but they have refused to do it.

Last December we prevailed in a lawsuit against the City of Oxnard for unlawfully charging its City-owned utilities (i.e. water, wastewater and solid waste) an Infrastructure Use Fee (or “IUF”), siphoning tens of millions of dollars to the City’s general slush fund (and increasing your utility bills to pay for it).

Imagine what would happen if YOU provided false information to a judge.

Just because Oxnard City Hall publishes a number, don’t assume that it’s correct …

… especially if they’re trying to persuade the public to accept rate increases … or to vote against a ballot measure … or if they’re trying to persuade a judge in court!

We just had another win in court last week, with a judge granting an anti-SLAPP motion against the city of Oxnard.

In November, Oxnard voters adopted Measures M and N. 

• Measure M requires that council meetings be held outside the standard workday so more of us can participate, gives the public greater opportunity to speak, and mandates that City Hall provide more information to the public in advance of the meeting.
• Measure N requires the city to repair our streets to certain standards by certain dates or else reduce our sales tax rate.

Oxnard City Hall is fighting these reform measures to improve transparency and accountability to the taxpayers.

In City Hall's continuing war against increased transparency and public participation, they lost another battle on Monday.

Without warning last Thursday, City Hall notified our attorney that they had requested a next-day court hearing seeking an emergency temporary restraining order to enjoin – in other words, stop – implementation of Measure M.

Unfortunately, name-calling is the level of discourse we have come to expect from Oxnard City Hall.

In last week’s issue of the Tri County Sentry, Oxnard City Manager Alex Nguyen called the President of Moving Oxnard Forward a “Fascist” because we use the democratic process to bring increased transparency to local government. By implication, his characterization is also aimed at the 36,549 Oxnard residents who voted for such reform.

Perhaps we should buy the city manager a dictionary.

You helped us bring positive change to Oxnard!

The entire Oxnard City Council urged voters to oppose Measure M (the “Oxnard Open Meetings Act”).  But Oxnard voters knew better and adopted Measure M with 57% of the vote this past November.

As a result of your vote for Measure M, there’s a new feature on council meeting agendas – and we want to make sure you notice and make use of it.