Moving Oxnard Forward Files 5 Oxnard Voter Initiatives

By George Miller

Aaron Starr of moving Oxnard Forward (MOF), which won the utility rate rollback initiative and subsequent city lawsuit attacking it (now in appeal), filed a blizzard of 5 new ballot initiatives with the Oxnard City Clerk on Thursday, April 18, 2019. They cover diverse topics such as: term limits, open/transparent meetings and financial systems, street quality and huge simplification of building permits. The former candidate for Mayor and Council is outspoken about his dissatisfaction with City management and the legislative process. Now, he is once again trying to change it, again via getting the People to pull rank on city officials, via the initiative process.

Note:  Updated to better quality and correct initiative copies

A summary of the initiatives & actual texts:

 1. Term limits 

• Designed to reduce the contiguous time in office and allow “rotation” of officeholders. It does allow former office holders to run again after specified periods out of office.
• Oxnard Term Limits – filed with city clerk

2. Oxnard Open Meetings Act

• All public city meetings must start no earlier than 5 pm.
• Meetings must be run under Roberts Rules of Order. Training must be provided by a registered Parliamentarian to all legislative office holders
• All  public meeting presentations must be video recorded n advance.
• All public speakers must be given at least 3 minutes to speak.
• Oxnard Open Meetings – filed with city clerk

3. Oxnard Financial Transparency & Accountability Act

This transfers the Finance Dept. to report directly to an elected official:

• City Treasurer to be head of Finance Dept.
• City Treasurer to define and oversee financial system
• City Treasurer to oversee internal auditing
• City Treasurer to administer the whistleblower system
• City Treasure to submit annual budget to the Council.
• Financial transparency required for bids and contracts- all posted/published online in easily public-accessible dashboard system.
• Monthly financial reports 
• Develop and administer a performance measurement system for cost, quality and timeliness
• Oxnard Fiscal Transparency – filed with city clerk

4, Keep Promise for Oxnard Streets Act

• Improve city streets Pavement Management Index (PMI) to:
  • 65% by September 2022
  • 70 by September 2024
  • 75 by September 2026
  • 80 by Speedometer 2028
• If this is not accomplished, then the Measure O 1/2% sales tax will be “sunsetted” (terminated)
• Keeping the Promise for Oxnard Streets – filed with city clerk

5. Permit Simplicity Act

• The city shall “outsource” same day permitting to applicant’s architect and civil engineers, who are responsible for submitting compliant plans.  The city may audit these.
• Oxnard Permit Simplicity – filed with city clerk

Starr is expecting resistance from some officials and vested interests to being held accountable and changing set ways, but expects good support from the public to get these passed.

He says that MOF would have to get 8200 signatures (10% of the 82K registered voters) for each initiative to qualify for the ballot.

George Miller is Publisher/Co-Founder of CitizensJournal.us and a “retired” operations management consultant residing in Oxnard

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