BIG DECISION FOR MOSQUITO DISTRICT; FULL BOARD WILL OFFICIALLY VOTE ON DISBANDING.

Byline: Gloria Gonzales Daily News Staff Writer

The Moorpark Mosquito Abatement District will have a second opportunity to quietly vote itself out of existence tonight when the first formal resolution to dissolve comes before the five trustees.

Eloise Brown, one of the board's newest members, informally suggested dissolution at the district's June meeting, only to be stymied because the five-member board, with one vacant seat, deadlocked on a 2-2 vote.

Since then, Supervisor Judy Mikels has appointed Moorpark businessman Bruce Thomas as the fifth trustee to the 37-year-old district. Brown then made her resolution formal.

Thomas said Thursday that he remained unsure about how he would vote tonight.

``I'd like to know what the city has planned first,'' Thomas said. ``But I have been taking an informal survey, and among the people I talk to there's the feeling that people don't trust the city to do the job.''

Critics of the district, like Brown, argue that it has outlived its usefulness and is hoarding a $1.4 million surplus accumulated over at least a 10-year period.

Supporters argue that to dissolve the district is to penalize it for a job well done. Both sides also argue about what should happen to the surplus, and what should happen to the fraction of property tax that has gone to the district for 30 years.

The district was created in 1960 to combat the flies spawned at the egg ranches that lined Los Angeles Avenue. The flies flew so thick in Moorpark that residents joked that the fly was the city's official mascot, and one resident drove to Sacramento with a huge plastic and wire fly with a 12-foot wingspan attached to the front of his truck to call attention to the problem.

``I had a house with a porch on it,'' said Leta Yancy, the first mayor of Moorpark who moved to the city in 1960. ``The flies were so thick that if you walked out onto the porch they just sort of hovered there.''

Yancy has served as the district's secretary since its inception.

The fly problem was controlled within about a year of the district's creation, Yancy said.

``We sent out one abatement notice to a ranch on Los Angeles Avenue and that alerted everybody that we were serious,'' Yancy recalled.

The district has the power to send abatement notices, and require ranches to clean up the source of the fly problem or pay a daily fine of up to $500.

``But it was mostly a matter of education,'' Yancy said. ``We went around and taught ranchers what they had to do to keep the flies away. Once they knew what created the problem, they corrected it.''

The district's two employees continue inspections of the city's few remaining egg ranches to this day, though few residents remember any years with flies as thick as before the district was formed.

But as the city grew and egg ranches dwindled, flies were fewer and the district's fraction of property taxes grew. In 1993, for example, the district took in $254,429 dollars for its share of property tax, but only spent $111,106. Several years of $100,000 surpluses have created today's $1.4 million surplus, which earns between 3 and 5 percent interest in a state fund, Brown said.

What's to become of that money is part of the debate. District trustee Bill La Perch and Chairman Jim Hartley argue that the money should not merely flow into the city's general fund, but should somehow go back to the taxpayers. To that end, they have suggested a negative declaration on Moorpark property owners tax bills.

In effect, the district would continue to operate off the surplus, but cease to draw its fraction from property taxes, La Perch has said.

But Brown and others note that the Cortese-Knox Act of 1985 was written to deal with the dissolution of such districts and it specifies that the surpluses are divided on the basis of city and county shares of property tax. In Moorpark's case that split would mean about 91 percent would go to Moorpark while the remaining 9 percent would go to the county.

The act also states that the tax allocation be decided through discussion between the city and the county, and that thus the district has no power to reduce taxes to city property owners through a negative allocation.

For all the controversy, tonight's vote will mean little come August. In late May, the City Council petitioned the Local Agency Formation Commission to dissolve the district, and it will meet on the issue in August.

``A unanimous vote to dissolve from the district would give LAFCO the ability to go ahead without too much trouble,'' Brown said Friday. ``It would be the most graceful way to exit the scene.''

But trustees Hartley and La Perch think otherwise.

``I say keep an open mind and let LAFCO make the decision,'' Hartley said. ``My job is too ensure that the district's job gets done; it's a responsibility I take very seriously. I want LAFCO to hear from all sides. I don't want the district to be like a gagged convict just waiting from LAFCO to pull the switch.''