COUNTY SERVICES EASTBOUND BIGGER ROLE WEIGHED FOR SIMI COURTHOUSE.

Byline: ERIC LEACH

Staff Writer

SIMI VALLEY -- Later this year, east Ventura County residents might be able to get married at the courthouse building in Simi Valley under a plan to expand government services at the county's eastern end.

When the Board of Supervisors met in Simi Valley for the first time ever this past week, Supervisor Peter Foy presented the case for bringing services to the eastern communities around Thousand Oaks, Moorpark and Simi Valley, saying it made economic and environmental sense.

The Simi Valley City Hall is a 79-mile round trip from the Ventura County Government Center in Ventura, he noted.

East county residents drive 2.6 million miles a year, pay $1.3 million each year in fuel and vehicle maintenance costs related to driving back and forth to the center and burn 74,600 gallons of gas, Foy said, making his case with statistics derived from various county department records.

"We have 10,000 square feet available in the East County Courthouse," he said.

He estimated one-time moving costs to transport county offices would amount to about $600,000.

"The goal here is to decrease traffic and increase services," he said. "We would be taking most of those miles off the 101 Freeway."

When Foy said east county residents should be able to obtain marriage licenses and get married in a local county clerk's office rather than driving to Ventura, Supervisor Kathy Long joked the long drive might not be so bad after all.

"I think they (couples planning to get married) should have to drive that far so they can think about it," she said.

Eventually, the county should open a 50,000-square-foot east county government services center, possibly on vacant land available immediately west of the East County sheriff's station at 2101 E. Olsen Road in Thousand Oaks, Foy said. But that could take up to 10 years, he said.

Foy was elected in November to represent the areas around Moorpark and Simi Valley in the Board of Supervisors 4th District.

Other supervisors who have represented the district have pushed for decades to bring county services closer to area residents, but Foy said the time has come to take action now because of fuel costs, traffic congestion, air pollution and greenhouse gases associated with unnecessary driving.

The need for east county residents to travel to Ventura for county services results in about 1.5 million pounds of greenhouse gas per year and about 4,000 pounds of carbon monoxide and other pollutants, he said.

The population of eastern Ventura County has nearly doubled since the county government center was built in Ventura in 1978, and east county residents pay nearly 50 percent of taxes in the county, he said.

"Mr. Foy's proposal is good government," said County Assessor Dan Goodwin, who looked forward to moving services from his office to the east county.

The supervisors met for the first time in Simi Valley on Tuesday night after ceremonies in the afternoon renaming the East County Courthouse at 3855 Alamo St. in honor of former County Supervisor James R. Dougherty, who had pushed for more east county services in his day.

Dougherty, who died in 2005, served on the Simi Valley City Council and the Board of Supervisors in the 1970s and '80s and was known for helping bring the courthouse and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library to Simi Valley.

Several of the 300 or so people at the supervisors meeting complained that in spite of the Simi Valley courthouse, they still have to drive the nearly 80-mile round trip from their homes in Simi Valley to the Ventura courthouse for jury duty.

Vicky Howard, a former member of the Simi Valley City Council and the Board of Supervisors, brought up the issue of jury duty and said it is about time county functions are closer to the residents of the east county.

"I fought for four years to bring services here," she said. "There is something wrong if we have 10,000 empty square feet in the east county courthouse. That's not acceptable."

Before Foy made his presentation, residents were given a chance to express opinions about various concerns, including expansion of the Simi Valley Landfill, cleanup of contamination at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, development in the Santa Susana Knolls area and protection of the Tierra Rejada Greenbelt.

"This is an important mission we should do much more often," Supervisor John Flynn said of holding the meeting in Simi Valley. "Very seldom do we see people from Simi Valley (at the meetings in Ventura). The people here have identified a lot of issues we need to be involved in more."

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