City Owes Cleanup to Keys Residents

When the wind blows sand into the streets along Pierpont Boulevard, the city immediately dispatches skip-loaders to clean it up. When a creek backs up and overflows, cleanup crews are sent to the site. But when a few citizens in the Ventura Keys request that the city stop dumping pollutants into our streets of water and somehow stem the tide of debris and pesticides flowing down from the mountains and agricultural fields, the city looks at us incredulously and says, “That’s not our problem.”

Aren’t we part of Ventura? Don’t we pay taxes?

Since the view homes in Clearpoint are in a hazardous fire area, the Fire Department performs controlled burns to protect them. Perhaps they should be considered for a benefit assessment district. After all, it doesn’t affect most of us. And the east end is growing by leaps and bounds.

Perhaps they, too, should be considered for a benefit assessment. After all, it doesn’t affect us. How narrow-minded and petty this could all become!

The Save the Keys Committee is not only trying to restore the Keys, it’s also trying to preserve the integrity of the citizens of Ventura. The problem we have in the Keys is an environmental one, not a people problem. The city agreed, 25 years ago, to maintain our waterways. Unlike so many problems besetting our world, this one has a solution. It’s a shame that it’s going to take a lawsuit to prove the point: We have a right to clean, safe water.

LESLIE BRAUN, Ventura