PARTY ON: Oxnard turns 90 today (B1),...

PARTY ON: Oxnard turns 90 today (B1), but you can’t tell by the size of its birthday party: Little is planned to celebrate its nine decades of cityhood. “We had a big party for our 50th, we had a big one on the 75th and I assume on the 100th we’ll have another big one. This one is kind of in between,” Mayor Manuel Lopez said . . . Unlike the monthlong, 10th birthday celebration in Moorpark earlier this month, Oxnard has adopted an anniversary resolution and is airing cable TV spots featuring councilmen dispensing birthday wishes.

ON TIME: As Gov. Pete Wilson prepares to sign the new state budget into law (A3), marking the first time in seven years the state will have a spending plan in place before the start of the fiscal year, several Ventura County cities are yet to follow suit. Port Hueneme, Santa Paula and Thousand Oaks, along with the county, won’t adopt budgets before the July 1 start of the fiscal year . . . “We’ve been trying to hold on to see what the state is going to do to us,” Santa Paula Councilman John Melton explained.

SCENIC ROUTE: While county supervisors push to make California 33 north of Ojai a national scenic highway (B1), a similar effort for a 16-mile stretch of the Ventura Freeway through the Conejo Valley is stalled in traffic . . . The cities of Agoura Hills, Westlake Village and Thousand Oaks have supported the effort, but a measure that declares the freeway a scenic highway is meandering through the state Legislature.

SINGLE DADS: Slowly, some single fathers are coming head-to-head with dilemmas that routinely plague mothers who work outside the home (E1): realigning their professional lives to accommodate their families . . . “There is no greater satisfaction than caring for your family,” said Allan Grinnell of Simi Valley, who is president of a countywide support group for single parents. “It’s my life.”

Municipal Birthdays

When Ventura County cities were incorporated: Ventura: March 10, 1866 Santa Paula: April 22, 1902 Oxnard: June 30, 1903 Fillmore: July 10, 1914 Ojai: Aug. 5, 1921 Port Hueneme: March 24, 1948 Thousand Oaks: Oct. 7, 1964 Camarillo: Oct. 22, 1964 Simi Valley: Oct. 10, 1969 Moorpark: July 1, 1983 Source: Ventura County and Coast Almanac