Building in Greenbelt a Great Idea--Not

I read that the city of Oxnard intends to facilitate the construction of more than 3,000 houses and an “agriculture theme park” over toward Camarillo [“Farm Panel Assails Plan to Build in Greenbelt,” June 10]. I happen to know that a smaller-scale (only 300-400 houses) wild-eyed grab is in the works to the west--near Harbor Boulevard and West 5th Street.

As a registered voter living in Oxnard, these projects make me want to shout, “Hooray for the principle of representative democracy!” because it’s clear that the leadership is truly representing my interests and not, as some have insinuated, the private interests of real estate developers and land brokers. Far from it!

As a voter, I fully support the goal of establishing a broad swath of concrete and asphalt and housing tracts and strip malls from the Conejo Grade to the Santa Barbara County line. Along with everyone else in the area, I just don’t care much for farmland, greenbelts and other biologically sensitive areas.

(In fact, before moving here, my first choice was Moreno Valley, where one can really appreciate the zesty aroma of smog and a lack of available oxygen. But things didn’t work out.)

I also support the proposition that this nation has too much farmland. Who needs it, really? Soon, if you want an apple, they’ll just clone it for you--right there in the lab.

One day there will be no more county land to grab (or “annex”) and all of the mega-housing tracts will have been built. I am sure that, like all of the other constituents, I will feel nothing but civic pride each time I am pressured to cough up more and more money for new schools, improved streets, increased fire and police services, etc., etc.

And I look forward to the day when I can rev up the old jalopy and roll down the four-lanes-in-each-direction boulevards that crisscross the Oxnard Plain as far as the eye can see. I’ll stop at the “Oxnardland Farm ‘n’ Fun” theme park and laugh my troubles away by taking a hay ride. Well, not a real hay ride, of course. But an incredible simulation.

GREGORY C. FAST

Oxnard