Огнестанция Вентуры возводит 80-футовую вышку без разрешения города Охай

The Ventura County Fire Department is building an 80-foot communication tower at Fire Station No. 21 on East Ojai Avenue — and it did so without a City permit, ignoring an Ojai stop-work order. The Ojai City Council will hear a presentation on the project at a special meeting Tuesday, Aug. 18, part of a two-item agenda that also includes a progress report on the Council's nine goals for the year. The special meeting starts at 5 p.m. in Kent Hall Council Chambers. Council Member Rachel Lang will attend by teleconference from Lily Dale, New York, a publicly noticed additional meeting location. The agenda also lists a closed session covering the city manager's performance evaluation and existing litigation in Leslie Rule v. City of Ojai. Fire station tower (Item 4) VCFD is replacing Station 21's existing rooftop antenna — about 55 feet total — with a freestanding 60-foot tower topped by a 20-foot whip antenna, for a total height of roughly 80 feet, according to the staff report. The station, built at its current site in 1979, serves Ojai and the eastern Ojai Valley and is staffed daily by three firefighters. The City learned of the project only after a subcontractor mistakenly contacted the Community Development Department to schedule an inspection, revealing no City permit existed, the report said. The City issued a stop-work order Aug. 12. The County does not intend to comply and plans to pour the tower's concrete foundation, indicating interest in meeting with the City afterward. The County maintains that, as a subdivision of the State engaged in a sovereign activity, it is immune from the City's permitting and land-use authority under California case law including Hall v. City of Taft and Lawler v. City of Redding. The County determined the project exempt from CEQA but has not provided details of the exemption, the report said. Staff recommends the Council receive the presentation, acknowledge the County's permitting authority and request copies of the County-issued permits and approved plan set for City records. Staff wrote that the absence of advance notification "represents a significant concern for interagency trust and transparency." No financial impact to the City is anticipated; the County bears all costs. Goals and tactics update (Item 3) Staff will present a progress update on the Council's nine goals, recommending the Council receive and file it. Highlights include a $386,025 agreement with the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council, 25 arts grants totaling $100,000, and the newly established Public Safety Commission, which held its first meeting Aug. 3. Sales tax and second-home taxation concepts are anticipated for the Sept. 22 meeting. The community survey has not started and is not recommended until after the November 2026 election. This article was AI-assisted (summarized) and included human fact checking and editorial review before publication. Articles that include an AI Assist byline use generative AI technology and our proprietary agentic tool. For more on this technology and our AI policy, see our About Us page.