Condition of Oak Park utilities a cause for worry

TIME FOR A MAKEOVER- The community of Oak Park, now more than 20 years old, is beginning to show its age. The delivery of electricity and water to the community of Oak Park is of concern to some public officials who say facilities are unreliable, insufficient and aging.

Representatives from Southern California Edison Co. and Calleguas Municipal Water District discussed the issue at a recent meeting of the Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council.

Electrical outages Numerous electrical outages over the past year are troubling and dangerous and create potential public safety issues, said MAC member Mike Paule.

"One of your supervisors said this area has the worst equipment in the system," said Paule to Edison Regional Manager Rudy Gonzales.

"With all the money we're paying in increased rates- to have multiple power outages, cable boxes blown out- we're very in a corner. It seems Oak Park is not getting its fair share," added Paule, who detailed his own experiences with electricity failures.

The electrical outages over the past year, including those during the Labor Day weekend heat wave, were due to old transformers which could not handle the demands on the system, according to Gonzales. Aggravating the situation, Edison did not have enough personnel to respond quickly to all of the systemwide problems, resulting in customers being left without power for periods of up to several days, he said.

"The demand reached an alltime high on Aug. 31, more energy than ever in the history of our company," Gonzales said. "It increased faster than we expected."

He explained that in response, a new circuit is being designed for the Oak Park substation situated on the northeast side of Lindero Canyon Road at Kanan Road. Last year, after power was lost for several days, new transformers were installed on the other side of Oak Park in an older residential section that includes Conifer Street, Satinwood Avenue, Pinion Street, Bayberry Street, Smoketree Avenue and parts of Kanan Road.

Gonzales encouraged residents to contact him if an outage occurs. "I will do my very best to advocate on behalf of this community," Gonzales said.

He can be reached at (805) 4975616.

Water issues

On the issue of water, Oak Park is one of the "most storagedeficient areas in the county," according to Don Kendall, Calleguas general manager, who said he was speaking at the MAC meeting as an Oak Park resident.

"I'm very concerned about this community. You need storage. You rely on that," Kendall said.

Calleguas is the wholesale supplier of water to Oak Park. Triunfo Sanitation District purchases water from Calleguas, then provides it to residents and businesses. Calleguas also supplies water to other cities including Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Moorpark and Camarillo.

"Of the 20 customers we have, Oak Park (storage) is the most deficient," Kendall said.

In a subsequent telephone interview with The Acorn, Kendall said Oak Park's current lack of water storage would endanger the community in the event of an emergency. He said the situation also makes it difficult to repair pipes and if there were a fire or if a water line breaks there isn't enough storage for backup water while repairs are done.

"Oak Park is an area where I can't take that line out of service because they can't go without water long enough for us to inspect pipes," Kendall said.

Calleguas does external inspections and monitors pipes for corrosion where possible in order to quickly head off problems, but the internal, more indepth examination of pipes that is done in other cities cannot be done in Oak Park, Kendall added.

Enough water is needed for "fire flow," the amount of water that should be available to provide fire protection. In Oak Park, fire flow is lacking, Kendall said. Underscoring the problem, he said, his family was evacuated from their home during the September 2005 fires that came dangerously close to Oak Park residences.

He said the new water tank planned by Triunfo Sanitation District, which services Oak Park Water, will help tremendously as it will be double the size of the existing 41-year-old tank. But even with a larger tank, water storage for Oak Park will remain insufficient, Kendall said.

"It's going to make a huge difference but in our opinion it will not be enough water in case of emergency," Kendall said.

Reach Out to Oak Park

The Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council meets on the fourth Tuesday of every month at 7 p.m. in the Oak Park High School presentation room (G9) at 899 Kanan Road.

MAC minutes and agendas can be found at the website www.countyofventura.org/bos/ dist2.asp. You can also e-mail Linda.Parks@ventura.org.

The Oak Park Unified School District Board of Education meets in the high school presentation room on the first and third Tuesday of every month at 7 p.m. Visit the district website at www.opusd.k12.ca.us, or call the district at (818) 735-3200 (fax: 879-0372).

The school district's address is 5801 E. Conifer St., Oak Park, CA 91377.