Oxnard Activists Attack Anti-Crime Plan : Law enforcement: The new police chief wants to open a storefront station at an apartment in La Colonia. But some residents say their questions have not yet been answered.

Oxnard Police Chief Harold Hurtt is drawing fire from some La Colonia residents who charge that he has misrepresented their support of a proposed crime-fighting program.

In one of his first major proposals since taking office two months ago, Hurtt wants to operate a temporary police storefront station out of a two-bedroom apartment in La Colonia.

Known as community-based policing, the program is designed to fight gangs and drugs by fostering a cooperative relationship between residents and police.

But some La Colonia residents said that if it is cooperation that city officials seek, they have started down the wrong path by suggesting that La Colonia had backed the program.

“I was not in agreement and I flat-out told Chief Hurtt that,” said Larry Acosta, a city employee who provides recreation programs for the La Colonia area. “It just goes against my grain. It just seems that Big Brother wants to keep an eye on us.”

In a memo to the City Council, Hurtt and city Housing Director Sal Gonzalez wrote that neighborhood leaders had reservations about opening a police storefront, but that “the idea was supported on a trial basis.”

La Colonia residents, who met with Hurtt and Gonzalez this month, said that simply isn’t true.

Carlos Aguilera, president of the La Colonia Neighborhood Council, said he told Hurtt and Gonzalez that he wanted more information on community-based policing so residents could discuss it at their next neighborhood meeting.

“You have to understand the police politics when they play this game of letting the community suffer to the point that they will accept anything that resembles police protection,” Aguilera said. “There’s a lot of questions we have about substations and how they work.”

Hurtt has been talking about inserting community-based policing into Oxnard’s toughest neighborhoods since he became police chief two months ago.

The program envisions police and residents working as equal partners to fight crime. First introduced on a large scale in Houston a decade ago, police storefronts have been credited with curbing crime in neighborhoods nationwide where repeated police visits weren’t making a difference.

Hurtt said he believes that the same thing can happen in La Colonia and other crime-infested Oxnard neighborhoods, and he said he thought that Aguilera and Acosta agreed.

“They did express some concern. They said they didn’t know enough about it,” the chief said. “But I think they did support it in concept.

“I don’t see how anyone can find any fault in our efforts to provide better service to the community,” he said.

Hurtt plans to pitch the idea to the City Council in mid-September. “I just don’t see a lot of negatives,” he said.

The idea is that by establishing a storefront police substation as headquarters for the local patrol, residents and police learn to trust each other and work together to decide the best ways to fight crime.

Hurtt’s proposal, the first of its kind in Ventura County, would put a couple of officers and perhaps a commander in the neighborhood full-time. The substation would eventually move from the apartment to the Colonia Senior Center after it is expanded in 1994.

Although no police storefront exists in Oxnard, Hurtt said, police have used the South Oxnard Center as a makeshift substation on Sunday nights when cruisers take over Saviers Road.

He said he will barely have enough officers to staff the La Colonia station when it opens, but that he hopes to spread the idea to other tough neighborhoods as more officers are hired.

In addition, he said he will encourage other department employees to work out of the storefront station.

“There should be people in the neighborhood you can reach out and touch without having to go to City Hall,” Hurtt said. “I think the message that this should send is that the people of La Colonia are concerned about the quality of life and are willing to join with police to change the direction of what’s been happening there.”

Aguilera said he supports the goal. It’s the method he has problems with.

“We should at least be afforded the opportunity to respond to the proposal before we have department heads speaking for our community,” he said.