Oxnard Gossip Column: Issue 24: Monday, March 30th, 2026
Is the fate of GenOn at Ormond Beach more uncertain today than ever?
Welcome to Oxnard Gossip Column! The name is for fun, but who knows… perhaps we will get a little Oxnard “tea” once in a while! Unless otherwise indicated, all articles are written by and contain expressed opinions of OGC Editor - Heather Schmidt.Submit a tip or topic idea, or share comments or ideas, to HeatherSchmidtMPA@gmail.com.
Will the GenOn Deal Ultimately Be Canceled?
Late last year, the Oxnard City Council approved a deal brokered between City staff and South Oxnard’s power generating company, GenOn. In exchange for approving a transition plan for Ormond Beach Generating Plant to transition to a lithium ion battery storage facility, GenOn agreed to invest $40M into the City of Oxnard. This is in addition to the financial commitments made by GenOn to dismantle and remove the existing plant once it is decommissioned.
In previous years, the decommissioning of the power plant has been extended on numerous occasions. Citing energy demand, the State has denied decommissioning, much to the frustration of Oxnard residents and policymakers. It is currently slated to shutdown permanently on December 31, 2026, though that may again ultimately be extended or outright denied. Up until the last several weeks, this seemed unlikely, with policymakers and GenOn, themselves, anticipating the plant to be closed in accordance with the December 31st timing.
Today, the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has begun to make Oxnard area residents nervous, though, about the possibility that decommissioning of the power plant may again be off. This week, energy and economy experts came out in national media, saying they are preparing for oil to reach as high as $200 a barrel. As gas prices have already surged in the weeks following the attack on Iran, this further increase in price per barrel would be catastrophic to not only gas prices, but the entire supply chain the world all over. Including energy. Should an energy crisis actually present itself in the coming weeks and months, it is likely to influence Statewide policymakers in their decision on whether or not to proceed with the planned closure/transition of GenOn at Ormond Beach.
According to representatives of GenOn late last year, in the event the Ormond Beach Generating Plant stays open, the $40M investment deal is off.
While some Oxnard residents indicate this could be a blessing in disguise, given their extreme opposition to the development of a lithium ion battery storage facility at the location; it stands to reason that the ongoing, documented health impacts of the Ormond Beach Generating Plant will persist in the event the plant remains in operation. Especially if the plant is operational for more periods of time than it currently is amidst global energy shortages.
And what would Oxnard get in exchange for these ongoing hardships? Nothing.
Former Oxnard City Clerk Ensnared In Election-Related Lawsuits In New Role At the County
Oxnard’s former City Clerk Michelle Ascencion took on her new role as Ventura County Clerk-Recorder in 2023, after winning her election in the fall of 2022. Ascencion was the Oxnard City Clerk from 2016 until taking on the role of Assistant County Clerk-Recorder in 2020. Up for re-election herself this year, Ascencion and her office seemingly became ensnared in multiple legal election challenges as the Primary filing period came to a close earlier this month.
The first challenge was on the matter of Assembly candidate Kelly Honig, who was one of many vying for Assembly District 42, which is being vacated later this year by Jacqui Irwin. Irwin’s district covers areas of Ventura County including Thousand Oaks and Camarillo, and extends south into areas of Los Angeles County. Honig is a resident of Westlake, technically over the County line into Los Angeles, which is where the challenge arose. Honig filed her candidacy documents, and paid the appropriate fees, in Ventura County, which she alleges the election workers advised her was the appropriate place for filing. She then presented those documents to Los Angeles county, where elections officials there said no other filings were necessary.
According to lawyers for the Secretary of State, though, Honig should have filed in her technical county of residence, essentially disqualifying her from being placed on the ballot in June. Lawyers also indicated that Ventura County election officials should have never taken her paperwork or fees; Ascencion’s office provided no comment on the issue.
In an article published by the Ventura County Star, Honig’s statement reads: “This is immensely disappointing, devastating and a failure of our election system … at every step of the way, I followed every instruction given to me by election officials. They failed, and now the voters lose.”
Honig’s lawyer says the courts "…said the Ventura and Los Angeles County registrars, and the secretary of state, had no duty to catch the error…"
The second legal challenge that Ascencion’s office was drawn into this month was in the Ventura County Supervisorial District 2 race, where two Democrats are challenging Republican incumbent Jeff Gorell. Should Gorell not receive 50+1% of the vote in June, a runoff election will be held between the top, two vote-getters.
In a court filing by Gorell’s former Chief of Staff-now opposition candidate, Mark Perryman, Perryman takes issue with the third candidate’s ballot designation and candidate statement. In his court filings, Perryman’s lawyer argues that candidate Ashley Orozco embellished her employment position as “manager” by referring to herself as an “executive.” They further dispute the description of “endorsed by 50+ countywide elected officials,” claiming that Orozco’s endorsements are not all currently elected to office (many are technically former), and that the description of them as “countywide” would imply to voters the positions represent the entire county (rather than roles such as school board, city council, and so on). In her response, Orozco’s lawyers called the allegations tantamount to hearsay; and submitted declarations from endorsers and individuals involved with the campaign in support of Orozco’s statements. While Orozco was not ultimately willing to declare under penalty of perjury the veracity of her statements, the judge ruled that Perryman’s arguments did not provide sufficient proof to require the changes Orozco’s own filings suggested.
Where Ascencion and her office came in - according to reporting at the Ventura County Star - was in compelling the court to provide a decision at the March 27th hearing, given the timing of sending ballots and voter guides to print in a timely manner. They took no other position on the issue.
These legal entanglements all come as the Ventura County Clerk-Recorder is - again - running her own campaign for re-election against candidate Paul Harold Johnson, a Computerized System Analyst. Little information is available about Johnson, though Ascencion has taken heat in recent years over the implementation of the Voters Choice Act county-wide. The Voters Choice Act (VCA) implements all-mail ballots with a different structure for the return of ballots, phased out in the days in advance of Election Day. One significant finding in recent studies has determined that counties in California that have implemented the VCA have seen precipitous declines in voter turnout, especially observed in Black and Brown populations. Researchers are still attempting to ascertain the reasons for such declines, but one popular theory is that the VCA as it is currently written drastically limits polling locations for people that wish to vote in person, making the act of voting more cumbersome and inaccessible.
The Primary election will be held on Tuesday, June 2nd.
Oxnard City Council To Take On Exhaustive List of Hot Button Issues on April 7th
The Oxnard City Council is poised to take on a host of hot button issues at their first April City Council meeting, to be held on Tuesday, April 7th. While many of these items have been heard in Council Committees previously, at least one was kicked to the full council due to the inability of the committee to come to agreeable recommendations.
Carnegie Update
The City Manager's office will be providing an update on the Carnegie Art Museum, which is expected to be a reiteration of a prior update provided at a city council committee meeting. Included in this presentation is extensive information about the process of repatriating human remains of indigenous origin that the city is presently in possession of.
Residents that wish to view the Measure M video on the topic may do so by clicking HERE.
OPD Military Equipment Report
The State of California requires local police departments to provide annually a report of military equipment in use, or equipment that the department may be in possession of for potential future use. In the past, OPD has additionally had resident meetings to share the information with the public.
Included in this year’s annual report is a request that the Council authorize the purchase of additional equipment, including:
Twenty-four (24) .223 caliber rifles
Thirteen hundred (1,300) 40mm projectile launcher Less lethal rounds
Three thousand (3,000) Pepperball Projectiles
Eighty (80) CS / “Tear Gas” canisters
Ninety-five (95) Light, Sound, Diversionary Devices (LSDD’s)
Three (3) DJI Matrice 4T Uncrewed Arial Vehicle (UAV) and Twelve (12) Batteries
for the corresponding UAV’s
Designation as “military equipment” does not actually indicate such equipment has been used in combat scenarios.
Residents that wish to view the Measure M video on the topic may do so by clicking HERE.
Renaming Cesar Chavez Drive
In light of recent allegations coming forward regarding the late Cesar Chavez, the Council will be hearing from Staff on providing steps to rename Cesar Chavez Drive - located in both East and West Villages, in the Northeast portion of the city. This was at the request of Mayor Pro Tem Gabe Teran.
According to the staff report and video, renaming the street would be in alignment with existing city policies as it “…would serve the public interest and benefit the public welfare by addressing community concerns arising from recent revelations about Cesar Chavez.”
Notable is the swiftness with which this agenda item was added to a Council meeting - the allegations against Cesar Chavez coming to light after the last City Council meeting in March was heard; while dozens of requests from City Council over a range of issues that have been made over the last year remain un-agendized for discussion.
Residents that wish to view the Measure M video on the topic may do so by clicking HERE.
Fireworks Ordinance
Among other things, the updates to the existing Fireworks Ordinance increases fines to up to $2000, and offers additional penalties for law enforcement to implement in the course of addressing violations of fireworks prohibition across the city.
Residents that wish to view the Measure M video on the topic may do so by clicking HERE.
Future of the Homelessness Community Advisory Group (CAG)
As the Oxnard Gossip Column reported at length in a previous issue, the City Manager’s office is requesting the Council decommission the Homelessness Community Advisory Group (aka, CAG), though the conditions and true reasons around such decommissioning remain unclear.
At a previous city committee meeting, the Assistant City Manager gave an impassioned speech while calling for the Homelessness CAG to be permanently shuttered. Staff indicated that there was a failure to meet quorum, even though more than double the seats available have currently been sitting in waiting as applicants to the CAG for close to two years. Staff also called into question the qualifications of would-be CAG members, and pointed out that to be on any CAG, one need only be an Oxnard resident and over the age of 18 years old - an argument that seemed to be against not just the Homelessness CAG, but all CAGS the City currently supports.
Staff shared that the City already participates in a county committee as a requirement to receive HUD funding, so the CAG may in fact be redundant; and cited recent, alleged “wins” on reducing homelessness as their reasoning.
The issue was ultimately kicked to Council after the Mayor opposed Staff’s recommendation, citing his deep understanding of the issues involved in homelessness from his experiences as a police officer.
This all comes as the beat coordinator for the Oxnard Dunes neighborhood reported at Dunes’ neighborhood council meeting just last week that city-wide, OPD had an astounding 745 calls for service for homeless people, with 116 arrests made, in just the previous 30 days of reporting. Homeless encampments continue to be visible around the City, with encampments in the storm drains increasing exponentially in Oxnard, as well as in other Southern California cities (making recent national news down in Los Angeles). Notably, on social media site Nextdoor dot com, resident Doug Partello recently posted that he has been working alongside unhoused individuals to clean up the debris along Edison, which is located at the South end of town off Hueneme Road. In his post, he states that “…the homeless continue to assist in the removal of the illegally dumped material, and their own trash… I have been supplying them with heavy duty yard bags…” He goes on to share that there is a dumping yard at the corner of Edison and McWane, but the City has indicated to him they will not provide him a waiver to dump the trash for no charge. This has led Partello to use the 311 app, which requires paid City employees to come and collect the bags, rather than providing the dumping of the waste for no charge to taxpayers.
Residents that wish to view the Measure M video on the topic may do so by clicking HERE.
Several other reports, closed session items, ceremonial matters, information and consent agendas, and recommended actions for public works and housing departments will also be heard that evening. The Council may, in fact, make a record for meeting length.
All readers concerned about these various measures are encouraged to participate in this meeting on issues of importance to them, or to share public comments on any items not on the agenda in the beginning portion of the meeting. Options for participation may be viewed on the full agenda, located in the City of Oxnard weekly packet by clicking HERE.
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