Residents in Oak Park Protest Texaco Project

OAK PARK —  Worried that a proposed gas station and adjoining 24-hour market that would sell beer and wine could become a magnet for teens, more than 100 Oak Park residents lambasted their council members for even considering the plan.

The group of angry residents told the Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council on Tuesday night that there was no way they would stand for the proposed Texaco convenience store in their neighborhood.

Brandishing his Texaco credit card, Fred Goldman turned to scold the two representatives of the petroleum giant who sat in the audience quietly listening to the barrage of complaints.

“I buy lots of gas with a Texaco card,” said Goldman, father of Ronald Goldman, who was slain along with O. J. Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson in June 1994. “You can assume from this day forward that I won’t be buying any gas until that piece of land is out of the hands of Texaco.”

Scores of other residents--whose accompanying applause was punctuated by shouts of “We don’t want it!”--vowed to boycott the station.

Texaco officials declined to comment on whether the community backlash would stop the project.

“We will bring feedback from the community and absorb it and go on from there,” said Phil Blackburn, spokesman for Los Angeles-based Texaco Refining & Marketing Inc. “I don’t think anyone can say at this point what is going to happen.”

So far, Texaco has yet to submit a formal proposal for the station to the Oak Park council, although a plan is expected in March.

But last month, shortly before purchasing the 3.7-acre property at Lindero Canyon and Kanan roads, the company announced its intention to turn one of Oak Park’s few remaining parcels of undeveloped land into a high-tech gas station with an around-the-clock convenience store and major fast-food restaurant.

But with only the community’s 15,000 residents likely to purchase gas at the secluded site, critics say Texaco seeks to turn a profit not by selling gas, but by luring youths to buy food, cigarettes and alcohol.

“You cannot open up a gas station at that location and sell gas,” said Bob Khan, a trustee for the Oak Park Unified School District. “So the only other reason is for the sale of fast food and beverages to our kids.”

“We don’t want our neighborhood kids having another place to get alcohol,” Ruth Rose argued. “And the 24 hours? There is no way you are going to profit. We are a bedroom community here; we all go to bed at 9 o’clock.”

Rose said she has spent the last week collecting more than 500 signatures from residents of Oak Park, a tiny unincorporated area of Ventura County northeast of Thousand Oaks and adjacent to Agoura Hills in Los Angeles County. Residents of both communities oppose the project, she said.

Many at the meeting said they had moved to Oak Park to escape higher crime rates and growing commercialism in the San Fernando Valley.

“I own a gas station,” Roni Ply said. “But our business is on Thousand Oaks Boulevard, where it belongs. I am shocked that a gas station would come here.”

Ply also questioned Texaco’s ability to profit only from gasoline sales, saying the company would need to sell about 200,000 gallons of gas a month to support a project of that size.

“Who’s going to come off of Lindero Canyon and travel 4.5 miles to get gas? It’s not going to happen,” she said.

Other concerns raised by residents were the possibility of soil contamination from underground gas tanks, increased traffic--including gasoline tankers traveling along residential streets--and the site’s location next to an Edison substation, which residents fear could lead to an explosion.

At the peak of Tuesday night’s debate, some residents accused the council, which has not taken a public stand on the issue, of accepting bribes from Texaco officials and misrepresenting the interests of the community.

The county has received about $550,000 from the sale of the property on Oak Park’s behalf. The money, earmarked for the community’s proposed library, came from a court-ordered agreement reached about 20 years ago between the owner of the land and the county, said Ron Stark, an aid to Supervisor Frank Schillo.

But residents said no amount of design enhancements and reassuring promises from Texaco about traffic control and safety would change their minds.

“You folks could go back to Texaco and could present us with every study known to mankind about how odor-free and ecologically safe it would be,” Goldman said. “But the bottom line is that the folks in this area don’t want it.”