Takasugi Enters Race for Harbor Commission Seat

After all these years of public life, 78-year-old Nao Takasugi has decided to run one more race.

After 16 years on the Oxnard City Council, including 10 as mayor, the retired three-term state assemblyman says he would like a seat on the harbor commission at the Port of Hueneme.

And that’s not surprising.

It pays well and provides lots of free travel.

Harbor commissioners usually meet twice a month and receive $600 for it. They also travel a few times a year to ports around the country--and occasionally around the world--on behalf of the only deep-water harbor between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Takasugi, who lives about five minutes away from the port, sees this as a perfect retirement job.

“I didn’t want to get into something full time--the state Senate or county supervisor. But here’s something I can easily fit into my schedule and not be too much of a strain,” Takasugi said Wednesday.

“I checked with my cardiologist and he said my heart’s in perfect shape,” he said. “So with that, and my wife’s blessing, I took the jump one more time.”

Takasugi says he has fully recovered from quintuple heart bypass surgery in 1998 while in the Assembly, and still plays tennis daily against opponents decades younger. On the senior tennis circuit, in the 75-to-80 age bracket, Takasugi said he ranked 28th in Southern California last year.

“Seventy-eight is a chronological age. But I’m feeling great, so I feel I’ve got some good years of service left in my system,” he said. “And I’ve always been interested in the harbor’s activities.”

A seat on the five-member commission for the Oxnard Harbor District is a popular job. Former Oxnard Councilman Mike Plisky, an accountant, sits there. And the incumbents who hold the two seats on the Nov. 7 ballot are expected to run again. Commissioners Jesse Ramirez, 56, and Bill Hill, 76--both longshoremen working at the port--have taken out filing papers.

So have Arlene Fraser, 54, executive director of the Port Hueneme Chamber of Commerce; Tony Grey, 63, a Filipino community leader and former Oxnard planning commissioner; Armando Lara, 66, a consultant for his wife’s cosmetics business and a former law firm administrator; and Mary Schaffer, 41, a homemaker and former computer network developer.

Filing closes Friday.

While commissioners need a keen knowledge of ports to be effective, Hueneme’s veteran port executive Bill Buenger said a port commissioner’s job is not particularly taxing.

“The term ‘job’ is interesting. It’s easy duty,” Buenger said. “But it’s a very responsible position.”

Harbor commissioners, who serve four-year terms, oversee activities at a bustling little port with its own niche in international trade.

The two-wharf, five-berth harbor has quadrupled the value of its imported cargo during the past 10 years as citrus and auto companies joined banana shippers there. Its gross income last year was $10.5 million, with a profit of $1.5 million, Buenger said. Though it once received taxpayer support, the facility no longer receives public money.

Takasugi said he doesn’t know much about port business, but wants to learn. And if he wins, he might run again.

“I’ve know commissioners there who have served into their late 80s,” Takasugi said. “So who knows.”