Believes Oxnard officials out of line

I think I speak for many Camarillo citizens when I say we are sick and tired of the Oxnard Union High School District playing this game of Chicken Little with our kids.

For years now we have heard the complaints about how negative the impact will be for Oxnard if the schools in Camarillo were to unify. While most of the cries have focused on financial issues, now it has become a racial issue. Tom Griffin, an attorney for the Oxnard district, even compares Camarillo unification to "white flight." That comment seems a bit extreme and only shows to what lengths the Oxnard district will go to maintain its grip on Camarillo's high school population.

Camarillo is a community that has grown year after year without the addition of a single new high school. While Oxnard seems to be building a brand new high school every few years for their kids, the children of Camarillo are left attending an overcrowded local campus while the rest are bused off to the continuously deteriorating Rio Mesa. Our tax dollars go out to Oxnard, but we get nothing in return.

It's high time the Oxnard school district faces the reality that the taxpayers of Camarillo want change. Unification is wanted and it is needed.

Our children deserve better than what they are receiving under the current infrastructure. They deserve a modern campus that can house the growing population of the community. They deserve what the students of Oxnard have and nothing less. We need to keep our tax dollars local, so new schools can be built for our children, not siphoned away to continuously fund projects in other communities.

Oxnard, we know you are afraid of losing those precious tax dollars from the citizens of Camarillo. But if you are unwilling to give back to our community then we must be allowed to take control of our own destiny.

Stop crying wolf and playing politics. Let the voters decide what is best for their children. Stop taking advantage of the citizens of Camarillo and focus on what you really should be focusing on- - what's best for the children. Not only yours, but ours too! Robert James Camarillo