Camarillo rejects youth climate resolution, but asks for narrower rewrite

The Camarillo City Council voted 3-2 Tuesday night to reject a youth-led resolution that would have put the city on record supporting a phase-out of oil and gas production in Ventura County, defending California's 3,200-foot oil and gas setback law and backing future "polluters pay" superfund legislation at the state level.

Vice Mayor Martita Martinez-Bravo and Councilmember Susan Santangelo voted yes. Mayor David Tennessen and Councilmembers Kevin Kildee and Tony Trembley voted no.

The vote was not a clean rejection of the issue itself. It was a rejection of the resolution's scope. Right after the motion failed, the Council directed staff to come back with a narrower, Camarillo-specific version drafted with input from youth advocates and representatives of the oil and gas industry.

The resolution came out of an 18-month organizing campaign by local students working with Climate First: Replacing Oil & Gas (CFROG), a Ventura-based advocacy group. The campaign began in November 2024, the same month the Mountain Fire burned nearly 20,000 acres and damaged or destroyed 369 structures in and around Camarillo. According to a coalition letter signed by 19 community leaders and organizations and submitted to the city clerk ahead of the meeting, more than 50 youth have engaged on the issue since then.

City staff confirmed there are no active oil or gas wells inside Camarillo's city limits. But more than 100 idle unplugged wells sit in the surrounding area, including a significant cluster in what is now the Camarillo Springs Golf Course. The state Department of Conservation's mapping shows much of the developed area in and around the city falls within a health protection zone established by SB 1137, the 2022 state law that requires a 3,200-foot buffer between new oil and gas operations and sensitive sites like homes, schools, and hospitals.

The resolution had four main asks. It urged Governor Newsom and the Ventura County Board of Supervisors to stop issuing new oil and gas permits. It called on the state to defend SB 1137 against the lawsuits and federal challenges it has faced since taking effect. It backed a proposed 'polluters pay' state law that would charge the largest oil and gas companies fees based on their historical emissions, with the revenue going toward climate disaster response. And it backed a long-term transition to renewable energy.

The city clerk reported receiving 22 requests to speak. The chamber was full enough that Mayor Tennessen called a 10-minute recess midway through public comment. Most speakers urged the Council to pass the resolution, though a smaller group argued it was outside the city's lane.

Youth speakers anchored the support side. Tiana Jawork, a Rancho Campana High School student, told the Council in written testimony that she watched the Mountain Fire encroach on the mountain behind her school during finals last year, followed weeks later by ash falling "like our own snow."

Alex Masci, a lifelong Camarillo resident and agricultural educator who works with students in the Oxnard Union High School District, said she came back to Camarillo after college because she saw opportunity here, and asked the Council to "show us that you care for our futures, our land, and our community."

Older Camarillo voices backed the youth up. Merrill Berge, co-founder of Camarillo Sustainable Growth, pointed the Council back to its own 61-page sustainability plan, which lists climate change as the basis for the document and warns of higher infrastructure costs from storms, fires, and landslides. She also cited the recent $1.1 million federal appropriation Camarillo just received to help build a hybrid microgrid, funding the city itself said was prompted by lessons from the November 2024 Mountain Fire.

The opposition pushed back on both the substance and the scope. David Compton, a Camarillo resident, argued the resolution asked the city to take a position outside its jurisdiction and that shutting down California production simply means buying more oil from countries with weaker environmental standards.

Cliff Simonson, whose family has been in the local oil business for 100 years, told the Council his company employs 200 people and supports contractors, mechanics, and truck drivers across the region.

Luis Jimenez, a supervisor at Cal Energy, called the resolution symbolic and said it adds uncertainty for working families already squeezed by affordability. One speaker also questioned the underlying climate science.

Councilmember Santangelo, who served on the policy committee that forwarded the resolution to the full Council without a recommendation, said she believed it does apply to Camarillo because "climate change knows no boundaries." She cited wildfires, landslides, and long-term health effects on residents.

Vice Mayor Martinez-Bravo grounded her yes vote in personal experience. She described summers as a child in Wilmington, a low-income community in Los Angeles surrounded by refineries, where she still has cousins suffering from severe asthma. She also pointed to farmworkers she works with through her nonprofit role who have seen strawberry-picking seasons shrink from six to eight weeks down to as little as two.

The three no votes all cited jurisdiction. Councilmember Trembley called it a threshold issue he could not get past, comparing it to his past opposition to designating Camarillo a sanctuary city. "It's not in the city's lane," he said. Councilmember Kildee said he supports SB 1137 and the concept of a state superfund but called a full phase-out premature, suggesting any future resolution should bring all sides to the table. Mayor Tennessen praised the speakers as "articulate and clearly very determined," but said the city does not issue oil permits and that the previously proposed state superfund bills, both of which were pulled by their authors, never spelled out how money would flow to local governments.

All three signaled openness to a narrower, city-focused resolution.

The rejected resolution is likely not the end of the issue. Staff will now work on a narrower version, with youth advocates and oil and gas representatives expected to have a role in shaping what comes back. Vice Mayor Martinez-Bravo also floated involving the youth advocates in a library-based educational program, an idea she said she wanted to fold into any future version.