Redevelopment Agency Boosts Pay for Firm Running Troubled Hotel

The Oxnard Redevelopment Agency will more than double the amount a consulting firm can earn for managing property and relocating residents of the Lemon Tree Hotel, officials said Thursday.

The agency decided recently to increase the pay limit from $86,100 to $192,100 for Mecky Myers and Associates of Redondo Beach because the job turned out to be more involved than expected, according to agency reports.

The motel was used primarily as housing for about 150 tenants. It was overcrowded and some of the 45 small rooms held as many as eight people. Myers is in charge of helping the residents find affordable housing before the city can demolish the hotel to make way for public parking.

In addition, Mecky Myers and Associates originally were hired to provide an on-site resident manager at the motel. But “due to the nature of the Lemon Tree Hotel, two full-time on-site resident managers have resided at the hotel since the agency took possession,” the report said.

“It is the mecca of crime in the city,” said Senior Crime Analyst David Keith of the Oxnard Police Department. “It’s the No. 1 address in the city as far as crime is concerned. Homicide, robbery, burglary, theft, sexual assault, narcotics-related crime: You name it, it’s happened there.”

The city condemned the building two months ago, and owner Bertha Ochoa will receive $795,000 for the 25-year-old hotel.

Ochoa could not be reached for comment.