Wright's Final Hours

Back in 1997, when my book The Reluctant Metropolis was published, I arranged to do a book reading and signing at the Ventura Bookstore on Main Street downtown. We did the book reading upstairs in the Odd Fellows Hall and then sold the books downstairs in the cozy confines of the bookstore itself. I loved that bookstore. It had been around for decades, and for most of that time it was about the only place you could go in Ventura to purchase a brand-new, just-published book. The shelves and aisles were crowded, and the selection of books was somehow simultaneously quirky and very solid, just like the owner, Ed Elrod – a local guy who knew everybody in town.

The Ventura Bookstore is long gone now. (The space is now occupied by Heart’s Delight Clothiers.) It closed down soon after Barnes & Noble opened up out on Telephone Road. Ed Elrod joined other independent booksellers around the country in suing Barnes & Noble and Borders for driving small bookstores like Ventura Bookstore out of business – a lawsuit they predictably elost. Few people remember the Ventura Bookstore today, but I do. I still miss it. Barnes & Noble is great – it has way more books and a much better atmosphere, which in a way is better for Ventura, and it is teeming with people 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. But somehow it doesn’t replace the Ventura Bookstore or the wonderful feeling of having a great bookstore right on Main Street downtown.

I got to thinking about the Ventura Bookstore tonight when I joined a group of about 40 or so people at Wright Library to grieve over the library’s closing. It was a very sad moment, because Wright is justly recognized as a great neighborhood institution for the people who live near Ventura College and all the students who go to school near there. (Half of the students in Ventura Unified go to school within a mile of Wright.) No matter what libraries evolve into in the future in Ventura, nothing will ever fill Wright’s place.

For the last hour or two before the 8 p.m. closing, folks milled around, talking and checking out books. Some were library advocates who have come to accept the loss of Wright; others were angry patrons who wanted to participate in a night-long vigil. After closing time, Library Director Jackie Griffin said the staff had to go home and asked people to leave. Many of the lights were turned off. Some people left, and a group of perhaps 20 remained. They began to chant, “Keep Wright Open,” and continued to do so for maybe 10 or 15 minutes. Then Debbie Giles, one of our most wonderful longtime community activists, asked the folks if they would like to speak their thoughts or ask questions.

For the next two hours, Jackie Griffin and I talked with these folks, answering questions and engaging in a dialogue with them. Little by little the crowd thinned out, but 10 or 15 people stayed till well past 10 o’clock to talk. Sometimes people yelled at me; once or twice I lost my cool and yelled back. Many people made it extremely clear that they don’t trust the City Council and a few clearly believe that somehow or other money has been mismanaged or Wright has been cheated by the county system. I don’t believe these things but I understand they are part of grieving a loss.

As time went on, however, we talked more and more about different ways that we might be able to raise enough money to maintain our current level of library service; or other ideas dealing with Wright or and our library system in town. Over time, this became, for me, a truly remarkable experience. It’s exactly the kind of conversation we on the City Council should have with our constituents every day – close up, emotional, intense, one-on-one. It was exhausting, but wonderful. It’s the kind of “town hall” discussion I believe we on the council must engage in more often.

The bottom line, of course, was that everybody in the room wanted me to tell them I would find a way to keep the library open. And, of course, I was unable to make them happy. During the course of the evening, three ideas emerged.

First, to use some of the $500,000 or so in funds set aside for a new library to operate Wright in the next year or two.

Second, to alternate days at Wright and Foster indefinitely.

Third, to “mothball” Wright rather than dismantle it and put a parcel tax exclusively for libraries on the ballot in June.

The first two ideas are clearly the most serious ideas to consider if the goal is to keep Wright open at any cost. As to the first one, the council’s policy throughout this financial crisis has been not to use “one-time” money for operating purposes. I believe that’s simply trading tomorrow for today, and it doesn’t solve the problem of not having a financially sustainable library program in the city (No one – not even the two council members who voted against my motion last week – proposed this solution publicly at our meeting.) As to the second, I never liked the idea and I believe that Jackie is right when she says that it may be okay temporarily but it’s not operationally sustainable in the long run.

As to mothballing Wright and running a parcel tax, I’m certainly open to the idea. But it would require a lot of work on the part of a lot of people and I don’t think it would pass. Nevertheless, I look forward to talking with library advocates and patrons about the idea in the weeks ahead.

But I think there is far, far more to the future of libraries in this town than wrestling with the Wright question. Last week at the City Council, the motion I made – and passed by the council – contained several pieces to it. All are important to bear in mind as we move forward. They include the following:

-- To accelerate our existing process of long-term strategic planning for library service in the city. Our library strategic planning task force faces one major decision that has an enormous ripple effect: Should we focus on one large central library, as Camarillo has, or many small libraries serving individual neighborhoods? I believe that if we choose the latter, we will probably – for cost reasons – have to consolidate our libraries with other neighborhood-level services (parks, rec programs, senior and youth programs), which means we’ll have to reinvent the libraries themselves so they can be smaller and still effective.

-- Explore with the library agency unconventional ways to bring library service to East Ventura. This may mean a bookmobile, but it may also mean promoting online alternatives and very localized library systems – for example, ordering a book online through the library agency and then “checking it out” at a kiosk in your neighborhood. Technologically, we’re totally capable of this now.

-- Work with Ventura College on providing library services through the college as well. This could mean things like, publicizing those services the college library does provide that are of value to the community (for example, certain research materials and computers) and seeing whether any services that were provided at Wright (for example, large-print books for senior citizens) could be provided at the college library.

-- Negotiating with the college for ongoing use of the building. Even if the college does take over the Wright Library building, I think it might be possible for the community to still use it for certain things – meetings and events, for example, or maybe even a homework center after school for all the high school kids who go to school nearby. Or perhaps we could provide a pick up and dropoff spot for books ordered by library patrons on line.

These are just a few ideas. As we work through this transition, there will be many others. Just as an example: I am concerned that the Vivian Distin Garden, named for Johnny Cash’s first wife and Roseann Cash’s mother, a longtime Ventura resident, may not survive on the Wright property. But that’s a community asset too.

Over the next few weeks and months, all of us will grieve in our own way. Since it first became apparent that Wright is likely to close, I have visited the library many times – often at night or on Sundays, when it is closed, so I can contemplate what it means to me. I remember all the times my mother volunteered there – and even the July 4th when the librarians let Mom and me join them in their own special area on the Wright property to watch the fireworks. I remember taking my daughter, now 19, to the children’s area when she was two or three – and meeting her after school at Wright when she was in high school. And I remember all the times I spent there reading books, magazines, and newspapers. Someday, different libraries – or even different types of libraries – will be available to all of us. But, as with the Ventura Bookstore, nothing will ever take Wright’s place.

Wright Library: Much To Grieve, But Much To Be Thankful For

As many of you have probably already read, this morning even the Star came up short in its quest to find a way to keep Wright Library open. After running through all the possible ways we in Ventura might come up with the funds to keep Wright open, the Star’s last “Hail Mary” pitch was to put on a Kevin Costner benefit concert.

The Star is not alone in wanting to wave a magic wand to solve Ventura’s library problem. Over the past couple of weeks, I have received and read an extraordinary range of communications about the possible closure of Wright Library. Most people who have contacted me directly have simply expressed great disappointment that the library might close. Many have asked – as the Star did today – why we can’t wave some magic wand to keep the library open. Some have engaged in an almost obsessive analysis of every last dollar in the library budget to prove that Ventura is being short-changed. And a few have accused me of being part of a conspiracy to close the library.

All of these viewpoints are understandable as we work through our collective grief at the closing of a beloved institution. The last thing I want to do is close Wright Library, especially with five pre-paid years left on the lease with Ventura College. As many of you are aware, it has been a part of my family’s life for decades. My daughter -- now in college – grew up there from the time she was a toddler until she graduated from Foothill Technology High School across the street. My mother is still remembered lovingly by the Wright staff as a dedicated volunteer.

Unfortunately, for 15 years as we have struggled to keep Wright open, we have not reached a community consensus on how to deal with the most basic problem: If we are going to maintain our current level of library service, we will have to provide more money from our community to do so. Again and again, our community has expressed a strong wish to keep Wright open. Unlike many of our surrounding communities, however, Venturans have chosen not provide the augmented funding needed to keep it open.

And so now, with libraries as with so many other public services, we face a difficult choice. We have to live within our means. That means cutting back our library service to a level that will be financially sustainable for the next few years while we determine how to create a solid long-term foundation for excellent library service in the future.

Even though the underlying facts are grim, as Thanksgiving approaches I believe we have an awful lot to be thankful for on the library front in Ventura. Even if Wright closes as scheduled next week, we as a community are endowed with great gifts that can help maintain library service for now and create great libraries in the future.

First, we should be thankful for all of the people and organizations that have allowed us to have more than 40 years of continuous library service at Day and Telegraph.

Over the years, our community has benefited from the remarkable generosity of others in building and maintaining Wright. We must have everlasting thanks to Helen P. Wright herself and to Ventura College, which has agreed to forego the use of their property for more than 40 years so that Wright could be available to the public. In our thanks, we must also remember the remarkable efforts of the San Buenaventura Friends of the Library, not only for their heroic efforts in keeping Wright open this year but for their dedication day in and day out to ensure that all our Ventura libraries have enough money for new books. I’m thankful for the Ventura Auto Dealers Association, which provided almost $70,000 to bail Wright out one year; and my colleagues and predecessors on the City Council, who committed $50,000 to $100,000 several times (during a better economy) to do the same. Finally, I’m thankful for my colleagues on the County Library Services Commission, who agreed for more than a decade to provide subsidies from countywide and state funds so we could keep Wright open.

But now, tax revenue for the city, the county, the library system, and the state are all in decline and will continue to go down for the foreseeable future; all these government agencies are cutting back on everything from salaries to paper clips. Private donors such as the car dealers are struggling to stay in business, and the faithful Friends – after raising an amazing $100,000 in five months – are tapped out and exhausted.

Second, we should be thankful that we have E.P. Foster Library to fall back on – and we should be especially thankful that the City and private donors paid for a major renovation and expansion only ten years ago.

Yes, Wright is more centrally located than Foster, and parking is easier there. But the fact is that it is a third the size of Foster. Foster may not be in a convenient location for many people, but it is the only building we currently have that is capable of serving as a large, central library.

I don’t favor the alternating days idea. It was confusing and frustrating the last time we tried it, back in the early ‘90s. We will have two locations, which is more convenient for patrons, but many of our materials are unavailable to the patrons at any given time. And because we still have to operate both buildings, it doesn’t save that much money.

That means we have to consolidate library service in one location – at either Wright of Foster.

Close Wright in order to consolidate at Foster, and we can easily move all the materials, personnel, and programs (including the popular Paws for Reading) to Foster. We lose a convenient location, but we retain the guts of our library service. We have a solid foundation to build on in the future.

But close Foster in order to consolidate at Wright, and we lose most of the library materials located here in Ventura. Because Wright is not big enough to accommodate more materials, most of the books accumulated over many generations here in Ventura will be distributed to libraries in other cities. We lose dozens of computers that are in use from morning till night every day – a vital resource for our community at a time when so many people are looking for jobs. We lose the genealogy room. We lose the guts of our library service here in Ventura – and it will be almost impossible to rebuild it, ever.

So we should be thankful that our predecessors on the City Council, at the library agency, and at the Friends of the Library had the foresight, a decade ago, to expend more than $2 million in tax funds and private donations to renovate and expand Foster. A dozen years ago, when I was first appointed to the city’s Library Advisory Commission, many people wanted Foster torn down. It was old, cramped, poorly ventilated, and uncomfortable. But the second floor was opened up for public library use for the first time ever, and the entire building was renovated.. Now, we are able to consolidate our library service in a building that is in good shape – airy, comfortable, spacious. It’s far from perfect – it’s not a fabulous building, like Camarillo’s new library or even Oxnard’s downtown library – but we are lucky to have such a well-renovated library to fall back on in these hard times. The choices would be far more grim if Foster’s renovation had not occurred a decade ago.

Third, we should be thankful that Ventura’s libraries have dedicated funding of about $2 million a year that can’t be used for anything else.

The $2 million total is not nearly as much as we would like, obviously. But it’s $2 million that goes straight to the library agency for use in Ventura, derived from the property taxes that people in the Ventura area pay each year. This money can’t be diverted by the city or the county to any other use.

To my mind, what this means is that, if we consolidate library service at Foster, we have temporarily fallen back to a fiscally sustainable level of library service. Our libraries will have taken an enormous hit. But we will be in the position of saying that we are now living within our means, and no further service cuts are acceptable.

And fourth, we should be thankful for Ventura’s library advocates – strong, passionate, and giving – because we are going to need their brains, their passion, and their effort going forward.

The whole battle to keep Wright open has reminded us that Ventura is endowed with creative, passionate, and committed library advocates. This is our greatest community asset as we move forward and try to shape a strong future for libraries in our community.

The truth is that libraries are in transition, and we cannot be sure what they will look like – or precisely how they will deliver library services – in the future. Increasingly, the role of providing library services is divorced from the physical location of the library. So as we move forward we have to figure out how best to provide services in a cost-effective manner, and what type of physical locations are required for libraries and other community services.

Even as our library system has struggled with budget cuts, we have made tremendous strides in providing library services online. With a library card from your own computer, you can already access many databases that would be too expensive for individuals, and even download e-books and audio books. Soon, you might even be able to load your Kindle with an e-book at a library kiosk anywhere in town – just like going to the ATM.

But libraries are still important as community gathering places too. That’s why the loss of Wright is so huge to the surrounding neighborhood. As we move forward as a community, we will also have to make some decisions about the physical location of libraries. Should there by just one big one, as there is in Camarillo? Should we have many small libraries? Can we afford many small libraries – or should we combine library service with senior services, youth services, and many other possible services on a neighborhood level for cost-effectiveness?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. But I do know we will need all the brains, all the dedication, and all the passion we can must in the months and years ahead to figure out. And so the last thing that I am thankful for is the dedication and creativity of the people serving right now on our city’s library task force, who are charged with figuring out what the future of Ventura’s libraries will look like. If you want to know move about task force, you can contact Peter Brown at pbrown@ci.ventura.ca.us.

There is much to grieve over in the likely closure of Wright Library. But there is much to be thankful for in this community that has always been so dedicated to libraries – and, I’m sure, will continue to be in the future.

The Message From Last Tuesday

We have to try harder to live within our means. We know it will be painful. We’re trusting you – very cautiously trusting you – to make this work. And we’ll be watching you very closely.

As one of your elected representatives, that’s what I’m taking away from last Tuesday’s election results. I’m committed to taking this message from the voters seriously. All of us on the City Council must work hard to earn the trust of the voters every day. This is always true, but it’s even more urgent now. So over the next few months I hope to be out there in the community more than ever – at neighborhood meetings, service club luncheons, church services, and so forth – to listen to what you have to say.

Measure A, the sales tax measure, was soundly defeated – about 56%-44%. Although three of the four incumbents were re-elected, in general incumbent vote totals were down substantially from last time. Even the big winner of the night – former police chief Mike Tracy, who finished first – was not a runaway victor. Clearly, the voters have decided to put us on a short leash. (The county has yet to count several thousand votes, but I don’t see the outcome changing as a result.)

It would be easy for us, your elected representatives on the City Council, to chalk a lot of these things up to some factor beyond our control, and in so doing escape blame. The economy is in terrible shape. People are in a “Vote No” mood. There was a huge field of candidates. Turnout was very low, as it often is in these off-year city elections.

All of these statements are true, and each one of them played a role in how the election turned out. But we on the City Council cannot wish away the most important message from this election: We will have to work hard to re-establish as strong and trusting relationship with the voters who turned out last Tuesday.

The short-term will be painful. There is no magic bullet here.

We have already made a lot of cuts – eliminating 40 positions, cutting 10% of the payroll, reducing the budget by $11 million – but there will be lots more cuts to come. In the campaign for Measure A, the sales tax measure, we tried to be up-front about the fact that if the measure did not pass, we would be forced to close Wright Library immediately, eliminate our innovative roving fire engine Medic Engine 10, cut back on park maintenance, and possibly reduce our staff in both the police and fire departments. Now we will have little choice but make these cuts – and make them within the next couple of weeks.

Nobody will like this, least of all those of us you have elected to the City Council. But the results of the election suggest to me that there is a community consensus that this is how we should proceed in the short run.

In the longer term, hard times do provide us with an opportunity to rethink what we as a city government do and how we do it. We’re already done a lot of this, but we’re going to have to do a lot. And we on the City Council can’t do all this rethinking. We need your help in figuring out what to do.

Again, there is no magic bullet – no one thing that will solve all the problems, restore prosperity, suddenly free up the money we need to pay for all the things we want. There is, instead, more hard work ahead on everybody’s part – yours and ours. It will take a million little steps to get where we need to go. Obviously, we at City Hall must restrain spending as much as we can – and we must pursue responsible business growth as a way of increasing our tax revenue without increasing our tax rates. I’m committed to both those things, as I stated last summer when I wrote a blog laying out five points contained in what I called “The Ventura Covenant” (just scroll down to find it).

Voters shot down both Measure B (the height restriction) and Measure C (the big-box retail restriction) on Tuesday. A lot of this might have been because of the “Just Vote No” mood. But some of it may have been in response to arguments from the “No” side that we in Ventura need to foster business growth and these restrictions would have made it more difficult to do so. I think it’s important to bear in mind that the defeat of these initiatives will not magically solve our problems either.

We need appropriate infill development, as both sides of the Measure B campaign readily acknowledged, but given the state of the real estate business we’re not going to get much of it anytime soon no matter what we do. We need healthy retail growth as well, but the presence or absence of one Wal-Mart is not going to magically give us the money we need to restore our city’s basic services, nor cut the need for those services in a significant way. (Measure A would have raised about 10-15 times as much sales tax revenue per year as the pending Wal-Mart on Victoria will do.) And the retail economy is undergoing fundamental restructuring anyway. All of us are becoming much more cautious about how we spend our money. We are seeing more retail businesses go under, whether they are big chains or small mom-and-pops. Once again, no magic bullet.

So we’ll all have to work together to figure out how to use whatever emerging opportunities are available to us to restore our prosperity and, with it, our tax revenue. And we’ll have to make some hard long-term choices about what our city government can do. In some cases, we may be able to redesign the way we deliver services to the public so that they are both more cost-effective and more responsive to community needs. I think there’s some potential there, and I’m looking forward to working on it. But in other cases, we may simply decide that the city shouldn’t be in the business of doing certain things. Either others in the community will have to keep them going; or we may decide that will have to do without.

So that’s the challenge. It’s a challenge all of us in Ventura must address together. Obviously, without your trust, we can’t do a good job of operating a city government. But without your help, your ideas, your energy, we can’t successfully rebuild, restore, or redesign anything. The 7 of us on the City Council are your elected representatives, and therefore we are the lightning rods for your attention and, often, your discontent. But it will take more than 7 people to move Ventura forward. It will take 108,000 people. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with all of you as we take on the challenge.

One last thing about the City Council race: As I’m sure you know by now, the voters elected Mike Tracy and chose not to re-elect Ed Summers. I’m really looking forward to working with Mike. He’s a terrific guy who knows our community really well, and I think he’ll bring a lot of common-sense leadership to the council. But I’m very sad to lose Ed from the council.

Most of you know that Ed has been a great community leader for many years, and I believe that during his four years on the Council, we accomplished some important things with Ed’s help and leadership. I have especially valued his leadership and advice on business and economic issues. Many of the steps we took on economic development with Ed’s leadership will have a long-term payoff that will help us maintain both prosperity and a great quality of life. We will be thanking Ed for many years to come, but I wanted to take a moment here to say: Thanks, Ed, for all you have done – and, I hope, all you will continue to do – to make Ventura a great place to live.

Why I'm Asking You to Vote No on Measure B

Most of you probably already know that I’m opposed to Measure B, the so-called view protection initiative on the November ballot in Ventura. I believe it’s unnecessary, overly cumbersome, probably unlawful, and -- most important – undemocratic.

As the campaign for Measure B has unfolded, I have come to have new concerns about Measure B and how it is likely to be implemented by Ventura Citizens Organized for Responsible Development (VCORD) if it passes.

For one thing, it’s very sloppily written – and apparently inadvertently leaves whole sections of the city off the View Resources Board.

If you live Downtown, or south of the college, or near Buena High School, your neighborhood cannot be represented on this new board.

Remember that once the voters have approved this initiative, neither VCORD nor the City Council can fix these problems because it must be implemented word-for-word. So whatever mistakes Measure B contains, we’re stuck with them.

Also, in recent weeks, VCORD spokespeople have focused more and more on the narrow issue of building heights as the “magic bullet” that will solve view problems – even though previously they had stated the solution should be up to each neighborhood.

They’ve also gotten more aggressive in stating what the new View Resources Board “will do” if Measure B passes. It seems to me that this is at odds with their oft-stated promise to appoint a broad range of community members from different neighborhoods and then step away from the process.

Given what I’ve been hearing lately, I can’t for the life of me understand why VCORD didn’t just write an initiative permanently restricting building heights along the commercial corridors to two stories – since that seems to be their goal. Then we could have had a straight-up discussion about whether that’s a good policy or not, instead of complicated debate over whether Measure B is too convoluted, unlawful, or undemocratic to work.

In explaining my opposition to Measure B, let me first explain what the initiative does, then talk about why I am opposed to it in concept, and finally further explain my concerns about VCORD.

WHAT MEASURE B DOES

Measure B is an initiative that does three things:

First, it places a moratorium on all buildings over 26 feet high for up to two years in most parts of Ventura. Many business areas are exempt, including parts of Downtown, the area around Community Memorial Hospital, the Pacific View Mall, the lower part of Johnson Drive, the Victoria Corridor, and most areas on the south side of the freeway, including the auto center and the industrial park.

Second, it creates a View Resources Board (VRB) of 23 members and charges the board with drafting a view protection ordinance within a year. Of the 23 members, 20 would be appointed by VCORD (18 from neighborhoods and 2 from business groups) and 3 would be appointed by the City Council.

Third, it creates a process by which the height moratorium can be lifted prior to two years under certain circumstances. The View Resources Board recommends a view protection ordinance to the City Council. If the City Council does not approve the ordinance as recommended, the Council must forward suggested changes to the View Resources Board. If the VRB accepts these changes and the Council approves them, the moratorium is lifted. If the Council does not adopt the ordinance, VRB members have the right to place the measure on the ballot as an initiative and, if voters approve it, the moratorium is lifted.


WHY I’M OPPOSED TO MEASURE B IN CONCEPT

I have opposed Measure B from the beginning because I believe it’s unlawful and undemocratic – and the reasons it’s unlawful are the same reasons it’s undemocratic.

First, VCORD – a private political action committee – does not have the power to appoint a city board.

Under the City Charter, the voters delegated that authority only to their elected representatives on the City Council. This makes sense because only the City Council is accountable to the voters. You wouldn’t want to appoint a board to look at pension reform and have the members appointed by the firefighters PAC; nor would you want to appoint a board to look at reforming the planning process and have the members appointed by the Building Industry Association PAC. There’s no accountability.

VCORD has countered this argument by saying that the View Resources Board isn’t really a city board, even though it’s a board created by the city’s voters in an election. Rather, it’s a “community board”.

To me, this defies credibility. If VCORD wanted to appoint a community board to draft a view ordinance, they don’t need the voters to do it. They could just do it themselves.

The very fact that VCORD wants the voters to create the VRB suggests to me that it IS a city board, because through the initiative process the only thing voters have the power to do is enact city legislation.

Second, the process by which the moratorium can be lifted early impermissibly grants some legislative power to the VRB and hence to VCORD as well.

There are two things that voters cannot do in an initiative. One is give away their own legislative power to a private entity. The second is to direct that legislation be enacted by the elected officials. Measure B does both these things even though they are prohibited by the state constitution.

VCORD has quite rightly pointed out that the view protection ordinance won’t actually go into effect unless either the City Council or the voters approve it. Nevertheless, I believe Measure B gives the VRB – and, hence, VCORD – the power to interfere with the legislative process, which under our state constitution belongs only to the voters and their elected representatives. Here’s why:

The City Council can lift the moratorium in less than two years by approving a view protection ordinance. But the moratorium is lifted ONLY if the City Council adopts the ordinance approved by the View Resources Board. I believe this ties the hands of the City Council in violation of the constitution.

The only people who have the right to interfere with your elect representatives to enact legislation are you, the voters. Measure B gives the City Council the power to lift the moratorium -- but only with the permission of an unelected board that is appointed by a political action committee. That’s undemocratic.

For that matter, the VRB also appears to have veto power over the ability of the voters themselves to lift the moratorium in less than two years.

Although it’s not completely clear in the initiative language, it would appear that the voters, like the City Council, can lift the moratorium early by enacting a view protection ordinance – but only the ordinance approved by the VRB, which again is unelected and appointed not by your elected officials but by VCORD.

I also believe the provision that allows us on the City Council to lift the moratorium in less than two years violates the constitutional provision requiring that voters cannot direct that legislation be enacted. The idea behind this provision is that voters need to actually see legislation before authorizing its approval.

Under Measure B, if we on the City Council agree with the VCORD-controlled View Resources Board about what should be in the view ordinance, it gets approved and the moratorium gets lifted – all without the voters ever voting on it. That too is undemocratic – to say nothing of unconstitutional. In this case, the VCORD initiative tries to give us on the City Council power that, under the constitution, we don’t have.

More to the point, if you don’t trust the City Council on the view question, why would you vote for something that takes away your right to vote on the view ordinance and, instead, turns that power over to the combination of a board you didn’t vote for and a City Council you don’t like?

Third, the composition of the View Resources Board is inherently undemocratic.

The VRB would have 23 members. Three would be city representatives appointed by the City Council. Two would be business representatives (Chamber and Visitor Bureau) appointed by VCORD. The other 18 would be neighborhood representatives appointed by VCORD. But 14 of those neighborhood representatives would be appointed from areas west of Victoria. Only 4 would be from areas east of Victoria, where half the population of the city lives. As an example, the Westside – which has a population of less than 10,000 people – would get 3 representatives, while East Ventura – with a population of more than 50,000 people – would get 4 representatives. That’s undemocratic.

But it gets worse. Some neighborhoods have no representation at all. Downtown has no representatives. Neither do some parts of Midtown – especially the Preble neighborhood south of Main Street toward Channel Drive east of Seaward; as well as the San Pablo neighborhood around Telegraph and Mills. And the entire neighborhood south of the college – from Mills all the way to Victoria, including the areas around Elmhurst Elementary and Buena High – have no representatives. Whether purposely or accidental, they have been left out.

And VCORD does not have the discretion to appoint people from these areas. The fact of the matter is that the initiative designates board representatives from other neighborhoods, meaning people from these neighborhoods cannot be appointed. This may be simply be an oversight; but once Measure B passes, VCORD cannot correct its own mistake.

It’s also worth noting that the process does not guarantee representation to any other neighborhood group besides VCORD. If, say, the Midtown Ventura Community Council or the Westside Community Council wants a seat on the board, they must ask VCORD – and if VCORD says no, there’s nothing anybody can do about it.

Finally, significant drafting errors and other provisions will make Measure B difficult to implement.

When you adopt an initiative, you adopt the whole thing. You can’t pick and choose. So you’d better be sure you like the whole thing.

Measure B has a number of drafting errors both large and small that concern me. If it’s riddled with drafting errors, what other bombshells – intentional or unintentional – are hidden in the text?

To give just a few small examples:

-- Fir Street is incorrectly identified as Fir Drive.
-- The downtown exemption area is described as being bounded on the north by Poli and the west by Ventura Avenue. But, of course, Poli and the Avenue don’t meet.
-- There’s a math error in describing the number of VRB members appointed by VCORD.
-- In one section, City Council is accidentally spelled City Counsel – as in attorney. Does this man that a view ordinance can be adopted by our City Attorney (our counsel), nor our elected City Council?

Admittedly, those are small. But there are larger concerns about vague drafting.

As I said before, whether by accident or on purpose, significant chunks of the city – including Downtown and the neighborhoods south of the college around Elmhurst Elementary and Buena High – have no representation whatsoever.

Also, it’s not clear whether the VRB members – if they want to put the view protection ordinance on the ballot – must gather signatures like any other initiative proponents. VCORD says yes, they must gather signatures; but it’s not clear from the text. What VCORD intends to do is, unfortunately, not what you are voting on. You’re voting on what the text says and that’s not clear.


WHY I AM CONCERNED ABOUT HOW VCORD WILL IMPLEMENT THE INITIATIVE

Like most people in town, I take in on faith that VCORD’s initiative proponents have no hidden agenda and simply want to do they think is best for the community. I have known both Diane Underhill and Camille Harris for a long time – we all live in the same Midtown neighborhood – and I know they are caring people with big hearts.

During the campaign, however, I have become more concerned about how VCORD will actually wield its newfound power. My concern falls into three categories.

First, VCORD representatives are getting more bold in suggesting that their agenda is to lower building heights, not empower neighborhoods.

From the beginning, I have believed VCORD when they say their objective is to bring more – and more diverse – neighborhood voices into our community discussion about how to protect views. VCORD representatives have stated that different neighborhoods might have different solutions to the view question, and so therefore many different neighborhood representatives should be involved. This makes sense to me.

Indeed, the city’s View Task Force – which Diane Underhill served on – quickly came to the same conclusion earlier this year. Even one-story buildings can often block views, especially along Main and Thompson. So lowering building heights won’t necessarily protect views; a wide range of techniques, including setbacks and variation in heights, must be employed.

During the campaign, however, VCORD has reframed its message. The real problem is not that diverse points of view aren’t being heard. The real problem, they are now saying, is that people who believe that allowable building heights along the commercial corridors should be lowered are not being heard.

The solution, they are suggesting, is to stack the View Resources Board with people who want lower building heights. If you don’t believe me, read Diane Underhill’s article in last Sunday’s Star, http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/oct/04/protects-citys-priceless-views-promotes-business/)

This seems to me to be the opposite of VCORD’s previous message. Are they interested in many points of view – or just their own?

Second, VCORD representatives say things that suggest they have already decided what the View Resources Board will do.

VCORD representatives have repeatedly stated that although they will appoint the View Resources Board, they will not try to influence what it does. In fact, they often say VCORD will “step away” from the process once the board members are appointed.

More recently, however, VCORD representatives have made statements that suggest they do not intend to step away. Recently, for example, Measure B opponents have expressed concern that passing the view ordinance might require a special election that could cost a quarter-million dollars. In response, in her Star piece last Sunday, Diane Underhill wrote that if an election is required, “the View Resources Board will request that it be on the November 2011 ballot so that no special-election expenditures will be required.”

Huh? The board hasn’t even been created yet, much less appointed. Yet VCORD has already decided what the board’s going to do, at least on this one issue. This makes it hard for me to believe that they are really going to step away.


Third, VCORD does not appear to be listening to all neighborhood groups—only the ones they agree with.

Here’s an example: In writing the initiative, VCORD carved out many exemption areas, mostly around employment centers. But they did not exempt the property at Harbor and Seaward, where Anastasi Development has been working with the Pierpont Community Council and the surrounding neighborhood, quite successfully, to craft a project everyone likes.

Part of the project is three stories high, but most neighbors appear to support it, and the Pierpont Community Council has been in constant discussions with Anastasi and also has been participating in the city’s review process. Nobody wants a big hole in the ground at Harbor and Seaward forever.

But if it passes, Measure B will stall the project for at least two years, and nobody knows whether there will be a permanent height limit that will make this popular project impossible to build.

So why did VCORD not exempt this property? Did they forget to call up Pierpont Community Council and ask about it? Or are they just not interested in neighborhood groups who favor a three-story building?

Either way, once again this seems undemocratic and suggests that if the voters give VCORD power, they may not listen to all neighborhood groups but, rather, only the ones they agree with.

I’m sorry that this has been such a long post. But I wanted all of you to understand the reasons in detail that Measure B concerns me. I hope you will join me in voting against it on November 3.

Why I'm Asking You to Vote Yes on Measure A

This will be a short blog just to remind everybody that I am voting yes on Measure A in the upcoming election in Ventura. It's important to get the word out now because people are already voting. The absentee ballots arrived in people's mailboxes this week.

I won't go into detail about the Measure, because I've written about it a lot in the past. (Scroll down and find my much longer blog from July 22 on the "Ventura Covenant".) But here's a brief rundown:

Background:

We currently run our city on $85 million in the General Fund, of which $60 million is tax revenue. A half-cent sales tax would like to add another $10 million to our city treasury. This is money that Sacramento can’t take away from us, and money we can spend on our highest priorities. It’s not a permanent tax; it would last only four years, serving to carry us through to more prosperous times.


What It Will Go For:

In placing the sales tax on the ballot, the City Council has promised to spend the money only on vital public services, as follows:

-- 40% would go to public safety.
-- 35% would go to road paving, infrastructure, and transportation.
-- 15% would go to clean water and clean beaches, especially to improve our system of stormwater runoff.
-- 6% would go to keep Wright Library open
-- 4% would go to other community partnerships, allowing us to partner with community organizations to ensure that our dollars stretch as far as they can.

Thanks a lot!

Why I’m Asking You To Vote for Ed Summers

For the past four years, it has been my privilege to serve on the Ventura City Council with Ed Summers. During that time, I’ve seen Ed work tirelessly to help make our community better; and he and I have worked together on a variety of important issues. Ed’s up for re-election this year and I am asking all of you to vote for him again on November 3

Serving on the City Council is a constant quest for two goals that are intertwined with each other: Creating enduring prosperity for our community and improving the quality of life for our residents.

Over the last four years, Ed has focused his efforts on these issues over and over again. As a banker, Ed understands how the economic engine works and he has has taken the leading in making it work for us. As a longtime advocate for public safety, arts and culture, and supporter of preserving our hillsides and neighborhoods, Ed understands why quality of life is important and he has taken the lead on quality of life issues as well.

Whether it’s saving our libraries, increasing our police force, or attracting high-quality businesses to our community, Ed is usually taking the lead on the most critical issues facing our community. And he does his work with a combination of heart and brain. Ed’s heart is clearly in Ventura; he cares deeply about our community and the people who live here. Yet Ed’s brain – his analytical approach and his no-nonsense business background – helps all of us on the council to think through the different options and come up with common-sense solutions.

Serving on the City Council also requires knowing how to work with a very broad range of constituencies, people, and organizations. No one I know does this better than Ed. To see how effective he is at consensus-building, all you have to do is look at the list of people endorsing him this year. Here’s just one example: To my knowledge, Councilmember Jim Monahan – a business advocate and former owner of a welding company – has never agreed on anything with former Councilmember Gary Tuttle, an athlete and longtime environmental activist. Yet they both support Ed Summers.

Just to give you a taste of Ed’s leadership skills, here are a few things he’s accomplished in his first term:

-- Ed was our City Council leader on the Ventura Economic Summit last May. Thanks to his leadership, the city and the business community are now moving forward in an unprecedented partnership on a wide range of actions to improve the business climate in Ventura.

-- Ed has also chaired our City Council Economic Development Committee since his election in 2005. He has led the way in forging partnerships with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in making Ventura one of the emerging high-tech centers of Southern California. As a member of the Economic Development Committee, I have learned a lot from Ed about how to attract business to our community.

-- Ed has been equally strong is protecting our neighborhoods from overdevelopment. Ed and I worked together to create the city’s View Task Force, whose stellar work has led to strong new protections to protect our community’s precious views and ensure that homeowners continue to have sunlight in their yards.

-- Ed has continually supported our community’s efforts to protect the hillsides. He has been a key player in implementing our General Plan provisions that prevent hillside development and has once again been endorsed by the Ventura Citizens for Hillside Preservation.

-- Ed is a big library advocate as well – and he’s gone far beyond the call of duty in helping to save his own neighborhood library, Wright Library. Last spring, Ed raised more than $6,000 for the Wright Library by dancing in the Salsa Festival over in Oxnard.

In short, Ed is that rare public official who can build bridges with practically everybody, who knows how to lead, and and – most important to me – who understands how prosperity and quality of life must work together for Ventura to be a great place.

I hope you’ll join me in voting for Ed on November 3, so that we can take advantage of his rare leadership skills for another four years.

The Ventura Compact: A Covenant For Hard Times

The state has decided to balance its budget on the backs of our local taxpayers again, taking some $4 billion from cities and counties around the state as part of a short-term fix.

Since we can no longer count on the state to help us – or even, in some cases, let us keep our own tax money -- it’s time to take control of our own destiny. If we don’t, we will be at the mercy of Sacramento – and we won’t be able to provide our residents with the vital services they need and deserve.

In the City of Ventura, the state budget shenanigans make it all the more important for us to move forward with a whole series of steps – including our proposed sales tax increase but lots of other things as well – in order to protect our quality of life. In the words of my colleague Carl Morehouse, a former mayor of Ventura, we must move forward with what might be called “The Ventura Compact” – or else we face the possibility of down Sacramento rathole.

Over the past six years we in Ventura have worked hard to maintain fiscal solvency and improve our city services. During the good times between 2003 and 2007 we erased a structural budget deficit and added public safety personnel for the first time in almost 20 years.

In the hard times over the last two years, we have made tough decisions. We have implemented mid-year budget cuts in each of the last two years. Last winter and spring we worked through $11 million budget cuts – a 13% decrease – and we did it long before most other cities realized a problem was looming. We eliminated 40 of our 600 staff positions. Our city employees led the way by taking a 5% pay cut – a courageous move for which I am grateful. All these steps allowed us to balance the budget without cutting services much.

Now the state’s budget-balancing act is likely to take another $4-5 million away from us. We may be able to plug the gap temporarily by using reserves, but that’s not likely to last long. We must move forward with a whole fiscal program that will maintain our quality of life and our fiscal solvency in the long run.

Six weeks ago in this blog, I laid out five principles I thought we needed to follow to weather this storm and maintain a sustainable fiscal foundation for our community. Since then, I am proud to say, our City Council has taken action on every single one of these items. These are the five principles I would call “The Ventura Compact” – a compact not just among the seven councilmembers, but a compact between the City Council and our community moving forward. Here are the five principles – along with a brief description of what we have done in each one:


1. Spend additional tax revenue only on vital services

We’ve taken the unusual step of placing a local half-cent sales tax on the ballot in November. It may not seem like the best time to ask voters for more tax revenue, but this is the most important step we can taken in cutting the cord to Sacramento. We currently run our city on $85 million in the General Fund, of which $60 million is tax revenue. A half-cent sales tax would like to add another $10 million to our city treasury. This is money that Sacramento can’t take away from us, and money we can spend on our highest priorities. It’s not a permanent tax; it would last only four years, serving to carry us through to more prosperous times.

In placing the sales tax on the ballot, the City Council has promised to spend the money only on vital public services, as follows:

-- 40% would go to public safety.
-- 35% would go to road paving, infrastructure, and transportation.
-- 15% would go to clean water and clean beaches, especially to improve our system of stormwater runoff.
-- 6% would go to keep Wright Library open
-- 4% would go to other community partnerships, allowing us to partner with community organizations to ensure that our dollars stretch as far as they can.

2. Increase tax revenue without increasing tax rates

In May, the City Council and the Chamber of Commerce sponsored an “Economic Summit”. More than 150 people participated, and the result was a list of actions that should be taken to ensure future prosperity. The City Council will consider – and most likely adopt – all the short-term actions from the Economic Summit at our meeting on August 3.

At the same time, we recognize that must target and aggressively pursue the retailers that can help provide us with lots of new tax revenue. As the Star has reported, we have made electronics stores our highest priority and are negotiating with one major electronics store right now. This would be almost all new tax revenue, since currently Venturans must travel to Oxnard and elsewhere to buy almost all their electronics.

Finally, we know we must clean up our planning process so that the projects we want are approved more quickly – and the ones we don’t want are denied more quickly. Last Monday night, the City Council adopted a set of principles to make the planning process more efficient, including time limits to give developers a “yes” or “no” on projects.

3. Increase revenue from other sources besides taxes

In the budget principles we adopted last winter when the fiscal crisis first loomed, the City Council committed to a careful examination of the fees we charge individuals, developers, and others to determine which services we should seek “full cost recovery” from and which ones the taxpayers should subsidize. We have already made some strides in this area and we will be tackling this issue head-on in next fall and winter.

This can be a controversial exercise. Every time we propose creating or increasing fees for those who benefit, that constituency turns out in opposition to it, so we often back off. But that means we spend more money on those services out of the General Fund – leaving less for police, fire, libraries, potholes, and the rest. We have to decide once and for all which city services the taxpayers should subsidize, and which city services benefit only a small portion of the population and therefore should not be subsidized by the taxpayers.


4. Restrain future cost increases

As I indicated above, we’ve already cut costs by permanently eliminating 40 positions and temporarily reducing compensation for our employees. Now we have agreed to take even bolder steps. Last Monday night, the City Council voted to create a task force to examine our city pension system and make recommendations on how to reduce the future cost of these pensions to our taxpayers. We are the first city in the county – indeed, one of the first in the state – to commit itself to examining pension reform. In addition, our budget principles also commit us to cutting operating costs wherever possible – for example, to switch to more energy-efficient operations that can reduce our electricity bill significantly.

5. Save for a rainy day

We currently have a reserve fund of about $12 million, designed to help tide us over in the event of a natural disaster. But it has become clear that this is not enough. We need a bigger cushion. So the City Council has committed to adding to the reserves with every penny of the sales tax revenue that does not go to vital services. More specifically, we have committed to socking away everything above $8.25 million. Since the sales tax is expected to generate $10 million a year, this means we could augment our reserves by as much as $8 million, giving us a much-needed cushion of $20 million for hard times.

So that’s The Ventura Compact. It’s a commitment to cut the cord to Sacramento, take control of our own future, maintain sustainable fiscal health, and protect our vital public services and quality of life. Fulfilling the promise of The Ventura Compact will require a lot of hard work – passing the sales tax in November and tackling all the other hard issues as well – but if we stick to it we can maintain Ventura as a great place to live and work.