Prosperity and Sustainability

Last night, our new City Council was seated. Congratulations to Mike Tracy, who was seated as a new councilmember and selected as Deputy Mayor. Thanks to Christy Weir, who stepped down as mayor, and Ed Summers, who stepped off the council after four years of excellent service!

The council selected me as mayor for the next two years. I am very grateful for their support. Here's what I said at the meeting:

It’s long-standing custom to make this moment about the new mayor, who spends a lot of time thanking people and talk all about themselves. Don’t worry. I’ll get to that in a minute.

But I just want to take a second to step back to acknowledge what this moment is really about. What we have just witnessed is something that, in most parts of the world, would be considered nothing less than a miracle. The people seated up here will be responsible for governing this city for the next two years, and they were selected by you, the voters. And the Deputy Mayor and I are sitting in these chairs because, as our city charter calls for, the seven members of the city council have selected us.

In most parts of the world, you don’t elect the people who govern your community -- and even if there is an election, there’s no guarantee that the people elected will survive to serve.

I know it may be kind of silly to point all this out. After all, we're at zero risk for a coup d'etat. But it really is kind of a miracle. So the first thing we should be thankful for is that … in our nation and in our community … the democratic process and the rule of law prevail.

As voters, you may not always agree with what we do. But at least you know how we got here. You know where to find us. And you know that we are ultimately accountable to you.

The first thing I’d like to do is thank my six fellow councilmembers for selecting me as mayor for the next two years.

Being the mayor in Ventura is a tricky job. You have to be simultaneously a leader and a servant of the council; and, of course, a leader and a servant of the community as well. This is a job that has to be approached with a lot of humility. We’re a bunch of independent thinkers. But in these tough times, we will all have to pull together. I will do my best to herd the cats and still be responsive to the cats as well.

I’d especially like to thank Mayor Weir for her leadership over the lastwo years. Christy, I don’t think you knew what you were getting into when you took this gavel in December of 2007. You have had to deal with far more difficulty and financial hardship than anyone would have expected. And you’ve managed to face with two remarkable traits that don’t usually go together: You’ve stayed upbeat and positive about the future of our community; and at the same time you’ve been steadfast and held your ground when you needed to. Anybody sitting in this chair would do well to emulate your approach to this job.

There are so many people I would like to thank, including those who are here tonight and those who are elsewhere, but I will single out only a few.

I miss my mother, Fran, every day. Many of you remember her. Although she lived to see me first elected in 2003, I still wish she were here today to both inspire me and pester me. I miss my father too. Dad’s been gone for many years, but he was my mentor on political and civic affairs almost from the time we could hold a conversation. I know he’d be proud. He was a stubborn guy – back in our hometown, he ran as a renegade school board candidate in 1947 and almost won, but redeemed himself in 1948 by running again and getting creamed.

I’d especially like to thank my daughter Sara, who came down from college in Northern California to be here today. Sara kind of grew up here at city Hall during her middle and high school years and everybody around this building misses her. Sara inspires me every day. Just by the way she lives her life, she reminds me that the most important thing you can do every single day is wake up determined to make a difference in the world. Sara, I hope my service as mayor helps make your world a better place decades from now.

There are so many other people who have inspired and helped me here, but in the interest of getting on with it I think I will have to thank them individually.

Over the next few weeks the council will work out our agenda for the next two years. This won’t be an easy task. As a community, Ventura has taken a lot of blows in the last year or two. And I hate saying it, but I expect we’ll take a few more before the hard times are done. It is not a time to nurture resentment and assign blame. It is a time to pull together for the good of our community.

I can’t predict what direction the council will likely take, or how we will decide to get there. But I do know two things. First, we’re going to have to reinvent the way we do a lot of things – both here at City Hall and in the community at large. And second, we’re going to have to work together as a community more aggressively than we ever have before.

Ventura is a terrific place to live – so much so that sometimes we become a little complacent and often take it for granted that somehow or other things will work out fine in the end. But in this time of financial crisis, we can’t take anything for granted. We must devote ourselves to reshaping the way we do things in order to lay the foundation for a future that is both prosperous and sustainable.

We must be prosperous as a community , because without prosperity we cannot achieve anything else we want. But our prosperity must be enduring, based on achieving long-term economic goals, not short-term profits. Ventura has reinvented its economy many times on the past, and we are well-positioned to reinvent our economy again in order to ensure generations of prosperity.

We must be financially sustainable as a city government, because unless we are financial sustainable we will not be able to provide our constituents with the things they want and need. This will require not just increasing revenues, but reinventing how we do things, sharing community resources and helping each other, so that we will never again be faced with the difficult choices we are confronting right now.

And finally we must also be an ecologically sustainable community as well. As the Copenhagen conference begins today, climate change to most people in the world is an abstraction. To us it is not. The sea level will rise. It will rise in this city. It will rise in this neighborhood. And it will rise in our lifetimes. You can’t prosper when you are drowning.

If we make progress on all these things – enduring prosperity, a financially sustainable city government, and an ecologically sustainable community – then we will go a long way toward achieving our most important goal, which is to maintain and improve the quality of life of the people who live in Ventura, both today and in the future.

These are big challenges. But I look forward to working with the council and the community to lay the foundation for a better future. For the next two years I will do my best to be a leader and a servant to my colleagues on the council and the community at large.

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.

Should We Put A Sales Tax On The Ballot This Fall?

Monday night (June 8th), the City Council will once again discuss the possibility of putting a sales tax on the ballot in November. I still don’t expect us to pull the trigger on this yet, but it’s looking more and more likely that we’ll do it.

At first blush this might seem like a crazy thing to do. After all, we’re in the middle of the worst recession in decades. Nobody wants to pay more taxes. And people are skeptical of government spending – the state measures all got creamed a couple of weeks ago.

But here’s the reality: We’ve already cut more than $11 million from our budget – that’s well north of 10%. We’ve eliminated more than 40 jobs. We’re dipping into reserves already to maintain current levels of police and fire services. Wright Library is at risk to be closed – perhaps permanently. We’re cutting way back on maintaining our parks.

And we’re not done yet. The state is threatening to “borrow” close to $3 million in property tax from us, and we might also lose our gas tax money, which is the major source of funds for paving streets.

The news from Sacramento will continue to get worse and many of our revenue sources will continue to be placed at risk. So I think it comes down to this: We can find more local revenue sources and control our own destiny or we can put ourselves at the mercy of Sacramento. That’s not a tough choice to me.

Of course, there are lots of ways to raise revenue besides raising taxes, and we must pursue them aggressively. But none of them will generate lots more money in the short run, and none of them will generate the amount of money we need to maintain our vital services.

Last spring, our blue-ribbon citizen committee recommended a four-year sunset on the sales tax. This makes sense to me. It will get us through this tough economic time, and it will also ensure accountability because a majority of the City Council will serve the same term.

In addition, I think we need to make a sales-tax ballot measure part of a broader effort to maintain our solvency, our public services, and our quality of life in a tough economy – especially if it sunsets in four years. Therefore, I believe that if the City Council places the sales tax on the ballot, we should do so as part of a larger strategy that contains five points:

1. Spend additional tax revenue only on vital services

We know what the core services are to our community. They’re things like police protection, fire and emergency medical response service, libraries, paving the streets, and keeping our water and beaches clean. If we put a sales tax on the ballot that requires only a simple majority vote to adopt it, the money can’t be earmarked in a legally binding way. But my colleagues and I can – and should -- commit ourselves to spending the money only on these vital public services.


2. Increase tax revenue without increasing tax rates

Practically speaking, this means bringing in more retail stores that generate more sales tax – as well as some other development projects (such as industrial and office development as well as high-end housing) that produce more tax revenue than expenses. This is a long-term effort that will require a lot of work on a lot of fronts, because there is no magic bullet here. (Wal-Mart, for example, would likely generate a net increase of between $500,000 and $700,000 in sales tax – a healthy chunk but a drop in the bucket compared to $11 million in cuts.) We must follow through on all of our action items from the Economic Development Summit in May; we must target and aggressively pursue the retailers we want; and we must continue to clean up our planning process so that projects we want can be approved more quickly.


3. Increase revenue from other sources besides taxes

The city provides a wide variety of services to applicants or individuals who benefit directly from those services – for example, somebody who wants to add a room to their house or somebody who takes a recreation program – as well as services that mostly benefit one group of people (for example, hillside weed abatement). In the last couple of years, we have moved more and more toward “full cost recovery” for these services – that is, having those who benefit pay rather than all the taxpayers. I agree with Councilmember Andrews that we must make a conscious effort to decide which of these services we believe should be paid for by those who benefit, and which should be subsidized by the city’s General Fund.

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.


4. Restrain future cost increases

Since we can’t count on the same level of economic growth over the next few years that we have seen in the past, we are going to have to work toward restraining future cost increases in all areas. We’ve already done this in many ways, ranging from eliminating positions to contracting out tree-trimming. We may have to do more. And the big unknown in this arena is our employee pensions. When the stock market drops – like now -- the city has to pay more money to cover the pensions of retired employees. Some of my colleagues would like to address the question of pension reform (for future employees only) now. I agree that the pension question is an important one that we must start looking at.


5. Save for a rainy day

Some 15 years ago, our predecessors wisely set up a reserve fund equal to 25% of the General Fund – enough to run the city for three months in the event of a natural disaster. Since then, we have maintained the same amount in reserves -- $12 million – but we have not increased that reserve proportionately with the General Fund. Right now that’s about 15% of the General Fund. We should consider retaining a bigger reserve fund – permanently held at between 15% and 25%. This could be simply a council policy or we could put it on the ballot as a charter amendment. We would also have to decide what the rainy day fund is for – just natural disasters or financial crises as well?

I am not sure how tomorrow’s council discussion will go. But this is what I would like to see, and I will work toward a consensus along these lines.