Thank You, Ventura

Saturday was a fabulous day here in Ventura. First of all, it was a gorgeous day, and I had a wonderful run along the beach in the afternoon. Then there was the Holiday Street Fair – a longtime tradition we at the city have successfully turned over to the Downtown Ventura Partnership and other private sponsors. Just after sundown, I joined Santa Claus, Father Tom from the Mission – and a huge throng of people – in lighting up the Mission’s two Christmas trees, which by the way are the tallest Christmas trees in the United States. Then we all adjourned to the intersection of Main and California, where fake snow fell while we all danced and City Hall flashed with revolving, dramatic colors.

In other words, it was a great day to be the Mayor of this town. And all through it I kept thinking to myself something I have thought so many times over the years: This town can do things that other towns just can’t do!

It’s been easy to forget this during our recent hard times, when a lot of people have been focused on what we can’t do or aren’t doing or can’t afford to do. But as I stepped down as Mayor and a member of the City Council on Monday night, I wasn’t thinking about what we can’t do. I was thinking about all the things we can do – and all the things we do successfully on a regular basis.

I guess I could say a lot of the usual things that politicians say when they leave office – thanks for the privilege of serving, I am proud of what we accomplished, I’m humbled by all of this. (Actually, I did say all these things Monday night.) But what I really want to say is this: I’m the luckiest guy in the world because I got to be on the Ventura City Council for eight years and I got to be Mayor of Ventura for two years.

Things have been really tough in the last couple of years, so I think it’s important to understand what the situation was back in 2003, when I first ran for the City Council. We were in the middle of a divisive public debate over what to do about the Serra Cross, located on what was then city property in Grant Park. We had just lived through a divisive election over a very large proposed development project in the hillsides. Indeed, we had just been through three bruising decades of divisive growth battles, which had led to numerous ballot initiatives, wild swings back and forth in our political leadership, and the premature retirement or defeat of any number of councilmembers over the previous decade. Oh, yes, and by the way the City budget had been running in the red for the previous three years.

In those days, City Hall had a reputation for being opaque, not transparent, and not very responsive. In fact, one of the reasons I ran was because at that time it seemed to me that the only way to have true influence over the City’s direction was to be one of the seven members of the City Council. Paradoxically, I wanted to become one of those seven people in order to change that situation.We’ve tackled all those problems pretty successfully. And we’ve done it by staying focused on the fact that, at City Hall, everything we do is related to one of three overarching goals:

-- Enduring prosperity

-- A high quality of life

-- A strong sense of community

It’s been very hard to keep focused on those three things with the economic downturn and the resulting budget difficulties in the last two or three years. But I think that we have accomplished two important things in the last two to four years.

First, we’ve laid the foundation for future prosperity. As I have said many times, to be successful in the long run, all cities must constantly evolve economically. Ventura is no exception. Our traditional reliance on oil, agriculture, government, and a few other sectors will continue to provide a base of employment but will not carry us through to another generation of true prosperity. So we must constantly work at helping our businesses grow and encourage new high-growth businesses to locate in Ventura. We’ve laid a very good foundation for that – not just with out tech effort and our incubator, but by becoming more business-friendly without compromising our quality of life. We have restored positive relations with our Chamber of Commerce. We helped push through the $350 million expansion of Community Memorial Hospital. We’ve cleaned up our permitting processes. And, perhaps most important, we’ve just about eradicated the decades-old idea that Ventura is anti-business. This foundation will help us tremendously in the years ahead.

And second, we’ve learned how to work together as a community to get things done. In the old days, if you wanted to get something done in Ventura, the path to success was simple: You lobbied the City Council until you got four votes committing the City to take the lead on the project and pay for the whole thing. But that’s not a sustainable model for the future – not financially, certainly, but also not in community-building terms. Communities succeed not because the city government takes everything on and pays for it, but because a broad coalition of people, organizations, and institutions work together to get things done in a timely, high-quality, and cost-efficient manner. That’s what’s happening in the partnership between the City and the Ventura Botanical Gardens to improve Grant Park. It’s also what’s happening in the partnership between the City and Ventura Unified to open up school land on the Westside for parks and recreational use. This will have to be the model for getting things done in the future – and we’ve laid the foundation for it in the last two years.

Shortly after he was seated on Monday night, Mayor Tracy said that the city’s highest priority right now is to make sure that the public has confidence in the city’s ability to deliver basic services – police, fire, parks, street maintenance, and so forth. He’s right. We’ve balanced the budget and laid the foundation for the future, but the quality of our services has taken a hit in the process and now it’s time to show the people that we can still deliver the basics in a high-quality way. It’ll be a challenge, but I think Mike’s exactly the right Mayor for this moment, because he knows how to focus on the basics and make sure these things get done well. He’ll do a great job.

I’m comfortable with my decision to step down, because a successful community is not the result of one person’s actions, or even seven people’s actions. It’s the result of thousands of people waking up every day and committing themselves to make a town great – not just politicians and government employees, but volunteers and people who work for nonprofit organizations and PTO presidents and even all the people who go to work in private businesses every, generating the revenue and the profits that give us the prosperity we need to continue to be successful. Indeed, a successful community is a multi-generational effort, as stewardship of the community is handed down over time. As the word "stewardship" implies, no one truly owns a community’s success; we are all merely stewards of that success. We must learn how to create success every day and then hand it down to the next generation of leaders. It is important know how to pass the baton knowledgeably, gracefully – and before you wear out you welcome.

From my new vantage point in our nation’s capital, I will do the best I can – in any way I can -- to help Ventura move forward with enduring prosperity, a high quality of life, and a stronger sense of community. I always loved doing this in my travels around the country before I was elected, and proudly do so in the future. In other words, wherever I am, I will continue to be one of those thousand of people who wakes up every day and works to make Ventura a better place.

And no matter who is Mayor, I still think I’m the luckiest guy in the world because this town and my colleagues on the City Council had enough confidence in me to allow me to serve as Mayor for the last two years. I love this town. Thank you, Ventura.

The Realities of Ventura's Compensation

A couple of weeks ago in a letter to the VC Reporter, Ventura resident Meryl Wamhoff lambasted the City for a variety of supposed fiscal sins, including overcompensating executives, saddling Ventura taxpayers with the cost of Bell's egregious fiscal shenanigans, and not looking at ways to cut compensation in order to balance the budget. Unfortunately, Mr. Wamhoff's letter was incorrect on many counts. Here's the letter I wrote to the VCeporter (published this week) in response:

To The Editor:

Meryl Wamhoff’s letter lambasting reporter Shane Cohn for his perspective on government and taxes (“Just another liberal reporter…,” Letters, Sept. 1) certainly brought a provocative viewpoint to your pages. Unfortunately, Wamhoff was inaccurate in the claims he made about the city of Ventura. (“Tale of two taxes,” News, 8/11)

First, Wamhoff claims the taxpayers in Ventura will be footing part of the bill for the outrageous pensions of two top city of Bell employees, each of whom worked in Ventura early in their careers. This is not true, partly because of a proactive approach by the city of Ventura.

Ventura, along with other cities the pair subsequently worked for, supported a bill in the Legislature — almost certain to be signed by the governor in the next few weeks — that will force Bell, not Ventura or other cities, to foot the bill for their inflated pensions.

As it turns out, CalPERS, the state retirement agency, has already taken action to slash the pensions that were estimated in early press accounts. Instead of getting $411,000 a year, former Bell Police Chief Randy Adams will receive $268,000 — admitted, still a huge number but far less than it otherwise would be. Former Bell Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia, who worked for Ventura in the 1980s, had her pension reduced from an estimated $250,000 per year to $43,000 per year.

Secondly, Wamhoff asserts that Ventura “overcompensates its public employees.” In fact, however, Ventura’s pay scales are much lower than surrounding jurisdictions, such as the cities of Oxnard and Thousand Oaks and Santa Barbara County. City Manager Rick Cole makes $172,000 a year in base salary, which is about $60,000 less than his counterparts in Camarillo, Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley, and $100,000 less than the city manager of Oxnard. City Attorney Ariel Calonne makes about $190,000 a year, which his $30,000-$40,000 less than most of his counterparts around the county. Both recently took a 7 percent pay cut to contribute to their pension costs. So Wamhoff is wrong in asserting that we “never once considered that the compensation packages for these bureaucrats are too generous.” It was the first thing we considered and we acted on it.

This same pay difference is true up and down the organization. I really appreciate the loyalty and dedication of our city employees, but we frequently lose them to Thousand Oaks, Oxnard and Santa Barbara County, all of which pay 10-20 percent more than Ventura does. Over time, this could cause Ventura to become a “farm team” for these other jurisdictions — something that will surely harm our city government’s ability to get the job done, and something I believe no one in Ventura wants.

Wamhoff is right to be concerned about the compensation and retirement obligations of government agencies these days. It is a major concern to all of us in public life. And I understand that if Wamhoff believes the compensation of all government employees generally is too high, then he’s likely to think that Ventura pays too much no matter what the pay scale is.

It is wrong, however, to single out Ventura as an example of government’s financial problems, when we have worked much harder than other jurisdictions to be both moderate and fair in our approach to compensation and retirement.

Why I've Decided Not To Run Again

Eight years ago, I stood on the steps of City Hall and announced that I was running for the City Council. Today I am writing to let you know that I have decided to step down and not run for a third term this fall. It’s been a great ride – I love being on the City Council, and I especially love being Mayor. I am very grateful that you have given me the opportunity to serve you.

When I made the decision to run eight years ago, it wasn’t because I wanted to be a career politician, either by “moving up the food chain” to higher office or “being somebody” locally by occupying a seat on the City Council forever. I ran because I wanted to work with the community on some very specific changes that I believed were needed to move Ventura in a positive direction – ensuring long-term prosperity, conserving our open space and improving our downtown and our neighborhoods, maintaining and improving public safety, and most of all opening up City Hall so that our city government could be more transparent and accountable to the people it serves.

After two terms in office – including one stint as mayor and another as deputy mayor –I’m proud of the positive changes we have made. The “growth wars” of the ‘90s and early ‘00s are mostly behind us. We have far more stability in our city’s leadership than we used to. City Hall is, indeed, far more open and transparent than it used to be, and we are engaged in many more partnerships with the community at large.

Most important, we’ve dealt responsibly with a major financial crisis – one that nobody anticipated when I first ran back in 2003. Although we have had to cut services more than I would have liked, we took swift, early action to maintain a balanced budget. That’s why we do not face the deep financial problems currently confronting many of our surrounding cities.

I haven’t accomplished everything I set out to do, but I am proud to have done my share to help move things forward in many positive ways over the past eight years; and anyway no elected office-holder ever accomplishes every goal. It’s important to have experience and stability on the council, and during my time we’ve had both – a big change from the ‘90s and early ‘00s, when there was a lot of turnover. But I never intended to serve more than two terms, and I do sometimes worry that I will get stale in office.

I have to admit that personal considerations play an important role in this decision. I had a rich and fulfilling life before politics – professional, civic, personal -- and I am looking forward to focusing more on all of those activities again. In particular, I believe it is necessary for me to focus far more attention on my personal health, especially the ongoing loss of my eyesight.

As I revealed in a blog more than a year ago, I suffer from a condition known as retinitis pigmentosa, a deterioration of the retina that is gradually diminishing my peripheral vision and night vision. There is no way to know how quickly RP will rob anyone of their eyesight; and there is no treatment or cure. Anybody who has spent time with me in the last couple of years knows that this condition is becoming worse and that I am struggling to adjust to it. But the demands on my time as mayor have prevented me from focusing on how to make the transition to living life as a low-vision person. For my own well-being and the well-being of those I love, it is time for me to focus more fully on making this transition successfully.

In many ways, it is hard to leave office at such a difficult time. Over the past few years, we have had to cut our service levels to a point that most of us on the council are not comfortable with. We have been extremely fiscally responsible – moreso than most of our neighbors – but we must begin the effort to restore and reinvent our services, so that we never again have to face the difficult choices we have had to make in the past few years. As the current chair of the Ventura County Transportation Commission, I am working on organizational and service changes for public transit that should benefit the county greatly, and I wish I could see them through. The same is true for libraries. Our libraries have taken a big hit in recent years, and I believe our current library planning process will yield great results. When the real estate market comes back, I believe we will begin to see fabulous new development projects downtown and elsewhere and it would be great to be on the Council when that finally occurs.

But when you’re an incumbent, you can always come up with an excuse to run for office again. It’s much harder to look beyond the office you hold and envision the many other ways you might be able to help your community. In deciding whether to run again, I have thought long and hard about what role I might play once I leave office. Ventura has a long history of community service on the part of retired mayors and councilmembers and I look forward to joining my predecessors in playing that role. Beyond that, I believe that there are now unprecedented opportunities for everyone in the community – former mayor or not – to participate in moving our community forward.

In the old days, a constituency that wanted something – a park, a transportation program, an arts program, a construction project -- simply lobbied the City Council, putting the City on the hook for organizing, planning, funding, and running the whole thing. We as a community can no longer afford to operate this way, and one of the great accomplishments of the last few years has been to partner with others in the community to move things forward. We have, for example, partnered with community nonprofits to keep the downtown senior center open, to plan the future of Grant Park, and to maintain and renew our beloved ArtWalk. The City and the community will be partnering frequently in the future. I hope to work with you in many of these efforts during my five remaining months as mayor -- and in the years ahead after I leave office.

First and foremost is the effort to use our upcoming 150th anniversary in 2016 as a “target” to improve our community. As I suggested in my State of the City address in February, we are now in the process of creating a community-based committee to discuss what our community’s goals over the next five years should be and how we can achieve those goals.

Beyond the 2016 effort, there are many other ongoing issues in our community that I am really interested in and hope to continue working on. These include our business incubator and Ventura’s “new economy”, transportation and public transit, arts and culture, planning and development, and arts, culture and libraries. And I think it’s a safe bet that I will become more active as and advocate for disabled persons – which, in my mind, is really just a way to advocate to eliminate physical barriers to mobility for all people.

As I said above, no office-holder accomplishes everything he or she sets out to do, and any politician can always come up with an excuse to run again. I view my decision to step down not so much as an end to my involvement in Ventura, but simply as a transition into a different role where I can continue to help make our community better. I love Ventura more than ever, and I will continue to do everything I can to pursue the two goals for Ventura that I have always had – enduring prosperity and a high quality of life. Thanks for the opportunity to serve you on the City Council and as Mayor. I look forward to working with you as mayor between now and December – I promise I will put my foot to the floor to get things done – and I look forward to working with you for many more years to come.

Working Together With Our Neighborhoods

Back in the early ‘90s, a group of citizens in the neighborhood then known simply as “The Avenue” got together and decided that their neighborhood had not gotten enough attention over the years. So they formed a neighborhood organization to advocate for their community. They even gave their neighborhood a new name – the Westside – because they believed “The Avenue” had developed too many negative connotations over the years.

Almost 20 years later, the Westside Community Council is still going strong in advocating for the Westside – and over the years City Hall has responded. Most recently, we have been working on a Community Plan for the Westside area that will – after some 15 years of uncertainly – make the rules clear for new development and also identify the priorities for public investment on the Westside (if and when we have the money to make those investments).

And there are six other community councils in Ventura as well – representing Downtown, Midtown, Pierpont, the Harbor, the College District, and East Ventura. These are truly grassroots organizations.

We have great neighborhoods in Ventura, but they’ve taken a beating as we have had to reduce services in the last few years. The Community Councils help to foster neighborhood pride and engage in grassroots activity to make these neighborhoods better. I’m proud to do whatever I can to support our Community Councils and make our neighborhoods better. I meet every couple of months with the chairs of these Councils, and we are planning Ventura’s first-ever Neighborhood Summit this summer.

With the exception of the Downtown Ventura organization – created with the City’s help – these groups were formed by the people who live and work in their neighborhoods and they have crafted their own role.

For example, the Midtown Ventura Community Council often reviews and comments on pending development projects in Midtown, and it was partly because of the Community Council that Community Memorial Hospital’s large expansion project is so neighborhood-oriented and passed with so much neighborhood support.

The Pierpont Community Council has been at the forefront of the thorny sand removal issues that affect the Pierpont, and the College District Community Council was formed in response to many changes in the neighborhood, including spreading homeless issues and the loss of Wright Library. The College District organization has become an important venue for dialogue between Ventura College and surrounding neighborhoods.

None of these organizations receive a penny from the City. We do try to help them as much as possible. For example, Police Department staff often attends Community Council meetings – a vital information exchange about crime and safety issues in the neighborhoods that helps neighbors know how to stay safe and helps the police learn what problems are occurring. Our transportation engineers, parks staff, and other folks often attend the meetings as well to provide information and also stay on top of neighborhood issues.

And our Community Partnerships staff is working with the Community Councils to find private, philanthropic support for what we are calling a Neighborhood Improvements Matching Grant program. This program would allow for the City's various Community Councils to apply for matching grants to fund improvement projects in their districts. This would be a huge step forward in helping our neighborhoods help themselves to become better – and protect the neighborhoods that everyone in town loves.

Unpermitted Second Units: A Big Step Forward

On Monday night, the City Council took a major step forward – at last – toward legalizing “second dwelling units” that provide safe housing for their inhabitants but do not have city permits. In approving the second unit ordinances, we have at last provided a path for owners of unpermitted second units to comply with our city code and become, to use an awkward term, “legal”.

This has not been an easy process and not everyone is completely happy with the outcome. I’ll get to some of those details a little later. But the important point is this: Previously, there was no way for the owner of an unpermitted second unit to legalize their situation unless they went through an expensive and time-consuming process. Now it will be much easier.

The issue of unpermitted second units is not widespread, but obviously it is very important for those involved – and for the community at large. A second unit can provide a dignified place to live for an elderly or disabled relative or for an adult child who is ready to move out of the house. It can also provide an important source of income for people struggling to make the mortgage. These second units effectively expand our housing supply without really increasing our density.

All older cities have lots of unpermitted second units, and Ventura’s problem may not be as widespread as you might think. In 2009, when we conducted an experiment in “pro-active” code enforcement for a few months, we found that – even in the older neighborhoods – only about 2-3% of properties have unpermitted second units. In other older cities where I have lived, practically every property had unpermitted units.

The issue with unpermitted second units is safety. True, an unpermitted second unit might be a cozy 90-year-old carriage house that was built before zoning codes were even invented and has modern and safe electrical and plumbing systems. An unpermitted second unit might also be a garage that’s been rigged into a makeshift living unit, with refrigerator and microwave hooked up through extension cords and a toilet that discharges into the ground. The trick is recognizing – and acknowledging – the difference. And, of course, there’s a delicate balance between providing fair processes for people involved in a code enforcement action and protecting the vast majority of Ventura residents who go out of their way to abide by the codes and expect their neighbors to as well.

About 18 months ago we appointed the “Safe Housing Collaborative,” a group of 13 citizens who were asked to involve the public in ways to improve the code enforcement process. They came back to us in February with a set of recommendations, and the ordinance adopted Monday was the result of direction we gave our staff at that time.

The second unit ordinance we adopted Tuesday night represents an important stride forward. In order to qualify, a property owner needs to produce at least one piece of documentation – and, in the case of what might be called “indirect’ evidence, two pieces. For example, an old assessor’s record acknowledging the unit’s existence will suffice. Similarly, if you have a rent receipt and a utility bill, those two would suffice as well. You can substitute an owner’s affidavit for one of the two pieces of “indirect” evidence.

You will, of course, have to comply with our building code; if you disagree with the determination of our Building Official, Andrew Stuffler, you’ll be able to appeal that decision to the Local Appeals Board, which under state law is the body that hears appeals from Andrew’s decision. If your unpermitted second unit went into service before 1987, you won’t have to worry about complying with our zoning ordinance. If the unit went into service after 1987 – the year the state began to require disclosure of unpermitted second units in property transactions – then, in theory, you’ll have to comply with our zoning rules for second units (setbacks, parking, and so forth). But you’ll be able to seek a kind of a variance from our Community Development Director, Jeff Lambert – the ordinances instructs him to grant variances liberally – and if you don’t like his decision you can appeal it just like a regular variance.

Finally, if it turns out you have to pay hefty fees to legalize your unit – which is unlikely in most cases but possible in some -- we’ve instructed the staff to look into the possibility of having the City provide financing for the payments.

Our new effort includes a couple of other, more general approaches that should make it easier for people to deal with code enforcement issues.

One is the “self-inspection” program, which will permit applicants working with their contractors to have a private inspector certify that a water heater or other small item complies with the code. (Improperly installed, water heaters can be big safety problems; but we’re trying to make getting permits less expensive.) The second is an expanded volunteer program, which will help our code enforcement folks resolve issues more quickly and also help permit applicants through the process.

Not everybody agreed with the decision we made on every single issue. Many of the Safe Housing Collaborative members came to meeting and asked us to make a number of changes from the staff recommendation. Some we did (a zoning appeals process, a financing program) and some we didn’t (eliminating the 1987 cutoff date). A few people were unhappy with the outcome, but I think it’s fair to say that most were not.

Most everybody understands that we’ve made it code enforcement easier – especially legalizing unpermitted second units – and that this is a good start. And, like any new ordinance, this one is a bit of an experiment. We’ll monitor it to see how it goes and make changes if they’re warranted. But there was no point in delaying the ordinance because there was still disagreement about some issues.

As the old saying goes, you shouldn’t let the perfect stand in the way of the good. And the truth of the matter is that if you have an unpermitted second unit that poses no safety hazard, it will be easier to legalize your unit than it used to be. I’d say that’s good, even if the ordinance isn’t perfect.

The Tough Slog To Increase Revenue

In tough times, it’s always tempting to think that you can solve all your financial problems by finding some magical way to increase revenue. After all, spending money is always more fun than cutting the budget yet again. But the truth of the matter is that in this economy finding more revenue – especially in a way that doesn’t place an additional burden on our already overburdened taxpayers – is a tough slog.

Last week the City Council held a workshop where we discussed some of the possible ways we might generate more revenue. We talked about everything from “crash taxes” (charging out-of-town people involved in auto accidents) to selling or leasing city property as a way of raising cash to putting another proposed sales tax increase on the ballot. Not surprisingly, none of these ideas got much traction. But we did talk about range of other ideas – and, in the end, we voted to pursue a few things that seem worth a try, including:

1. Hiring an outside firm to help us make sure all businesses in the city pay business license tax.
2. Conducting on audit of our hotel bed tax collections to ensure all hotels and motels (and vacation rentals) are collecting this tax.
3. Renegotiating city leases to increase revenue where possible.
4. Ramping up efforts to obtain private donations, especially for capital projects in parks and other public locations where naming opportunities exist.
5. Continuing to focus on making our Auto Center a stronger retail destination.
6. Increasing our grant-writing capability.

The truth is that all these efforts won’t generate an enormous amount of money – at least not in the short run. Our best hope for an immediate pop is keeping a closer eye on compliance for business license tax and hotel bed tax.

I know first-hand that many businesses don’t get business licenses – about 20 years ago, I was one of those business owners! And I’m confident that with more compliance, we can increase business license tax revenue by 10-20%. However, that would amount to somewhere between $150,000 and $300,000. That’s a good chunk that will help us, but it’s not going to solve all our problems.

Similarly, it’s pretty clear that some smaller motels and vacation rentals don’t pay hotel bed tax. But most of the big hotels already pay, so we’re talking about a pretty small amount here too.

The other efforts are probably longer term – but we can’t lose sight of them just because we’re hurting now. The Auto Center did well during the boom – at our peak, we had 13 dealerships and the same auto sales as Oxnard – but we’re hurting badly now, mostly because there’s no surrounding retail in Ventura as there is in Oxnard. Even so, most retailers are pulling back on expansion plans now, so it’s unlikely we’ll get anything soon.

And you don’t get big philanthropic gifts for parks and public projects overnight. But we have two good examples in the Pier and the Community Park, both of which have raised more than $1 million in private donations. Just think how reassuring it is to know that if a storm damages the Pier, we have more than $1 million in private funds to draw upon and don’t have to take money away from some other City project! These kinds of donations are going to be really important in the next few years, because we are not going to have General Fund money for capital projects in the parks, as we have in the past.

Although this wasn’t in the motion passed by the Council, I’m also a big advocate of promoting Business-to-Business (B2B) transactions as a way of generating more sales tax for the city. Every business in town buys lots of goods subject to sales tax. If they buy those goods in town, then we get more sales tax. If you look at a map of where our sales tax comes from, you’d be amazed to see how much comes out of the Market/McGrath area – supposedly an industrial area, but in reality a place where many businesses buy products from other businesses. That’s why I was so excited recently when the Chamber’s Young Professionals Group had a mixer that brought together the start-up businesses in our incubator with the young small business owners in town.

And what about tax increases? After losing two sales tax measures recently – one in 2006 and one in 2009 – I have to say I think we’re done with that for now. There are a number of small measures that may have a chance of passage if they were combined into one ballot measure, including an entertainment ticket tax, an increase in the hotel bed tax, and maybe an increase in the Lighting and Landscaping District assessments. (Currently, you don’t pay enough in Lighting and Landscaping assessments to cover the cost of the streetlights, so we have to subsidize that with $400,000 from the General Fund.) But even all put together they won't raise that much money, and I don’t think our voters have any appetite for even these tax increases now.

Over the past three years, as we have struggled to reduce costs and increase revenues, we’ve heard literally hundreds of ideas. We’ve looked at them all, and implemented some of them. But, in general, I’ve found that every idea falls into one of four categories:

1. We’re already doing it.
2. It’s impossible to do for some reason (impractical, illegal).
3. It’s a great idea and we should do it right now, but it will only raise or save a little bit of money.
4. It’s a great idea and it will raise or save a lot of money, but it will take a long time to do it and we won’t see much immediate benefit.

The business license and hotel bed tax compliance efforts fall into category #3. Everything else falls into category #4. My bottom line is this: We’ve done a good job of cutting when we’ve needed to cut during the downturn. Our services have taken a huge hit but we are solvent and shouldn’t have to cut much more. So now is the time to start laying the groundwork for more revenue when the economy begins to perk up. We’ll keep looking at small, painless ways to raise revenue – and we’ll keeping working on long-term efforts to stabilize and improve our revenue base by increasing business generally.

The Way Forward ... To 2016

Mayor's State of the City Address, February 7, 2011

On behalf of the City Council, I would like to welcome you to the City Council Chambers and thank you for attending tonight.

After what all of us have been through in 2010, as your mayor, the message that comes to my mind is, “Whew!”

We made it through a year when money was in short supply for everybody, when the political rhetoric everywhere became much more unforgiving, and, whether we liked it or not, when the choices before us were choices would have never before considered.

But what’s remarkable is that despite all these travails, our spirit as a community has not been dampened. Ventura remains a place where people love to live their lives, run their businesses, and enjoy everyday life.

We have made it through some very difficult times by working together, by making sacrifices by finding new ways to do things and by undertaking efforts that inspire us and lift our spirits.

So I think it is worthwhile to acknowledge people and organizations who have helped us – both our City Government and our community – make it to where we are today.

First, from our perspective here at City Hall, I want to reassure everybody that our city is in good financial shape. Our budget is balanced and has been all through this dark time.

Now, let me hasten to add we don’t like the way we’ve balanced it. We’ve had to cut many important things and we know that our reduced level of services is not sustainable. We must find ways to bring our services back so we can maintain our city’s quality of life.

But it’s important to note that we have not shirked from the tough choices. Other cities have papered over their problems and now they will face severe cuts. We have attacked the issue of declining revenue head-on – meaning that future cuts will not be nearly as painful as other cities will see. I want to thank our City Manager, Rick Cole, for his willingness to tackle the hard issues head-on; and our CFO, Jay Panzica, for leading us through these difficult financial times with clarity, simplicity, and goodwill. I also want to thank our line department heads – Elena Brokaw of Parks & Rec, Rick Raives of Public Works, Jeff Lambert of Community Development, and especially Police Chief Ken Corney and Fire Chief Kevin Rennie – for doing more with less under difficult circumstances.

We also have our employees to thank. They have agreed to changes and reforms that will help make our future city budgets sustainable. One of my greatest concerns is that even when the economy recovers we will not be able to restore necessary services because of increased pension costs. But just this month our employees agreed to contribute to their own pensions, thus covering increased cost of pensions and they agreed to pension reform for future employees, which will save us a great deal in the long run.

These changes require sacrifice on the part of our employees but will help our city to focus – revenues increase – on restoring those services that we desperately need to bring back. I would like to thank the Ventura Police Officers Association and the Service Employees International Union for their help. I also would like to thank the Ventura City Fire Fighters Association for their support and look forward to working with them on a contract Finally, I’d like to thank our Human Resources Director, Jenny Roney, for guiding us through these tough negotiations.
Making these changes has required change in the way we do business. It’s always easy here at City Hall to think that we can solve all problems – and pay for them too. And because we meet in public and on television every week, it’s also easy for others to appear before us and demand the same – solve all problems and pay for them too.

But we up here can’t solve and pay for all problems – not all by ourselves. And one of the most important accomplishments of the last year has been to partner with other organizations in the community to get things done.

Perhaps the most important partnership we have forged in the last year is with the Greater Ventura Chamber of Commerce. We cannot succeed as a city without a strong and involved business community and the Chamber has reinvented itself during tough times with great gusto and energy.

So I want to thank that dynamic duo of Marni Brooke, chair of the Chamber board, and Sandra Burkhart, the chamber’s new CEO, for everything they have done and also thanks to Steve Perlman, vice chair in charge of business development and a representative of, let us say, an older generation of Chamber leaders.

The City has also worked with many, many other community organizations and institutions to help get through these tough times and still provide important services to our community.

For example, in tough times volunteers play an especially important role in making sure essential services and activities move forward. As a member of the national “Cities of Service” organization, we have come to realize the value of volunteers more than ever before

Just the week before last we hosted the first-ever “Volunteer Summit” for all the organizations and agencies here in town that use volunteers.. More than 30 organizations participated, and we have now set a target of recruiting 200 brand-new new volunteers in our community in 2011. I want to thank everyone who participated in the Volunteer Summit and especially the City’s volunteer staff, including Cary Glenn and Rosie Ornelas, for putting it together with great enthusiasm.

Similarly, we are increasingly working with nonprofit organizations to pool resources so that all of us can move forward doing the things we all need to do to maintain a high quality of life in our community. And this cooperation goes both ways – sometimes they help us, sometimes we help them.

Last year we thought we would have to close our Downtown Senior Recreation Center. But thanks to a collaboration with the nonprofit organization Urban Encore, we are able to keep the building open. Urban Encore is leasing the building and providing space to other nonprofits, while maintaining the senior center’s activities. I want to thank Dave Armstrong of Urban Encore – and one of Ventura’s most dedicated volunteers – for his efforts.

We’re also entering into an innovative arrangement with the Ventura Botanical Gardens organization. Everyone loves Grant Park – but we’ve had to postpone our plans to improve it for many years. Now, we have entered into an agreement to possibly lease parts of Grant Park to this new nonprofit group as an alternative way to make Grant Park better! Thanks to Doug Halter, who is representing the Botanical Gardens here tonight.
At the same time, we at City Hall are partnering with other nonprofit organizations to help them through these difficult times as well. By creating the Nonprofit Sustainability Center on the 4th Floor of 505 Poli, the City has helped 10 nonprofit to make it through the recession. By providing these organizations office space at low cost, we at City Hall can help them to maintain the vital services they provide to the community – services that our community otherwise might lose.

Just to give you an example of the diversity of these groups they include Focus on the Masters, Turning Point Foundation and Ventura Film Society. I’d like to thank Donna Granata, Clyde Reynolds, and Lorenzo DeStefano for their leadership and cooperation.

Amazingly enough, we have also seen remarkable progress in constructing and remodeling a wide variety of buildings and facilities downtown – helping to strengthen Downtown Ventura as the very epicenter of our region. Last year the WAV was completed. During this past year, the Kingdom Center has opened. So did Phase 1 of the Museum of Ventura County’s expansion, including the fabulous Smith Event Center. We’ve seen refurbishment and new vitality at the E.P. Foster Library. And we’ve seen the Housing Authority begin construction at Encanto del Mar at Oak and Thompson; and People’s Self-Help Housing begin renovation of the historic and beautiful El Patio Hotel just a block away.

These would be remarkable achievements at any time. But to accomplish them all in 2010 – the worst year in recorded history for construction in the United States – is truly remarkable. I’d like to thank some of the community leaders that have made this possible – including Pastor Sam Gallucci of the Kingdom Center, Tim Schiffer of the Museum of Ventura County, Mary Stewart of Foster Library, and John Polansky, chair of the Housing Authority board for all of your leadership.

We also an excellent holiday shopping season downtown and everywhere else – much to our surprise. I want to thank each and every one of you for your commitment to shopping locally. I also want to thank everyone who took me up on my challenge at the Mayor’s Arts Awards – to buy one piece of local art during this holiday season and another piece during 2011. Personally, I’d like to thank Jennifer Livia of Red Brick Gallery for the wonderful art she created that now belongs to my family. And don’t worry – I’m still on the lookout for that beautiful piece of local art to purchase in 2011. The Mayor’s Local Art Challenge is still going on!

Finally, whenever a community endures tough times, there is nothing like a group of inspiring athletes to lift our spirits and keep us going. This year, all of us in Ventura were inspired by the Ventura Deep Six Relay Team and their dramatic four-day swim through cold and choppy ocean waters. These guys didn’t just beat the world record – they killed it. In case you haven’t heard, the previous world record for an open water relay team was 78 miles – by the way, on a lake in New Zealand. Our guys swam over 202 miles in the Pacific Ocean in one of the coldest years on record. Oh, and by the way, these remarkable athletes are all in their 40s and 50s.

Thanks so much to Jim McConica and the other swimmers for keeping our spirits up in a tough year.

I’ve gone on at some length about all these people and organizations and accomplishments because I think it’s important to remember all the positive things that occurred during a difficult year. Thanks to all of you, we have made it through what I called last year “Our Defining Moment”.

Now, we must all work together to channel all of our energies toward charting “The Way Forward” here in Ventura.

And I do mean all of us – everyone in the community, working together – not just the City Council.

The decisions we on the City Council make up here every Monday night about what to fund and what to approve -- yes, these are important. But we can’t do it alone – and, anyway, these days nobody trusts us in the government to do it all by ourselves anyway. But with all of us working together – government agencies, nonprofit organizations, private businesses, individuals – we can do a much better job of figuring out what’s right for our community and a much more effective job of getting it done.

I think I can speak for all seven of us up here when I say that we must focus on two important and inter-related goals.

First, working with all of you to create a sustainable and enduring prosperity for our community.

And second, using that prosperity to maintain and enhance our quality of life.

Let me begin with prosperity, because without prosperity we cannot succeed as a community.

I have spent most of my life trying to understand how cities work, and I can say one thing: whether they grow or increase in population or not they never stay the same. To prosper – and to maintain a high quality of life – cities have to reinvent themselves economically again and again. This is true no matter how big or small they are; and no matter how fast or slowly they are growing.

Ventura has already reinvented itself many times from mission town to fishing town to agricultural center to oil boomtown to surf town to government town – and we remain all these things to some extent today. But we cannot stand still. We must continue to forge ahead, reinvent ourselves – find enduring prosperity in the 21st Century global economy while retaining the small-town feel we all cherish.

Everything we are moving forward with right now is focused on exactly this goal – and these efforts are tightly intertwined.

We talk a lot about creativity and artists galleries and projects like the WAV. Sometimes it seems like we have staked our whole future on art galleries, artist housing, and arts events. Some people love this; others are understandably skeptical that we can base a city’s entire economy on this proposition.

To be sure, arts and culture are important for their own sake. But they’re also important as a way to connect to the fast-growing creative and innovation economies regionally and worldwide which we in Ventura must be a part of in order to prosper in the future.

The creative arts – performance, visual arts, graphic and architectural design, publishing, fashion -- represent one of the fastest-growing sectors of the American economy. No American city, large or small, will be able to prosper in the future without nurturing these creative arts. The future of the creative arts in Ventura is virtually unlimited – and essential to our future in so many different ways

Over the last year, we have increased our visibility in Hollywood with the Film Ventura! Initiative – kicked off last fall at our downtown movie complex with a screening of the independent film, “Not Fade Away,” by local filmmaker Meredith Markworth Pollack. This effort has reminded us that we have an enormous supply of local film talent here in Ventura – actors, craftspeople, and even many writers and producers.

We’ve also strengthened our connection with our most important local educational institution dealing with the creative arts, Brooks Institute. Hundreds of Brooks film and video students already live and work in Ventura, and I recently met with Brooks’s new president, Susan Kirkland, to reaffirm our mutual commitment to each other. Brooks is a critical component of Ventura’s creative economy – attracting talented young people to Ventura and helping us to attract regional and national attention. Thank you, Susan, for your leadership.

And even in these difficult times, we have seen many other business leaders in the creative arts strengthen their commitment to Ventura – and, in particular, to downtown. Rasmussen Associates moved downtown and transformed the top floor of the Earle Stanley Gardner. Thank you, Larry Rasmussen for this commitment. Ann Deal of Fashion Forms has continued to help build Ventura’s reputation in the apparel industry and recently located her designers in our creative downtown, where she has long lived herself. Thank you, Ann.

The creative economy is important to our future prosperity, but it will not sustain us all by itself. The creative economy is important to Ventura for a much bigger reason as well – it provides us with an important connection to the worldwide innovation economy. The creating of new products and new services – especially using the the Internet – today serves as the engine of the global economy.

No city can prosper in the 21st Century without strong, local innovators. Innovators are themselves creative and they thrive on a lively and creative local community.

That’s why our Ventura Ventures Technology Center on the 3d Floor of 505 Poli Street has been so successful. V2TC is now home to 19 startup companies. The entrepreneurs located there are changing the way the world uses information – through online advertising, geographic location systems, online marketing, and many other innovative ideas. They’re drawn to Ventura not just by this incubator but also by the high quality of life, the recreational opportunities, and the creative buzz in our downtown.

I’d like to acknowledge one of those entrepreneurs right now – Jeff Green, founder of The Trade Desk, an online advertising startup that has been so successful that it’s actually busting out of the incubator and moving to the 5th floor of 505 Poli. Jeff, on behalf of everyone in Ventura, I want to say thanks for your commitment in creating jobs here in town. I’d like to thank all the other entrepreneurs in the incubator as well for their commitment to Ventura. And I’d like to invite everyone here to visit the incubator during the reception at the incubator, on the 3d floor of 505 Poli in a few minutes.

Creative artists, designers, entrepreneurs – all are essential components in creating enduring prosperity. But businesses cannot succeed without startup capital. And local capital is especially important. If we can finance our innovative companies through local sources, then the resulting wealth will stay in our community, to be recycled into yet more business ventures and also providing the basis for local philanthropy.

That’s why I am grateful to people like John and Dan Peate of Peate Ventures, who have decide to locate their venture firm right here downtown. Thanks so much, John and Dan, for being financial pioneers here in Ventura, and thanks to our financiers and entrepreneurs -- we are getting more attention from investors every day.

There is yet another dimension to our future prosperity, one that is also linked to creativity and the global innovation economy – the medical and biotech fields.

Here in Ventura, we have long been blessed with extremely high-quality medical care, thanks largely to our two fine hospitals and all the medical talent they attract to our community. This year, we’ve seen both our hospitals make major, forward-looking investments in Ventura.

Community Memorial Hospital is building a new cancer center and is about to embark on a $300 million expansion that will improve medical care, create new business spinoff opportunities in the medical and biotech fields, and help to revitalize business in the Five Points area. It is inspiring to see such an enormous investment in our community during these tough times. And the new CMH will also be a place where biotech entrepreneurs will be able to create and innovate, bringing even more jobs and wealth to Ventura.

And Ventura County Medical Center is also about to embark on a major hospital expansion, adding even more good-paying jobs – construction jobs and medical jobs – to our community. Together, these institutions make Ventura a center of medical care – and medical innovation.

I would like to express my thanks to Gary Wilde, the CEO of Community Memorial Health Systems, and Mike Powers, the outgoing director of the Ventura County Health Care Agency, for spearheading these large and significant investments in our community. They have truly taught us here in Ventura that working together produces far more wealth, health, and happiness than the alternative!

The purpose of building prosperity, of course, is to provide the funds – public, private, and philanthropic – necessary maintain and improve our quality of life.

Part of The Way Forward here in Ventura must be to refocus on our quality of life – for all citizens. My colleagues and I on the council look forward to renewing our long partnership with the Ventura Unified School District and Superintendent Trudy Arriaga – not only to ensure safe and high-performing schools, but to work together toward major community goals that will benefit everyone in our community. Yes, Trudy, we will build the Westside Pool.

We also have to focus on our neighborhoods. Ventura’s neighborhoods are great places to live. But they’ve taken a beating in the last couple of years, as we at City Hall have been forced to cut back on many basic services that neighborhoods depend on – police and fire service, park and median maintenance, tree-trimming, street paving, libraries.

Again, we on this dais are committed to working in collaboration with our neighborhoods to create stability and improve the quality of life. I’d like to thank the chairs of Ventura’s Community Councils for meeting with me regularly to discuss these issues. And I’m proud to announce that we are all working together to bring about Ventura’s first-ever Neighborhood Summit later this spring.

Lastly, I would like to note that, in approaching the future, we must be inclusive. Ventura is a diverse community, and we must ensure that both our prosperity and our quality of life is shared by all residents. Frankly, we have fallen behind in our efforts to implement the Americans with Disabilities Act and ensuring that every place in our community is welcoming to everyone. I look forward to the City’s rollout in 2011 of new efforts to make our community more accessible to those with disabilities.

As a person who is rapidly developing a severe disability, I have learned that while there may be physical disabilities, there is no such thing as a disability of the heart or spirit. We are blessed in Ventura with fabulous people active in promoting the cause of those with disabilities. I’d like to thank Chera Minkler for being a personal inspiration to me – as an advocate for the disabled and as a person with great compassion for all.

Here in Ventura, The Way Forward inevitably involves a look backward toward the past. We are a city of history. Ventura was incorporated as a municipality in 1866; and, indeed, of the 481 cities in California, only 22 are older than we are.

On April 2, 2016, our city will celebrate its 150th anniversary. In case you’re counting, that’s 1,880 days from today.

So here’s a challenge:

Let’s dedicate ourselves to making Ventura’s new prosperity – and much better quality of life – a reality by that date. Let’s make sure that, by then, we are

A city that has successfully combined our creativity our innovation and our opportunities to create a new and lasting prosperity

A city that has fulfilled its commitment great education, high-quality public safety great medical care, great parks and recreation, by the way great and by the way, a great place for all kinds of people to live.

In short, let’s make ourselves the best small city in California.

We have a long list of things we know we must accomplish to achieve renewed prosperity and a better quality of life. So here’s my challenge: I ask you to join me in a concerted effort to get those things done.

Within 90 days, let’s form a group of community leaders to lead this effort.

Within 3 to 6 months, let’s agree on a to-do list – the high priority things we must do to establish long-term prosperity and a better quality of life by 2016. And then let’s spend every day between now and then getting things done, crossing items off the list, until we have made sure Ventura will be a great place to live and work for the next generation.

Remember, when you wake up tomorrow morning, there will be only 1,879 days left.

And on Wednesday, only 1,878.

So let’s get going. Let’s make every day count. Let’s make each one of these days count.

Laying the Foundation for the Future

This has not been an easy year for us here in Ventura. At City Hall, at the school district, elsewhere in town – and also in our personal lives – we’ve had to cut back.

Nobody likes cutting back, especially if it means our community’s quality of life is at risk. Fewer libraries, fewer police officers, fewer fire stations, reduced bus service, reduced park maintenance, less street paving – the list goes on and on, unfortunately. And most of our time and effort at City Hall in 2010 has been spent figuring how to manage these reductions in a way that will maintain the city’s overall solvency without harming the community too much.

This is essential work these days for local government officials and we are right to devote so much attention to it. But even as we manage these reductions, we must also devote ourselves to renewing our community – appreciating what we have here in Ventura, looking ahead, and understanding how we can protect and enhance our city’s unique characteristics.

So let me begin by saying that, despite all the bad news, 2010 was a pretty good year here in Ventura. We have successfully sown the seeds of several efforts that will pay off in years to come, both for our prosperity and our quality of life. Although it went almost unnoticed, perhaps the most important accomplishment was the approval of Community Memorial Hospital’s major expansion in midtown. Starting early next year, CMH will build a new building adjacent to its old one – simultaneously upgrading our medical care, freeing up space in the old building for important economic ventures such as biotech research, and helping to improve an already wonderful, walkable commercial neighborhood around Five Points. We’re lucky to still have a community non-profit hospital, and the fact that there was so little controversy about the CMH expansion is a testimony to the way the hospital and the community understand the value of their relationship.

We also saw the expansion of our V2TC business incubator behind City Hall, with several new businesses opening up and one – The Trade Desk – moving to bigger quarters elsewhere in the building because it is growing so fast. In addition, we saw an increase in all kinds of creative and innovative businesses downtown – everyone from architects to venture capitalists and, yes, brassiere designers moved in.

There’s so much more I could talk about, but let me just sum it up by saying that nothing is more important to me as mayor than laying the foundation for Ventura’s future prosperity and quality of life. It’s sometimes hard to see this progress in such a down economy, but we here at City Hall are working hard – in collaboration with our neighborhoods, our businesses, and many others – to make sure that as we emerge from the recession Ventura will remain a great place to life and work for another generation at least.

At The Library Crossroads

Tonight, the Ventura City Council took an important step toward resolving our longstanding library issues. It's either a baby step toward pulling out of the Ventura County Library system, or a big step toward living with the library service we currently have. I don't know which.

The occasion was a joint meeting with the Library Advisory Commission where we were scheduled to discuss the possibility of embarking on a new strategic plan for the library. But the tenor of the meeting was colored by Camarillo's decision last night to withdraw from the county library system and contract with LSSI, a private company, for library services. (Moorpark made the same jump a couple of years ago.) Some library activists have been unhappy, to say the least, since H.P. Wright Library closed almost a year ago; and they have been agitating for us to withdraw and contract with LSSI as well. A majority of the City Council has stood behind the county library system so far. Would we jump to LSSI? That was the mystery.

In the end, we voted -- uanimously -- to take our first step toward considering the possibility of following suit. If that sounds tentative, it is. Technically, here's what we voted to do, and like I say it's going to sound really tentative:

We voted to agendize an item in the near future the possibility of giving the county the requisite six-month notice for withdrawing from the system this year (meaning July 1, 2011), and we directed the staff to come up with a proposal to put library operations out to bid. The idea is to set up the possibility of withdrawing, seek bids for library operations, and see what we get.

We also directed the Library Advisory Commission to design a strategic planning process that will assist the community in deciding what vision of library service we want to pursue in Ventura in the future. (There was a lot of concern about the overall cost of this effort, so we stipulated that it should be relatively speedy and inexpensive. At the suggestion of Linda Kapala, the library at Foothill High School and a big advocate of reopening Wright, I agreed to see whether graduate students at USC's public policy school, where I teach part-time, could help-out.)

But the main event was the possible withdrawal from the county library system. This was proposed by Councilmember Neal Andrews and seconded by Councilmember Jim Monahan, who opposed closing Wright. Neal in particular has always been in favor of putting more pressure on the county as a way to maintain good library service. My initial instinct was to vote against this motion -- I even said so in the meeting -- but upon reflection I changed my mine, right there in the middle of the meeting. Here's my reasoning.

A lot of people have been wondering whether the county library system can survive without Camarillo. (Presently, it consists of two other larger cities, Ventura and Simi Valley, as well as unincorporated areas and three smaller cities, Fillmore, Ojai, and Port Hueneme.)

As I said tonight, I think that in the short run we will be able to maintain our current level of service. (Although Wright is closed, Avenue Library is open partly thanks to federal funds, and E.P. Foster Library will open Sundays starting this weekend. In fact, there's a big celebration of Foster as part of the ArtWalk this Sunday, starting at 1 p.m.) However, I am not sure we will be able to maintain this same level of service in the coming years -- especially since the county is predicting a 50% increase in pension costs in the next five years.

So I think it makes sense to begin looking at alternatives for operating our libraries. I could wait a year to do this, because as I said I think we're okay for now, but I as happy to go along with the council consensus to move now.

The key for me was the idea of issuing an RFP. A lot of Wright advocates around town have simply been saying that we should pull out of the system and contract with LSSI. But I'm concerned about that -- and I became more concerned after I read the contract between Camarillo and LSSI today.

Whenever cities issue big contracts, they almost always go through a competitive bid. But Camarillo did not do that for library services. Instead, Camarillo negotiated privately on what is called a "sole-source" (i.e., non-competitive) basis with LSSI. This is understandable, especially when you consider that LSSI is the only company that provides library services to municipalities and the company is highly motivated to offer a good price in order to break into the Ventura County market.

Yet this unusual private negotiation process has resulted in pros and cons for Camarillo. The pros are obviously. They're going to get the same amount of service (65 hours a week) for less money -- $1.5 million a year for operations, plus about $500,000 a year to buy materials. (This is a net gain of about $700,000 a year for Camarillo.) LSSI is a large company that has buying power with book producers and so can command good prices, so the materials budget may actually stretch farther.

Yet Camarillo also gave up important things in the LSSI deal -- things I am not sure I want to give up. The county library system maintains the library buildings and I saw nothing in the contract that suggests LSSI is going to take over that responsibility, so that's possibly an increased cost to the city. LSSI promises to provide adequate staffing, but the contract stipulates that all staffing decisions ultimately belong to LSSI. That means LSSI could cut the number of librarians and simply inform the City, rather than seek permission to do so. (I have heard that LSSI has done this in some cases, but I do not know whether this is true.) Also, LSSI retains the power to categorize its library management techniques as proprietary and therefore confidential, meaning the City can't reveal or use what it knows about those techniques without LSSI's permission. The bottom line is that LSSI is a private company. You contract for a service and you get it; but you don't get to know much about the ins and outs of how that service gets provided.

I don't think this kind of privately negotiated deal would fly in Ventura. That's why I think the RFP process is a good way to figure out what the possibilities are. We can specify what service we are interested in -- Avenue, Foster, reopening Wright, bookmobiles, book kiosks, etc. -- and see what the prices are. We could even ask for ideas -- give us an innovative way to provide library service to East Ventura and cost it out. We will know what other costs will fall on our shoulders (and clearly the cost of materials and building maintenance will be our responsibility). We can specify in the RFP anything else that's important to us -- a certain number of librarians, for example, or compliance with the city's Living Wage Ordinance, which requires city contractors to pay a certain per-hour wage plus health insurance.

And then anybody can bid on what we want. LSSI can bid and we will see if they can meet our terms if those terms deviate from LSSI's typical contract (living wage, minimum staffing, etc). The county library system will bid and we can see if they can provide a low enough price. (Having existing departments bid against private companies to provide public services is a growing trend.) Other libraries could bid if they wanted to -- Oxnard, Thousand Oaks, Ventura College. And, of course, our city Department of Parks, Recreation, and Community Partnerships could bid as well (maybe in collaboration with laid-off Camarillo librarians? Who knows?)

In the end we might contract with LSSI or some other entity. Or we might not like any of the bids and decide that staying as part of the county system is well worth it. But the point is that we will have tested the market to see what's out there. At this point, I think that's worth it.

Why We Have To Make Tough Choices on Pensions

As you may have noticed, things are not going well between the city and our unions.

We have not reached agreement with our labor unions on new contracts, even though for most of the unions (including the police union and the Service Employees International Union) the contracts ran out last summer. Last week, all of our unions crowded the City Council chambers to speak about the value of their work and their concern about our negotiating position; and on Monday, SEIU plans a march on City Hall before the council meeting.

While I can’t speak publicly to the specifics of the labor negotiations going on right now, I can talk about what is on the public record – the changes in the compensation policy that the City Council approved last spring. I’d also like to take some time in this blog to explain why I supported those changes – and why I think those changes are important in order to actual protect our ability to pay out good wages, benefits and pensions to our city employees in the long run.

I know that our city employees are very unhappy with the City Council’s bargaining position right now. Our city employees feel like they are being asked to bear an unfair portion of the burden of the financial downturn. They don’t feel as though we value them. And they feel we are being inflexible at the bargaining table. Under the circumstances, these are all understandable feelings and I respect those feelings, probably more than our employees know. I am sure that if I were a full-time city employee I would feel the same way.

But I do want to explain publicly why I supported the changes in the Council’s compensation policy. Frankly, I don’t expect that what I say in this blog will change how any our city employees feel about what’s going on. I totally understand that and I respect it. But I would like both our city employees and the rest of our constituents – many city employees are constituents – to understand where I’m coming from. It would be a disservice to all these constituents, city employees included, not to do so.

I am not interested in placing the burden on the employees just because I think they should pay more. Rather, my goal to make sure that our employees’ pensions are not at risk in the long run – and to make sure that we will have the money to pay competitive wages to our current employees even as pension costs go up.

Last spring, the City Council voted to change its official compensation policy to add two components – first, to ask our employees to once again pay their legally defined “share” of pension contributions (9% of salaries for public safety officers, 7% for everybody else); and, second, to seek a second, lower “tier” of pension benefits for future employees.

This move came as something of a surprise to a lot of our employees. Many were more than surprised; they were hurt. Oftentimes this summer and fall, they have sought me out to ask why we have chosen this path. Don’t we value them? Aren’t we worried about falling so far behind “the market” that it will be hard to recruit and retain talented employees? What’s going on?

I do value our employees – and I never say so often enough. Our city employees work hard serving the public, and most of them could make more money working for another city or public agency. Our public safety officers put their lives on the line for us, and most of the rest of our employees work hard during long careers for relatively modest pensions. And yes, I am worried that Ventura – a venerable city that prides itself on providing excellent service to the public – won’t be able to recruit great new employees nor keep talented ones we already have.

But I’m also worried about the long-term future of our City’s ability to pay pensions to our employees. As a member of the City Council, I am one of seven stewards of the employees’ retirement funds. One of my goals is to make sure that when they retire, 10 or 20 or 30 years from now, the money will be there to pay them the pensions they have earned. And that we won’t have to “short” our current employees in order to pay the pension bills.

This is something that is almost never discussed openly by the City Council or our employees. In our day-to-day conversations and our labor negotiations, we all assume that the money will be there when it needs to be. But as we have learned in the auto industry and other “mature” business sectors, this isn’t always the case.

Part of the reason I am worried is that the world of California public pensions used to be very simple, but now it has become very complicated in a way that places our ability to pay pensions at risk in the long run. At the very least, paying the pensions our current and recently retired employees employees have earned will become much more expensive – and that will make it much more difficult for us to pay our current employees competitive wages and, in fact, to provide public services of any kind.

In the old days, cities contributed money to a system such as CalPERS, the California Public Employment Retirement System, on a regular basis. PERS invested the money in safe things like bonds and averaged an investment return of about 4%.

Virtually all employees received a guaranteed pension, which was pegged to some variation of the 2% formula – you’d get 2% of your annual salary in retirement times the number of years you worked. Most employees retired at 60, though police officers and firefighters tended to retire earlier – at 55 or sometimes even 50 – because you didn’t really want those folks out on the streets at an advanced age. Somehow it all worked out – just like, somehow or other, Social Security always worked out.

But, like Social Security and most other things associated with finance, the world of public pensions has gotten a lot more complicated in the last 30 years.

At cities and other agencies that belong to PERS, salaries have gone up, retirement ages have gone down, retirees are living longer, and, in the case of public safety officers, the old 2% formula has been increased to 3%. Obviously, all these changes have increased the pressure for PERS to deliver greater investment returns – and turned PERS into a very different kind of investor than it used to be.

The whole PERS story is probably best laid out by Ed Mendel, an old friend of mine from my journalist days, who is now a blogger specializing in California pensions. In one recent blog, Ed noted that the world changed dramatically in 1984, when the voters passed Proposition 21, which repealed a law limiting PERS to investing only 25% of its portfolio in stocks. That opened the way for PERS to increase its investment returns by participating in the boom stock market of the ‘80s and ‘90s – which, in turn, increased the pressure to improve retirement benefits for California’s public employees.

As Ed points out in his blog, in 1980 PERS received twice as much revenue from member and employer contributions ($1.6 billion) than from investment returns ($800 million). In 1983, when the stock market started going up, that flipped; PERS got $1.8 billion from contributions and $2 billion from the portfolio.

PERS then rode the exploding stock market all through the ‘80s and ‘90s. By 1998, PERS got $3.7 billion in contributions and $23 billion in investment returns. To reiterate: In 1980, PERS got two-thirds of its funds from member contributations. Less than 20 years later, PERS got 85% of its funds from investment returns.

It was about this time that the state first permitted the 3% formula for public safety officers and also lowered the allowable retirement age for non-public safety personnel from 60 to 55. Most cities in the state quickly adopted both of these options, including Ventura (though Ventura adopted the 3% rule more gradually than most). However, because the stock market continued to skyrocket, cities did not have to pay any “price” at all for these increases – at least not right away. During the Internet boom of the early 2000s, investment returns were so high that PERS actually didn’t require cities to make contributions – at the exact same time that pension benefits were going up and retirement ages were going down.

Then, of course, came the Internet crash and the whole rocky period of the ‘00s, when everybody got caught in the housing bubble. The net result of this is that CalPERS has not been getting the same return it used to – even though costs are now much higher, based mostly on the assumption that returns will remain high.

According to Ed Mendel, CalPERS returns have averaged only 3.1% for the last decade. Yet PERS continues to operate on the assumption that its long-term rate of return will be 7.75%.

Even if investment returns do total 7.75% from now on – extremely unlikely, in my view – our PERS cost is going to go up, because PERS has to cover the cost of investment losses the last couple of years. My best guess for what’s going to happen in the next few years is this: Even if our city revenue starts going up again in a couple of years, those revenue increases will be completely eaten up by increased PERS costs.

Under the circumstances, I think the only responsible position to take is that, whether we like it or not, we will have less money available for salaries and pensions over the next few years – not more, or not even the same amount we have now, but less.

And if investment returns are lower – say, 3% or 4% or 5%? Then the bill from PERS goes way, way up – far more than our revenue. This will affect not only our ability to pay pensions to those who are retired, but also our ability to pay competitive wages to those who still work for us because more and more of our money will go to pay pensions.

If you’re a taxpayer advocate, this is probably a satisfying “I told you so” moment. But even if you believe – as I do – that public employees do important work and deserve a good pension, you’ve got to be really worried.

What happens in, say, 2030, when many of our current employees will be expecting their hard-earned pension checks? When we have 1,000 or 1,200 retirees instead of 600? When we may have to balance the cost of those increased pensions on the backs of people working for the city at that time? And when PERS investment returns have not come anywhere close to 7.75% for years or maybe decades?

How big will the bill be then? Will we be able to afford to pay that bill – and still also provide police and fire service, and pave the streets, and run the parks, and everything else? And provide good wages and benefits to the dedicated employees who do the work?

I don’t know the answer to that question. The fact that I don’t know the answer to that question worries me a lot. And I believe it should worry our city employees a lot as well.

I know that the current labor negotiation is an extremely emotional issue for everybody. I know that many city employees are worried about how they’re going to pay their mortgages or their rent in the future. I know they do not feel valued and they fear we will lose good employees to other cities. All these things concern me too -- a lot. Our employees do great work and everyone in town needs them to continue doing so. And most of our employees are great citizens of our community and we want to continue that too.

But the one thing, I have noticed, that the employees do not seem to be worried about is whether the money will actually be there to pay their pensions in 2020 or 2030 or 2040. Our employees tend simply to assume that they will receive what they are legally entitled to.

But in my opinion, there is no guarantee the money will be there and there is considerable risk that it won’t be. Furthermore, for younger employees, providing those pension benefits to retirees in the future will mean we probably won't be able to provide wage and benefit increases for those still working. This is something that should concern all of us just as much as taking a pay cut now – maybe more. And as one of the seven stewards of the city’s pension system, I believe we must pay attention to this festering problem.

That’s why I believe it’s necessary to take steps to restrain long-term pension costs now – in order to make sure that our current and future retirees will get their pension checks far into the future and our current city employees will not have to pay the price for increased retirement costs. Yes, there are costs and risks to this approach. In the short run, our employees will have to give something up and it will be that much harder to pay the mortgage or the rent. But I believe it is equally important to make the tough choices now to ensure that our employees actually receive their pensions decades from now. And to make sure that we will be able to pay our current employees good wages and benefits, instead of sacrificing their well-being to pay the PERS pension costs for those who are already retired.

One of the things I hear most often from our employees is why we in Ventura seem to be worried about this when nobody else is. After all, most public employee labor contracts negotiated in the last year have had something between a 0% raise and a 3% giveback. If we cut compensation more than that, they say, we will become less competitive and we will lose good employees. So why are we seeking higher compensation cuts when nobody else is?

This is a good question. My answer, frankly, is that I don’t think the other agencies are looking at these issues straight-up – or they’re not being straight-up with the employees.

At Ventura County (which has its own separate retirement system), most employees agreed to start paying 3% of their retirement cost. That’s great. But the county retirement system’s investment portfolio has lost something like 25% of its value, and with lots of retirements in the offing, county pension costs are estimated to increase 50% in the next five years. Clearly, more givebacks will be necessary.

Another tactic we often see is for a city to promise future increases in salary -- say, 2-3-4% in the "out years" of a five-year contract -- in exchange for zero increase or a giveback in the early years. But this doesn't really solve the problem, because other cities are going to be facing huge increases in PERS costs just as we are. When you ask the elected officials in these cities how they are going to pay for the future salary increases, they'll say: “We don’t know.”

In such a situation, the price of short-term labor peace is to kick the can down the road, assume that somehow or other more money will be available in the future, and ignore the fact that there are looming long-term risks.

I cannot, in good conscience, do the same. Our employees are entitled to these pensions and they deserve them. But they also deserve straight talk about the future from their City Council.

It would be very easy for me to pretend there is no long-term problem and therefore no reason to make tough choices now, just as our neighboring city did. Even though this would make me more popular with the unions, it would be fiscally irresponsible of me – and, frankly, pretty unfair to our hard-working employees. Because, in the end, I won’t pay the price for that fiscal irresponsibility. That cost will be borne by our employees, both current and retired.

Simply put, it would be wrong of me to reap the short-term political benefit of pretending there’s no problem, and then dump the problem on my successors and on our employees themselves in the decades ahead.

As I said, I know our city employees are unhappy with what’s going on and angry at me and my fellow councilmembers. I don’t expect my explanation here to change that. But I do hope both our employees and our other constituents recognize that making tougher choices now will create a more solvent city – and a more stable retirement system – in the future, and that everyone – most of all employees – will benefit from that stability.

Give Me Plastic Bags Or Give Me Death?

Our split decision on Monday night to pursue ways to reduce plastic bag use in Ventura apparently struck a cord with some folks. The email responses I’ve gotten since then have ranged from “I’m disappointed in you” to “Don’t you have anything better to do?” to “You’re friggin’ nuts” to “Give me plastic bags or give me death!” As the last comment would suggest, many of these comments seem to have come from self-described Tea Party activists. A lot of the comments were very thoughtful and clearly deserve a response.

First, here’s what happened Monday night: After a proposed statewide law on the issue fell apart, Councilmembers Morehouse and Brennan asked us to approve the idea of having the staff prepare a ban on single-use plastic bags in Ventura. I indicated my support (which I will explain below). Councilmembers Andrews and Monahan and Deputy Mayor Tracy indicated their opposition. Councilmember Weir said she would not support a ban, but would support directing the staff to talk to other cities and agencies and return with some options for how we might reduce single-use plastic bags here in Ventura. That motion passed 4-3. So we didn’t ban plastic bags, nor did we – as many emailers seem to think – approve spending money on some kind of study or other. We asked the staff to come back with options.

A lot of emailers have expressed concern about having their personal freedom taken away through a ban on plastic bags – sort of implying that it is the manifestation of an intrusive “nanny state” approach by the City Council and basically just the latest left-wing enviro-nazi fad.

Let me first say that I’m usually pretty skeptical about buying into the latest environmental fad. Remember a few years ago when the entertainment industry was in a tizzy over the supposedly wasteful long CD covers? I thought that was pretty amusing – here are Hollywood musicians, who consume enormous amounts of electricity recording and playing their music and still use lots of plastic to manufacture and shrink-wrap the CDs, thinking that if only they make shorter boxes the environment will be saved. So I’m not easily taken in by this stuff.

Second, I don’t take imposing regulation on our constituents lightly. A lot of emailers have said that we should allow the consumer and the market to prevail. I agree that the market is a great thing – most of the time the market is right, and we should use the market to deal with our problems whenever we can. But sometimes, the market has a hard time recognizing other, non-economic issues. That’s when the government creates regulation – to protect other things that are important to the common good but that the market isn’t good at dealing with. This might be something as simple as a stop sign or a speed limit (both of which are examples of government regulations that take away our personal freedom) or something as complicated as environmental protection.

There’s no question that plastic bags are cheap and useful. But if they are floating around our town – and, especially, landing in our rivers and our oceans – they can be harmful. Just as important, their presence in our rivers and watercourses can expose our community – and our taxpayers – to the possibility of significant financial fines from the Regional Water Quality Control Board. And that’s the most important reason to think about ways to reduce plastic bag use in Ventura.

The regional water board oversees the implementation of the federal Clean Water Act. Because Ventura is located in a beautiful but environmentally fragile place – along the beach and between two environmentally sensitive rivers – the board keeps a very close eye on us. This costs us a lot of time and it also costs us a lot of money.

Here’s an example: Our wastewater treatment plant discharges water – very clean water – into the estuary at the mouth of the Santa Clara River, near Ventura Harbor. But discharging treated wastewater into an estuary is not typically something that is permitted under the Clean Water Act. So we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars per year – money that comes from the water and sewer payments you make every other month – proving to the regional board that the water we discharge is really, really clean. Whenever we do have a minor blip and polluted water is accidentally discharged into the estuary, we pay a big fine – thousands of dollars a day. And now, a group of environmental organizations have sued us in an effort to get us to find some other way to discharge the water rather than putting it in the estuary. This lawsuit will cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend and most likely millions to settle.

As I say, this kind of thing is just a fact of life. It’s part of the “cost of doing business” of being Ventura.

Now, the regional water board has instituted a new set of regulations implementing the federal Clean Water Act that seeks to reduce the amount of trash and other pollution in the Ventura River -- to zero. Under the new stormwater permit that affects Ventura and neighboring cities, we are expected to take all reasonable measures necessary to eliminate all trash in the river. If there’s trash in the river, we have to pay fines – with money that will come from our General Fund, meaning we will have less money for police officers and firefighters and park maintenance workers.

And just to give you an example, a couple of weeks ago when volunteers from California Lutheran did the big river-bottom trash cleanout, they came up with more than 12 tons of trash.

In order to cut down on the trash, the City will spend close to $1 million over the next few years putting “trash excluders” on the storm drains – essentially, traps that keep the trash from flowing down the storm drains into the ocean and the river. But trash excluders don’t stop plastic bags from floating around until they land in the river. And plastic bags that get stuck in the trash excluders can interfere with the entire storm drain system by blocking the water from flowing.

In other words, we will face major financial penalties – penalties we would have to pay for with taxpayer funds -- if we don’t eliminate trash in the river. And plastic bags are big part of the problem that are especially difficult to deal with in other ways. That’s why we have to look at ways to reduce their use – including the possibility of banning them.

Now, critics might say that the regional water quality regulators shouldn’t be so hard on us; or shouldn’t focus on trash in the river; or should find other ways to clean up the water. This may be true, but that’s not something we at the city level can do a whole lot about. If we fight or try to ignore these regulations, that’s probably going to cost us far more of your tax money than complying. (This is a lesson the Casitas Municipal Water District has learned the hard way in fighting federal regulators over the installation of a fish ladder farther up the Ventura River to accommodate the now-endangered steelhead trout.)

So, to those who say they are disappointed in me, I say: How disappointed will you be when I come and ask to raise taxes so we can afford to pay all these fines to the Regional Water Quality board? To those who ask if I don’t have anything better to do, I say: I don’t have anything better to do than clean up our environment and conserve our taxpayers’ money in the process. To those who say I’m friggin’ nuts, I say: It would be nuts to pretend that we do not have lots of potential financial liability here.

To those who say, Give me plastic bags or give me death, I say: At least tie your plastic bags up before you throw them into the river so nobody else chokes to death on them. Because if you don’t want regulation, then you’ve got to take individual responsibility for your actions.