Weekend Update: Why Ventura Is Special

In writing about what it’s like to be mayor, it seems like I often come back to one particular theme: Ventura’s remarkable ability to pull together and accomplish things in ways that other cities just can’t.

So often I see this in action on the weekends. During the week, a mayor’s day is filled with meetings, conversations, gatherings that are very focused on specific issues. People come to you to complain about things or ask for things. But on weekends it’s different. That’s when I get to see Ventura at its best.

Last weekend (the weekend of June 4-5) was no exception.

My Saturday began by heading down to the Westside – specifically, the large vacant lot on the corner of Ventura Avenue and Kellogg Street, where our city folks were working with the Westside Community Council, E.J. Harrison, and dozens of volunteers in doing a Westside cleanup day. It was a remarkable effort that brought our Westside community together in so many different ways.

Often when we do a “cleanup day” – as we have recently done at the baech, Downtown and in Midtown – it consists mostly of picking up trash, scraping gum off the sidewalk, and things like that. These efforts not only beautify the community but also help limit the flow of trash into the rivers and the ocean.

The Westside effort was a little different – but with the same intent. With Harrison’s help, Westside volunteers and our folks set up dumpsters and recycling locations on the Kellogg site. Anybody who wanted to bring large items to dump could do so. The response was amazing. When the event started at 9 a.m., there was a line of cars around the block.

Now, at first glance, the sight of a bunch of cars idling in a neighborhood on Saturday morning to dump off mattresses, refrigerators, and other such items might not seem like truly a community event. But it was truly amazing. First, there were dozens of people volunteering to help haul and sort the trash and recycling material. And second, the people who were bringing their stuff were really helping the neighborhood and the community. Not only were they cleaning out their garages (and, in some cases, their yards), but they were also properly disposing of items that might otherwise wind up on the street or in the riverbottom.

In a world with so much “stuff,” it can be a constant battle to keep our city clean and beautiful. Just as important, however, is keeping trash out of the rivers and the ocean. Dumping trash in the riverbottom harms water quality – and also subjects the City and its taxpayers to possible fines from the Regional Water Quality Board of thousands of dollars a day. The Westside Cleanup Day built community pride and teamwork, made our city more attractive, and saved the taxpayers a lot of money.

Then on Sunday morning, I went down to Figueroa Plaza – across from the Mission – to watch and participate in the filming of saxophonist Dave Koz’s new music video for his cover of the Burt Bacharach chesnut, “This Guy’s In Love With You.” It’s a beautiful version of this wonderful old song. The video is designed to support marriage equality, and a lot of people came from all over the state to support that cause. In the process, however, lots of folks participated in a fun community event – as we all walked and swirled around Dave while he walked up Figueroa Plaza and lip-synched the song. Lots of folks said they had never been to Ventura before and would definitely come back; while many locals had a great time. Thanks so much to Dave and videomaker Graham Streeter for picking Ventura! And, oh yeah – thanks to legendary trumpeter Herb Alpert and his wife Lonnie Hall for stopping by to do a cameo!

Then, on Sunday afternoon, it was my privilege to attend the memorial service for Nick Haverland at Arroyo Verde Park. As everyone now knows, Nick was the promising 20-year-old kid – about to go off to Hawaii to study ethnobotany – who was killed by drunk driver on Telegraph Road a few weeks ago. I’ve written before about how Nick’s tragic death has brought so many of us in our community together But Sunday’s memorial service – attended by hundreds of people despite the rain – told this story better than I ever could.

Nick always said that nature was his religion, and so everybody said the rain was fine because Nick would have preferred it. There were several beautiful musical pieces, including a clarinet quartet from Cabrillo Middle School directed by Mario Boccali, who was Nick’s music instructor (and my daughter’s as well); in addition, Kyle McCormick, son of Jackson Brown bassist and producer Kevin McCormick, sang a moving song accompanied by his father. Then there were the eulogies and remembrances, from family friend Steve Svete, his aunts, and especially his friends Dylan Blossom and Henry Geerlings. Henry’s low-key, self-effacing talk was made all the more remarkable by the fact that he was the friend riding bikes with Nick when Nick was killed. (There’s a beautiful photo of Henry in front of a stunning image of Nick at Two Trees on the Star web site.

I cannot hope, in these few words, to recreate the emotion and love that Nick’s memory brought to Arroyo Verde Park yesterday. All I can say is that it was the third event I attended over the weekend that reminded me why Ventura is such a special place. I truly believe most communities cannot accomplish the things we do here. As I was driving back from Nick’s memorial, I glanced eastward and saw Two Trees shrouded in a misty fog – a gorgeous sight – and remembered why everything we do is worth it.

All Aboard For East Ventura

The other day, I boarded Metrolink Train 119 to return home from Downtown Los Angeles. The train was bound for a place called “East Ventura”.

Ever since Metrolink first came to Ventura a decade ago, the trains have stopped at a station in the Montalvo neighborhood, off of Victoria Avenue just north of Highway 101. This isn’t necessarily the best location in town for a Metrolink station. though it is an easy drive for 50,000 residents who live east of Victoria. But the truth of the matter is that the Montalvo rail siding was where the trains were stored overnight after they finished their run in Oxnard. So it made sense to take place where they were stored and turn it into a formal station. It’s also the starting point for a possible rail line through Santa Paula and Fillmore all the way to Santa Clarita.

The station has always been called “Montalvo”. Montalvo is a venerated neighborhood in Ventura; some of it is inside the Ventura city limits and some is not. I’ve spent a lot of time in Montalvo over the years. I’ve thrown out the first pitch in the Montalvo Little League two years in a row, and I’ve had lots of friends who live in Ventura and/or teach at Montalvo Elementary School.

So, while Montalvo is a very important neighborhood, the name really doesn’t convey a true sense of where the Ventura County Metrolink line goes. When you’re standing at Union Station in Downtown L.A. looking at the board, you see the names of the bigger cities that define Southern California: Riverside, San Bernardino, Anaheim, Santa Ana, Burbank, Glendale, Santa Clarita, Oxnard. You can take an Amtrak train to Ventura (the stop is at the Fairgrounds) but traditionally there was no way to decipher that if you got on the Montalvo train you were going anywhere near Ventura. Unless you knew where Montalvo was.

A couple of months ago, in my capacity as Chair of the Ventura County Transportation Commission, I asked Metrolink to change the name of the station from “Montalvo” to “East Ventura”. That way, riders in Downtown L.A. know that they’re going to Ventura – but they also know they are not going to the “Ventura” stop on Amtrak, which of course is in a different location. Metrolink made this earlier this month. Right now, to avoid confusion, the boards at Union Station say: “East Ventura/Montalvo”.

Things still aren’t perfect, of course. Ventura is still the only City in the entire Metrolink system – 130 stops – where Amtrak and Metrolink stop in different places. I’d love to see Metrolink come downtown to the Fairgrounds, but there are quite a number of logistical difficulties. For one thing, the East Ventura stop is essentially on different rail line, so Metrolink can’t just start at the Fairgrounds, stop at East Ventura, and move on to Oxnard. In addition, the rail line is single track throughout Ventura, meaning Metrolink would have to get to the Fairgrounds and back without running into conflicts with Amtrak or freight trains run by Union Pacific (which owns the tracks).

Still, I’m hopeful. The City is just starting on a new phase of our study looking at the possibility of capping the 101 Freeway at California (the study is being paid for by the Southern California Association of Governments). We’re hopeful that if the freeway were ever capped, we could create double-tracking or a siding that would form the basis for a multi-modal transit center, where trains and buses come together in one location.

For now, I’ll take whatever small victories I can get. And taking the train to East Ventura is definitely a win.

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.

Thank You, Nick Haverland ... We Will Always Miss You

Fifteen or so years ago, when we decided to have some work done on our house, a contractor named Jim Haverland showed up to do the work. Jim was a friend of a friend. He turned out to be a terrific fellow – smart, knowledgeable, kind, low-key – and he and his wonderful wife Susan soon became our friends as well. Susan had a demanding corporate job in those days, so Jim took care of their boys. All summer he came to our house with Nick and Griff, then about 6 and 4, in tow. Every day they played in the yard with our daughter Sara, who was the same age as Nick, and they always played the same games. Hide and seek, because what little girl doesn’t want to be chased around by two little boys? And bug-hunting, because that’s what Nick loved to do.

Over the years, the Haverlands became a permanent part of my life – one of those Ventura families you know fifteen different ways, through school and play activities and work and civic events. We remained friends through so many changes – the kids growing up, a divorce on our side, the tragic early death of siblings on both sides. After a while I became friends with a lot of parents from the Open Classroom School on the Blanche Reynolds Elementary School campus and in so doing met a much wider range of Jim and Susan’s friends, because Nick and Griff had both been Open Classroom students. My daughter Sara and Nick were one year apart at Foothill Technology High School.

Jim still did contracting work for my former wife. Susan eventually left her corporate job and moved into community service jobs that brought she and I closer together in our professional lives. For several years she ran the Mixteco Project, aiding Oaxacan immigrants around the County. More recently she ran the County’s farmworker vanpooling project, and only about two weeks ago we had a meeting in the Mayor’s office to discuss how things were going. I brought her up to date on Sara, and she brought me up to date on the boys. Griff was almost done with high school and would be going to UC Santa Cruz. Nick – a personable boy whom everybody loved – was almost done with Ventura College and was planning to study ethnobotany at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, in the fall. He still loved hunting bugs.

Everybody in Ventura now knows what happened to Nick Haverland Wednesday evening. Riding his bicycle with a friend along Telegraph Road in East Ventura, he was stuck by a car and killed. They were headed to a night class at Ventura College. When Nick was hit, the driver had already hit two other bicyclists and a car. Adding to the tragedy was the fact that the driver – who has pleaded not guilty to a charge of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated – was only a few blocks from his own house when the accident happened.

Nick Haverland’s death has affected our community more deeply and profoundly than I would have imagined. Everybody has been talking about it and everybody, it seems, feels touched by it. I have lived through a number of tragedies in Ventura – the killing of of 21-year-old Jesse Strobel in Midtown in 1993, for example, and the crash of the Alaska Airlines Flight 261 into the ocean near Anacapa Island in 2000 – but I have never seen an outpouring like this.

Even before the accident scene was cleared, the news about Nick flew around town, mostly by Facebook postings and by texts. The intersection of Telegraph and Mara, a typical suburban landscape near Juanamaria School, quickly became a shrine with flowers and candles and a white “ghost bike” memorial. On Thursday morning when I went to Poinsettia School to talk to fifth graders about what it’s like to be mayor, mostly they wanted to talk about Nick’s accident. Many of them had actually seen it occur, and many more had seen the news helicopters over their house. When Jim and Susan visited the scene a day or two after the accident, a Gold Coast bus made an unscheduled stop. Recognizing Jim and Susan as Nick's parents, the bus driver jumped out and hugged them and all the passengers prayed for them.

As a typical guy, I “under-emoted” in the moment on Wednesday night, not sure what to feel or how to feel it. By Thursday, I was beginning to feel weighted down by grief. And by Friday, when I drove past the scene for the first time, as Mayor I began to wonder how we as a community could possibly find the right way to grieve this loss.

There are a lot of reasons why Nick Haverland’s death hit home with so many people around town. The first, of course, is the Haverland family – a great family that everybody seemed to have a connection to, the kind of family, as I said, that you seem to know fifteen different ways. The second was the public nature of the accident. Nick was struck at quarter to seven on a beautiful May evening when it was still light out, close to Juanamaria School and the Albertson’s shopping center. Lots of people were out and about, and I am astonished at the number of people – and children – who actually witnessed the event or ran to the scene immediately after it happened. And finally, of course, was the nature of the incident – an apparently intoxicated driver who struck three bicyclists and one car in three different incidents in his own neighborhood, and who refused to – or couldn’t – get out of his car when the police confronted him. It is not just Jim and Susan and Griff and their friends who will have to grieve. So will the entire neighborhood and even our entire community.

On Friday I went about my normal mayoral duties – chairing the monthly meeting of the County Transportation Commission in Camarillo, welcoming the state convention of the League of Women Voters to the Crowne Plaza, and attending the Chamber of Commerce’s Business Expo at the Four Points Sheraton. Even so, it didn’t seem like there was anything I could do as Jim and Susan’s friend to ease their pain (or mine, which was obviously nothing compared to theirs but still hurt a lot) and it didn’t seem like there was anything I could do as Mayor to help the community grieve.

Then on Saturday, as I went on my mayoral rounds, I saw some amazing things that reminded me what a remarkable community we have – and how this remarkable community can pull together when people like the Haverlands need it. First I went to the American Cancer Society “Relay For Life” event at Buena High School, where dozens of teams and hundreds of people had congregated for a 24-hour fundraising walk to “fight back” against cancer. This is a national event, but it annually raises more than $200,000 – that’s right, $200,000 – in Ventura alone. Then I went to Barranca Vista Park, where hundreds of families and dozens of vendors were out for the spring “Family Festival”. Then I went to Harbor Cove Beach down at the Harbor, where Ventura County squeaked out a first-ever victory over Amgen in the Corporate Games. And then I went to Jim and Susan’s house.

We complain all the time about things we don’t like here in Ventura – we have too much growth or not enough; there aren’t enough police officers or we pay the police officers too much; there isn’t enough parking downtown or we hate the damned parking meters. But none of that matters very much compared to what we have. Most towns can’t do what we do every day, on a regular basis, in Ventura. Most towns can’t raise $200,000 in one day for to fight cancer. Most towns can’t put on a six-week corporate games event that draws dozens of teams from other cities, costs $700,000 to run, and yet pays for itself. And most towns can’t successfully pull together around even a beloved family like the Haverlands to help the family – and the community – grieve such an enormous loss.

Yet Ventura can. It is this cohesiveness, this love, this sense of hometown-ness even in a city of more than 100,000 people, that makes our town special. As I made my rounds on Saturday, I finally began to feel that, as Mayor, I was doing what I should be doing to help our community grieve – and to honor the memory of Nick, such a wonderful kid and one whom practically everybody in Ventura loved. I was moving through a Saturday in Ventura both typical and extraordinary, participating in life-affirming acts all over town that sometimes seem routine to me but, in truth, are anything but.

When I finally got to Jim and Susan’s house late Saturday afternoon, I was, as always, amazed by their love and their energy. A few other friends were there. They are obviously devastated by their loss and very emotional, yet they remain focused on the positive and truly caring for their friends, who obviously are hurting far less than they are.

One of the reasons I always connected with Jim and Susan is that we were part of a cohort of folks who moved to Ventura back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s for the specific purpose of raising our kids in a town with a high quality of life and a strong sense of community. We mostly didn’t know each other in advance, nor did we know a whole lot about Ventura when we arrived. But we all had the same sense of Ventura: It seemed like a town with a real sense of centeredness, a town that could sustain us, not just financially and socially but emotionally, through good times and bad. And as we connected with each other over the years, we did our best to contribute to this sense of what might be called emotional sustainability.

Yes, we had jobs and ran businesses, mostly right here in town. And, yes, we coached soccer teams and worked on PTO boards and started nonprofits and, in at least one case, ran for the City Council. But we also tried our best to care for each other and our community. I guess you could call this “giving back,” but the truth of the matter is that we never really thought of it that way, because there was really no difference between “giving back” and just living our lives. It was all part of being Venturans.

Late Saturday afternoon, as Susan and I leaned against the refrigerator in the Haverlands’ kitchen – a refrigerator filled with the usual photos and notes and schedules – it dawned on us both that this remarkable townwide quality had emerged even in the most devastating, tragic moment imaginable.

The circumstances of Nick’s death unfortunately meant that Jim and Susan’s grief was not completely private. They had spent several hours at the scene on Telegraph Road Wednesday night with television helicopters roaring overhead, and a photograph of the two of them embracing was published in the Star on Thursday morning (though they were not identified in the photo).

You could interpret this lack of privacy as intrusive in the most private of moments. Yet, as it turned out, these public circumstances allowed Ventura to rally around the Haverlands in a way that they – and I – could never have imagined. It has brought their friends together around them, and it has even brought many people whom they don’t even know into their lives with a love and caring that they never imagined. It has even brought me closer to many people I love – not just Jim and Susan, but also my former wife, the wonderful graphic designer Vicki Torf, and other dear friends like Rosie Ornelas and Steve Svete and Mindy Lawrence and many others who developed close ties over the years to the Haverlands and to each other.

We were right all those years ago when we moved to Ventura. It is a place that can help us and hold us and heal us, not just economically or socially but emotionally. In that sense, it is the most sustainable of cities.

It is the greatest of tragedies, of course, that it took the death of a wonderful young kid like Nick Haverland to remind of us all this. After all, Nick reminded us of it every day just by being himself. And I am still worried about how our community will complete the grieving process. I am worried about the kids at Foothill, who knew so many people involved in the incident. I am worried about the kids at Juanamaria Elementary School, whose families witnessed and heard the incident and assisted our first responders. And I am worried about Jim and Susan and Griff, who will have to live with this tragic loss for the rest of their lives.

But I know our community will continue to come together with the Haverlands to grieve for the family and for themselves. Jim and Susan and Griff are planning a celebration of Nick’s life sometime in the near future. I’m not sure where or when yet, but I will be there, as both friend and Mayor, to help the Haverlands and our community at large in the grieving process – so that we can honor Nick as he deserves to be honored, and we can once again rely upon and renew Ventura as a place capable of sustaining us all.

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.

Building Ventura's Enduring Prosperity

Adapted from the Chamber of Commerce State of the City address:

Over the past few weeks, I have talked a lot about the need for Ventura to build a new and enduring prosperity that will last a generation or more. Partly because of the current economic conditions, I’ve gotten a strong and positive response from people in Ventura on the need to rebuild prosperity.

But I’ve also come to realize that prosperity means different things to different people. For a resident who’s a homeowner, it probably means a stable job with a stable income and rising home value. For a local retailer, it means more sales in the cash register. For a business owner, it means rising sales and profits. For the city, it means more revenue and therefore more ability to provide Venturans with the high quality of life they want and deserve.

But to all of us, I think it means the process of building an enduring prosperity – a sense of economic well-being in our community that is durable, widely shared, and can help provide a stable income for most people, tax revenue to provide public services, and philanthropic wealth to endow the future. Achieving this kind of prosperity is not as easy as simply luring a retail store into town or subsidizing an auto dealer. It’s a long-term effort that requires both intensity and focus.

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.

Ventura has already reinvented itself many times -- from mission town to fishing town to agricultural center to oil boomtown to surf town 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.

When I read over that line – that our little town has to find enduring prosperity in the 21st century global economy – it sounds kind of pompous. After all, we’re just Ventura! But every city, big or small, must find its place in the larger economy, whether that city is in California or Europe or South America or China. That is what we did when we were primarily an oil town, and that is what we did when we were primarily a citrus town. And that is what we must do now.

We must identify our niche and aggressively pursue it, or else we risk the idea of having other people -- from other places -- define who we are.

When most businesses and communities sit down to figure out their future, they chart out different scenarios. They begin what a “business as usual” or “default” scenario, and then they craft a “preferred” scenario. Then they figure out what’s required to get to the future they prefer -- rather than stumble into the future by default.

I think we in Ventura are at a critical moment in understanding what our “default” future might be, and we must take steps collaboratively to counteract that “default” approach and, instead, build a future we really want.

Because the “default” future for us is different from what we have always been. And by working together, we can create a better, more prosperous future that will help pay for our quality of life for many years to come.

Throughout our history, Ventura has always had a proud history of producing things. Oil and citrus are the two most obvious examples, though there are others. The most important point, however, is that we produced things -- we exported them to the world -- and we reaped the benefits of wealth created here locally.

This is not the future that is emerging for Ventura – at least if we do nothing. Our “default” or “business as usual” future does not revolve around producing. It revolves around consuming. Increasingly, the economic base of our community focuses on bringing people into our community – visitors, retirees, and commuters – who bring their money from somewhere else and spend it here.

I want to emphasize that visitors, retirees, and commuters all play an important role here in Ventura. These are robust sectors of our economy. They are important to our local businesses. We value every one of them, and I will talk more in a few minutes about how we can best leverage their presence.

But I want to emphasize that if our future in Ventura consists only of visitors, retirees, and commuters, then we will lose something very precious about Ventura, and we will be giving our future prosperity away on terms that we should not accept.

The single most precious thing about Ventura is that it feels like a small town. This is a ridiculous thing to say, since we are a city of over 100,000 people. Yet we do feel this way, because we all see each other all the time. At work. At school. At the market. And at youth sports activities. Why? Because, far more than the average community, people who live in Ventura also work here. One of my greatest fear is that we will lose this small-town feel as more and more people commute OUT to other places in the morning and more and more people commute IN to Ventura FROM other places in the morning. This is happening more and more. You can feel it.

If we continue with “business as usual,” eventually we will become almost exclusively a community where people who have made their money in other places live and visit. This is good in many ways, I don’t deny that, but it threatens our small-town feel. It will tend to create a two-tier economy with a lot of low-paid service workers, and it will turn Ventura into something we have never been before.

And how do we maintain that small-town feel -- that precious balance? We do it by ensuring that Ventura is still a place where things are produced. A place where the jobs created are filled by people who live here, and a place where the wealth generated here stays here. A community that produces things will spin off related businesses, including suppliers, and will also create better-paying jobs, so there is less risk that a two-tier economy will emerge.

So how do we here in little Ventura do that?

Well, in the 19th Century, we rode the agricultural wave -- and produced food that was exported to the rest of the country and the world.

In the 20th Century, we rode the oil wave -- and produced oil that was exported to the rest of the country and the world.

The 21st Century, on the other hand, will be the century where creativity and innovation drive prosperity, especially here in the United States. We must find our place in this economy, and we must work aggressively and cooperatively to establish ourselves.

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

Sometimes, hard-core business people in town criticize us for our commitment to arts and culture. But we’re in that game for a reason: Arts and culture are 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 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. 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. Location shooting is fun to have, but we want high-value-added parts of the entertainment production process as well.

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.

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 and more than 50 employees.
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. This is the 21st Century equivalent of citrus or oil production. These companies are inventing high-value-added products that will be used throughout the world and, in the process, creating good-paying jobs and wealth that will stay here in Ventura.

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.

The other day I got a Facebook message from one of our downtown restaurant owners, who said that although he was happy we had these fledgling businesses, he believes we need “real” companies that provide lots of jobs. He still feels the loss of Kinko’s, he said.

I understand that concern. But what we’re trying to do at the incubator is work with these entrepreneurs to create the next business that will create 50, or 100, or 500, or 1,000 jobs – and keep all those jobs and all that wealth here in Ventura. And it will happen.

We also know that 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.

I’m grateful to our local banks and financial institutions for their commitment to our community. My business has a long relationship with Santa Barbara Bank & Trust. Just as important, however, is the fact that the angel investors and venture capitalists who help the startups and the fledging businesses that are creating and inventing new products have also discovered Ventura. Tech Coast Angels, an investor group, meets regularly in town now to hear “pitches”. The City has a partnership with DFJ Frontier, a venture capital firm, investing in businesses that could pay off here. And recently Peate Ventures – a venture capital firm from Westlake Village – moved to Downtown Ventura and has funded some of the incubator startups.

I am very hopeful the expansion of Community Memorial Hospital will create new opportunities for entrepreneurial activity in the biomed field here in Ventura, as we are located so close to Amgen and other critical biomed players.

This, then, must be our preferred scenario – for Ventura to continue to be a community that produces products and wealth for the rest of the world, just as we have been for 140 years, rather than a place like Santa Barbara, which – beautiful though it is -- simply consumes products and wealth gathered from elsewhere in the world. This kind of prosperity will bring better-paying jobs to Ventura. It will also ensure that the wealth generated here stays here – thus providing our community with an endowment for quality of life, just as the Bards and the Fosters once endowed our community with institutions and parks that we still enjoy every day.

Now, you may have gotten the idea that I think we shouldn’t focus on visitors and retirees and commuters, and if you’re in the real estate business or the hospitality business that probably scares you. But that’s not really what I meant to convey. My point is not that we shouldn’t pursue those folks, but that we need to leverage their presence in helping to rebuild Ventura as a town that produces things.

Every visitor and every retiree is a potential investor in some new business in Ventura. I’ve seen this time and time again – they come here and they like it, and the next thing you know they are moving their business here or creating a new one. That’s a great thing. And every commuter weary of driving to L.A. or Santa Barbara is a potential entrepreneur – eager to build their dreams here in Ventura and help us build ours.

My point here is that we tend to view bringing these folks into town as an end in itself – a way to generate hotel bed nights or real estate sales. What we really need to do is view these efforts as an economic development tool – to help promote Ventura as a place where entrepreneurs and investors can find the ecosystem they need to thrive.

And if you’re in a business-to-business service business – as so many Chamber members are – you’ll be winners if we’re successful too. Helping startups – and then helping them when their big – is an important task, and we must have all those support services in place to succeed. If our producer companies grow, we all win. Many people have good jobs. Our nonprofit and community organizations have lots of donors. And the city has enough tax revenue to provide the public safety, street paving, and other services everyone needs and wants.

So let’s work together to build Ventura’s prosperity for another generation!