State of the City
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Mayor Tracy presented his State of the City address titled -- Working Together-- on February 6, 2012. The following is his speech in its entirety:
Watch the video here.
Good evening, welcome, and thank you, everyone, for being here tonight.
As a life long Ventura resident I am prou
d to be a member of this City Council. I’m honored to serve as your Mayor and to present this year’s State of the City address.
I especially want to thank my fellow council members for giving me the opportunity to serve in this capacity.
As I noted the evening I was selected as mayor, the City Council sets the broad priorities, and the city manager is charged with making that agenda happen.
I will do my best to represent the collective vision and direction of the Council at every opportunity over the next two years and to do what is right for Ventura.
When I was born in Ventura in 1949, it was—believe it or not—a different town than it is today!
One of my early childhood memories was visiting my aunt Doris’ big white house on Front Street just east of Kalorama. To get to her house we had to cross Highway 101, also known in those days as Meta Street, now Thompson blvd.
From my aunts house it was just a quick walk to the beach—not on the pedestrian over crossing—the freeway wasn’t yet built-- but down the bluff, across the vacant fields and down to the sand.
I could go around the room tonight and collectively we could chronicle many other changes to our city—good and bad—that have occurred over the last 50 or 60 years.
Overall, we would probably agree that most of the change has been positive.
But at the same time, it’s tempting to subscribe to the words of baseball legend Yogi Berra, who once said, “the future ain’t what it used to be.”
Consider, for example, where we stand today in relationship to the other cities in Ventura County. We are still the county seat, but that doesn’t have the luster it used to have.
When I was growing up on Ventura Avenue—for that matter, when I became a Ventura police officer in 1975.
There was no more prosperous, or safer, city in the county than Ventura.
That is no longer the case. Property and sales tax receipts and other revenues are less than adequate to fund the services they were intended to provide.
Today, our infrastructure needs are great.
And our ability to maintain that infrastructure and provide an adequate level of basic services seems, at best, tenuous.
Ventura is still a relatively safe community, but per capita, we have the highest crime rate in the county.
Having said that, what is significant is what remains constant from our past-- our extraordinary geography, seemingly endless opportunities and potential.
And people who are passionate about living in this community and dealing with our issues and challenges.
One of Ventura’s greatest resources is a dedicated and professional city workforce. This community can be proud of the outstanding work that gets done every day by our city’s employees.
Many of you may not realize that since 2008 we have reduced our workforce by 92 full time employees.
Fortunately our many city volunteers dedicate more than 3,000 hours every month to the City to augment our full time workforce.
In addition, we have established many successful partnerships with the Ventura unified school district and non-profit organizations like the Boys and Girls Club, the Police Activities League, the Salvation Army and Project Understanding,
And many others in order to provide a variety of services to people in our community, including youth at risk, the needy, and the elderly.
Nevertheless, our personnel and fiscal resources are limited at a time when demands are seemingly endless.
One thing is certain—our success depends on working together—tonight’s theme.
We often think of Ventura in terms of unique neighborhoods— the Westside, the East end, Saticoy, Downtown, Midtown, Pierpont and the Harbor and the College District.
While each area of town has strengths and weaknesses and historical significance, our success as a community will be determined by our ability to work together to solve the problems we all face.
Tonight is an opportunity to reflect on what we’ve accomplished, but more importantly to set realistic goals and set the course for the next couple of years.
Our challenges are many. Tonight I want to focus on four broad topics:
- Economic development and prosperity
- Prioritization of public safety and other core services
- the Safe and clean Initiative
- Restoring public trust
I hope to cover these topics briefly and best with this short video.
Watch the video here.
The four main themes:
- Economic development and prosperity
- Prioritization of public safety and other core services
- the Safe and Clean Initiative
- Restoring public trust
are, broadly speaking, matters the City Council has agreed to focus on during the next two years.
I want to thank the all of the staff at community access partners of San Buenaventura—CAPS TV —and especially Gary roll and Elizabeth Rodeno for producing the video.
I also want to thank local artist Steve cook for the images of Ventura he has allowed us to use for our announcements and posters for this State of the City presentation.
Tonight’s presentation is not—and was not intended to be—a comprehensive report on the work of your city government.
But let me just list a few of the current or recently completed projects, services, and activities in which we’re engaged:
- Surfers’ Point Managed Retreat Project Phase I
- Hillside waterline and repavement project
- Library improvements and master plan
- Pierpont sand management
- Public/private partnerships: the Botanical Gardens, and the Westside Artwalk
- Westside and Wells road plans
- City business computer system enhancements
- Collaboration with neighborhood Community Councils
- Regional transportation issues
- Port District Master Plan
- State Mandated Housing Element
- Second Unit Amnesty Program
- Bicycle Master Plan—already yielding specific improvements in bike routes and a $600k safe route to schools grant
- Park maintenance and programming ranging from the Aquatics Center at our East end Community Park to the many youth oriented activities at our Westpark—and everything in between
and consider these statistics:
- number of potholes filled in 2011: 1,600+
- total resurfaced lane miles of roadway: 75.5
- amount of trash removed last year from the Ventura riverbottom by CLU volunteers: 11.3 tons
- number of hours logged by volunteers in policing since program inception: 49,000
- total volunteers hours citywide: more than 3,000 per month
- result of our city’s electric energy conservation efforts since inception: total of 12 million
We can all be proud of the work that gets done by our city staff working in collaboration with our community partners.
And it’s hard for me to imagine that anyone here can see the images of our city presented in the video tonight and not feel proud to be a part of this community.
There are only a few places in the country with the natural beauty, climate, people and potential that we enjoy in Ventura.
The challenge before us is to make certain that we protect what we have—stay ahead of the problems and pitfalls--and built on that great foundation to make our city even better.
This brings us back to the realitythat Ventura is an older, built out city with millions of dollars in deferred infrastructure maintenance, and under resourced core services. Ventura faces serious fiscal constraints.
So where do we go from here, and what can you do to help?
We all have to be part of the solution.
One way you can help by volunteering--get involved in your city government by serving on one of the many local boards or commissions.
Become a member of our volunteers in policing program, or join with the Fire Department to help train your neighbors on disaster preparedness.
Or you can serve the community by joining one of many service clubs, or by volunteering or contributing in a Ventura non-profit or faith based organization that provides direct services to the needy, the elderly, and our youth.
One relatively simple thing we can all do is “buy local”. Whenever possible buy from Ventura businesses. If you’re in business, make your business-to-business transactions in Ventura.
As a consumer, think before you buy—and buy local when you can.
Every transaction completed in Ventura is a step toward enhanced prosperity in our community.
It makes our local businesses stronger and more successful, and in some instances it directly increases sales tax revenue to Ventura—not to another city competing for your tax dollars.
In the long term we may be able to grow our local economy enough to solve our fiscal problems. We can—and will—work to improve our business climate and create economic opportunity.
But let’s be honest and realistic--in the horizon of 4 to 5 years (perhaps beyond) it’s unlikely that our local economy will expand enough to provide for all of Ventura’s service and infrastructure needs.
The reality is that this city council in the near term will face some difficult choices in order to make progress on the four priorities I have talked about tonight.
And the fact is that regardless of the success of our economic development efforts, we are “revenue” disadvantaged compared to our neighboring cities.
We don’t have special assessment districts as some other communities do to provide funds for libraries, parks, and landscaped medians.
And unlike many other communities in the county and throughout California, our sales tax is pegged to the state minimum.
In the last 5 years we have twice gone to the voters trying to increase Ventura’s sales tax revenue through initiative measures, and twice we have been unsuccessful.
This doesn’t mean that Venturans don’t care about their city or aren’t willing to pay more for core services.
But one can argue that we have not done enough to make the case that we need the revenue for important and essential services, and that we will be good stewards of the resource.
My personal opinion—and I want to be clear that i am not speaking for the council on this point—
Is that we need very soon to have discussions about increasing revenues in these ways in order to replace our aging infrastructure and provide for adequate police, fire, and other core services.
And if we go there, your open-minded support and engagement will be important.
In closing tonight, I’d like to end with some other observable examples that capture the richness of our community and instill a sense of common purpose.
You’ll see out in the hallway outside the council chambers several boards and posters—each one with a picture of a person, his or her profile and glowing letters of praise about their actions from some resident in our community.
These panels of exemplary people are our community partners, employees and members of our city who reflect the true dedication of Venturans from all over our community to make our city a better place.
I hope that you will join me is taking a few minutes during the reception to read these letters from our residents that highlight some of our accomplishments as a community.
I want to recognize some of the people that have helped us during the toughest of times.
Could I have our entire city staff stand, along with my fellow council members?
Please remain standing as I ask business owners and chamber members to please stand?
Members of non-profits, volunteers, and employees from other organizations working in Ventura? Please stand.
And finally and most importantly, will our community members and supporters of Ventura please stand?
We live in extraordinary times, and I want you to thank you for all that you do for Ventura.
We are a single unified team, and this city council is looking forward to achieving good things for Ventura by working together with all of you.
Give yourselves a round of applause.
Thanks again for being here tonight. Please join us for the reception outside the Council Chambers.
2012 State of the City Address
On Feb. 6, 2012, Mayor Mike Tracy delivered the annual State of the City speech. The 2012 presentation, titled “Working Together,” focused on living within our means, prioritizing city services, and developing our local economy to promote prosperity. He also discussed themes for the coming year, touching on economic development, public safety, ensuring a safe and clean community and rebuilding public confidence in city government.
