Avoiding the California Trap: Living Within Our Means

Despite producing a mammoth water compromise (including an $11 billion bond issue that will go before voters), the State government is making no progress toward fiscal stability. The budget adopted after a long and bitter stalemate is estimated to be $7 billion out of balance. Prospects for next year look grim and it gets worse after Federal stimulus dollars run out in 2011.

It is possible to ignore, postpone and fudge fiscal responsibility. California has been doing it for years. But the problem only gets worse, much worse. The Fresno Bee details a new report from the Pew Charitable Trust on 10 states in deep fiscal trouble:

California leads the most vulnerable states identified by the report, which describes it as having poor money-management practices. Since February, California has made nearly $60 billion in budget adjustments in the form of cuts to education and social service programs, temporary tax hikes, one-time gimmicks and stimulus spending, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office.

Ventura has taken a different path. We took swift action back in January 2008, when the economy first began to deteriorate, to reduce operating spending by 2% to offset falling revenues. The City Council also cancelled or postponed $1.1 million in project spending to safeguard cash.

The following year's budget for Ventura eliminated 10 full-time and 25 part-time positions. We targeted 5% reductions in all service and supply contracts and instituted a "winter furlough" for non-critical City operations. But when the economy nosedived in the fall of 2008, even more drastic action was swiftly taken. All employees were asked to accept at least 5% compensation reductions starting in the spring of 2009. In March, three months ahead of the legal deadline, the Ventura City Council unanimously adopted a balanced budget cutting spending by $11 million.

At the recommendation of a Blue Ribbon Citizen Budget Committee, the City Council placed Measure A on the ballot. It would have temporarily raised the local sales tax to the same rate now paid in nearby Oxnard and Pt. Hueneme, as well as Santa Barbara County. As everyone knows, it received only 45% of the vote on November 3rd.

Tonight, the City Council will implement the remaining cuts that were withheld pending the outcome of that vote. Downtown foot patrol and back-up Fire emergency response will be eliminated.

There will need to be further cuts because of the weakness of the economy and the continuing pattern of the State pushing greater responsibilities on cities while diverting local general and redevelopment revenues. But Ventura remains committed to living within our means.

These are tough times for individuals, families, businesses and organizations throughout our community. I know our family is cutting back, our church is cutting back and our city is doing the same. It is painful to drop, delay or downscale our expectations. But the reality is clear: we must make the hard decisions that hard times demand.

Debate is healthy about how we make the necessary cuts. Whether cuts are necessary, however, should no longer be debated. Measure A was the opportunity for Ventura voters to decide -- and they did.

Of course, we won't build sustainable prosperity through cutting alone. Last May's Economic Summit charted an urgent new emphasis on fostering high wage, high value jobs. Attracting and retaining the workforce and businesses essential to a stronger economy also requires investment in public safety and quality of life services that we are cutting. That means it is essential to prioritize those services -- and innovate stronger partnerships and better models for delivering them.

What won't work is belief in the tooth fairy -- simple, easy, painless soundbites you hear at election time about how it is possible to keep taxes low and fund everything voters care about. The election is over and we must face the cold hard reality of balancing our budget in the face of widespread unemployment and the need for everyone to readjust to a new normal.

For too long, our State government has ducked hard choices -- and the result verges on fiscal meltdown. Ignoring, postponing or fudging fiscal responsibility is not an option for Ventura -- unless we want to end up in the same place.

34 people have a new roof over their heads: SHORE opens

Yesterday was the ceremonial ribbon cutting for Ventura's new homeless transitional housing project, but the tenants moved in last week.

"It's been a long and winding road that leads to the door that opened to a place that 34 people can call home," observed Rick Pearson, the long-time Executive Director of Project Understanding. His group will administer the assistance formerly homeless tenants will receive as they work to get themselves back on their feet.

The 15 units of "supportive housing" are part of the much larger WAV project still under construction in Downtown at Thompson and Garden Streets. The 54 "affordable" units for working artists will open later. The LEED-certified project also includes market rate condos, ground floor retail and a 99 seat performance space.

Pearson has been working on this dream for more than a dozen years. The original goal was a year-round homeless shelter. But when that effort proved difficult to site and finance, it was combined with the affordable artist housing project and shifted to "transitional housing," an equally key part of getting individuals and families permanently off the street.

Project Understanding Board Chair Judy Alexander stressed that the new tenants will be able to regain what the rest of us take for granted: a bathtub, a shower, a permanent address and a place to come home to.

The larger project was financed by PLACE, a non-profit that secured local redevelopment, county, state and federal affordable housing funding as well as private donations and sponsorships.

Mayor Christy Weir hailed the ribbon cutting, thanking Community Services Director Elena Brokaw and Economic Development Manager Sid White for their efforts on behalf of the City to support the successful effort. Councilmember Neal Andrews recalled the City's commitment to the effort beginning nearly seven years ago and called for more partnerships like this in the future.

Measure B: The will of the people

We've all had the experience of being approached as we head for the supermarket: "Are you a registered voter?" If you nod, you are pressed with a soundbite pitch about signing a petition to solve some burning problem. If you express skepticism, you are reassured, "This is just to put it on the ballot." There is a clipboard with an initiative in tiny type for you to read (if you have twenty minutes or so), but you are handed a pen and at that point, you probably scribble your name and address.

Then later, these signatures are waved around as PROOF every one of those thousands of people ardently support the proposed initiative and are now clamoring for its adoption.

That was the case with Measure B, the so-called "view protection ordinance" that went before the voters on Tuesday.

City Councilmembers, the City Attorney and, yours truly, the City Manager were all denounced for doing everything in our power to thwart the "will of the people" for not scheduling a special election to put the measure to an immediate vote. Camille Harris, the measure's chief proponent, repeatedly claimed that it took a lawsuit for the City to even count the signatures. When the County Registrar apparently misplaced a packet of 100 of the 10,972 signatures submitted, we were all accused of deliberate conspiracy.

Supposedly the citizenry was boiling mad and demanding an immediate vote to "save our views." There was quite a bit of fuzziness about what views, exactly, were at risk. Sometimes it was the view of homeowners out their back windows, which would be forever blotted out by three-story "highrises" built along commercial corridors (this was in areas where zoning had for decades allowed six story buildings to be built there, although, to be fair, none had been.) Other times it was the view of motorists traversing our east-west thoroughfares to have unobstructed views of Two Trees and the hillsides as they drove by. And when the County broke ground on a long-delayed hospital tower, "view protection" was advanced as a general right not to have to look at tall buildings near your neighborhood.

In other words, view protection was, literally, in the eye of the beholder. And that was the beauty of the proposed initiative: it would empower a board of appointed citizens to craft a "view protection ordinance" covering each individual neighborhood's views and desires, all packaged together at the end for the City Council to adopt. If the Council did not, then it would go to the voters (exactly how that was to work was not actually specified.)

To ensure that this process was untainted by City Hall interference, the backers of the initiative would have been authorized to appoint 20 of the 23 members. How this was to be done, like most elements of the initiative, was also a little fuzzy. The initiative said the board of "VCORD" would make the selections for each neighborhood. But when that was criticized, Harris announced that instead there would be an election by all VCORD members. Since VCORD is a political organization, exactly who would be eligible members would be left up to them, but Harris assured one and all that "anyone" could join. How this "election" would take place was left for later.

There are other fascinating aspects of this unusual initiative, but in the end, despite the claims that the signatures proved overwhelming support for the View Protection Initiative, when it was actually put to a vote, it lost 3-1.

As I acknowledged in yesterday's blog post, it is not easy to decipher why voters support or oppose measures or candidates -- after all, we have a secret ballot and there are no "exit polls" in Ventura. But my point in re-opening the often contentious discussion of this measure is simply this: whatever the merits or demerits of an initiative, just because a lot of people sign a petition doesn't mean that a majority of people actually support it.

That's what elections are for. Imperfect as they are (and we've all had our disappointments about election outcomes in our lives) they are the final verdict on whether voters do or do not support someone's panacea for a particular problem.

Had the voters, in their wisdom, passed Measure B, the Council, the City Attorney and the City Manager would have all done our best to actually implement it, despite its fuzziness and flaws. Our failure to immediately do everything its backers demanded was not out of disrespect for the citizens who signed the petition to put it on the ballot. But initiatives don't become law based on how many people sign a petition at the supermarket. There has to be an election first.

Measure B had its opportunity before the voters and like Measure A (placed on the ballot by the Council) and Measure C (placed on the ballot by another citizen group), they all failed to win majority support. That's how our system works.

Of course, we should all give Harris and VCORD credit for putting focus on this issue. While their initiative may have been flawed, their activism and advocacy did prompt the City Council to appoint a citizen task force to tackle the issue. VCORD didn't get everything they asked for, yet the key recommendations of the task force have been embraced by the Council and Planning Commission. This ensures that public views will be better protected in the future, just as the 2005 General Plan promised.

Democracy is not perfect, especially if your standard is always getting what you want from it. But experience tells us that when someone steps forward claiming to represent "the will of the people," we have a right to be skeptical. As the great American political humorist Finley Peter Dunne observed about similar claims advanced in his day, "your argument is interesting, but not conclusive."

Election verdict: Low turn-out, decisive results

With semi-official final results, yesterday's election produced a vote turn-out lower than two years ago. Three of the four incumbents won re-election (Andrews, Monahan and Brennan.) Another familiar face, retired Police Chief Mike Tracy led the field, which meant Councilmember Ed Summers narrowly lost re-election.

Measure A, the proposed sales tax increase, lost 55-45%. The voters in Ventura opted for a tight rein of finances, which means the deep cuts made this year will need to be maintained. Paradoxically, five of the top six vote getters in the Council race supported Measure A (the sixth, Councilmember Andrews, remained neutral.)

The so-called "view protection ordinance" was decisively rejected 3-1. The anti big box ordinance went down to defeat by a margin similar to the sales tax increase.

Voters also rejected sharp attacks. The sharpest critics of local government did not do well in the Council race and the avalanche of attack mail from the police union backfired.

Interpreting the reasons for election outcomes is always trickier than interpreting the results. Many factors will be cited by winners and losers, but the bottom line remains the same: voters signaled they are looking for an economical approach to local government, with more emphasis on economic development and living within our means.

By their nature, elections never make everyone happy. But the biggest disappointment of the night was the poor turn-out. A lot was at stake yesterday, yet more than 70% of the voters didn't bother to vote. That's the most serious challenge ahead of us: more effectively engaging our community to participate in the decision-making that shapes our common future.