Another question:

How well does the city government work with the school board?

Here is answer to Brian’s Question #1. I have to leave town to go to the League of California Cities annual conference in Long Beach in a few hours so it will be a few more days before I can finish answering the others, but I will. I should be back by Saturday or Sunday 9/27-9/28. (I will repeat each question before I answer the question).

1. Have you been working with elected officials from Simi Valley to oversee the proposed landfill expansion? Have you met with council members in person? Who initiated the meetings?

I have not specifically worked with Simi Valley elected officials on this issue. (Moorpark elected officials will NOT get to vote on this issue but our city can send comments to the county to express our concerns and make recommendations.) The county is the decision-making authority for this issue but the City of Simi Valley will have more say than does Moorpark, since the location of the landfill is in what is called the Simi Valley “Area of Interest� (not the Moorpark “Area of Interest�).

I have talked on the phone with Councilmember Barbra Williamson who initiated the first call to me. I applaud her leading an effort to study the proposal in detail to keep the owners’ feet to the fire about potential impacts of any proposed expansion.

I have been following the dialog and news reports on the landfill and intend to study the EIR when it comes out since this will affect not just Simi Valley, but also Moorpark, depending on what the final proposal ends up to be. I do not think that an expansion should include bringing in trash from LA County or other faraway places. Hopefully there is a legal way to limit the dumping to local trash. It only makes sense for each community (in our case, the community of Ventura County) to take care of its own trash. The size of the expansion, at first blush, sounds excessive but I will keep an open mind until I get all the details. There will no doubt be mitigation considerations to weigh also. I look forward to finding out how they plan the mitigate the negative impacts of the eventual proposal.

I have also visited the dump once recently for a tour by the owners, who explained some of their expansion plans and showed myself, Moorpark fellow-Councilmember Van Dam, and some of our city’s staff about some of their environmentally friendly practices, some of which are quite excellent.

Here are my answers to the next four questions from Brian:

2. What are you looking to do in your next term that you haven't done already?

(a) Shepherding completion of many important ongoing capital improvement projects, including but not limited to:

• Completing the long-awaited widening of Princeton Ave. between Campus Park and Downtown (with sidewalks/bike lanes).
• Making progress on several High Street and Downtown revitalization projects (e.g., the Ashkenazy and Granary, Inc. projects on the south side of High Street; completion of the Ruben Castro Human Services Center [a one-stop service center to assist needy residents], and perhaps others.
• Building and opening an expanded Poindexter Park (with skate park), the Mammoth Highlands Park in Moorpark Highlands, and the new Veterans Memorial next to the Police Services Center.
• Making progress on efforts for the design and eventual construction of the North Hills Parkway (a new Tierra Rejada-like arterial road for alternative car access in the north hills of the city.
• Making progress toward completing regional trail connections throughout the city, including along the Arroyo Simi greenway and to Happy Camp Canyon Regional Park from West Moorpark. (This is a multi-year project that would take decades to complete, but some segments could be done incrementally in the next four years.)

(b) Working to create a plan for sustaining the city financially after “build out.�

(c) Working to preserve and maintain open space/agricultural lands and wildlife corridors around and through the city by adding stronger planning and land use designations and policies in the Moorpark General Plan (which is currently being revised); and, by working regionally, through consensus-based processes, to (1) assist farmers in maintaining viable farms unthreatened by sprawl development; and (2) bring as much “at risk� open space land into public ownership to become permanent protected open space.

(d) Creating/implementing a program to support expanded use of solar for alternative energy on business and/or residential properties.

(e) Finalizing and implementing a plan to assist downtown businesses in completing practical, cost-effective façade improvements to their buildings that follow guidelines in the Downtown Specific Plan, to make the downtown, especially High Street, even more inviting than it already is.

(f) Continuing my existing efforts for the city to be the leader in the use of green building techniques/practices/ technology for city buildings (especially the proposed new Civic Center Complex).

3. There are term limits for state senate and state assembly. Do you support term limits for these offices? What about for local offices?

While voters had good intentions when they passed term limits for legislators years ago, thinking that it would prevent bad legislators from staying in office too long, I do not think the end result is what voters intended. Unfortunately, with legislators, experience does matter and the unintended consequences of California’s very short term limits have given special interest lobbyists more power than eager new legislators who can’t possibly “learn the ropes� at the State Capital until after a few years on the job. In the mean time the “expert� lobbyists seem to set the agenda, because there are not enough expert legislators to balance them out. This is extremely unfortunate, to say the least.

For those who turn out to be excellent legislators, by the time they reach a level of effectiveness that is positive, they probably only have two or maybe three years left before they are termed out. So we lose not only the bad, ineffective legislators with the present term limits, but also the good ones, who if they could stay longer could provide the needed leadership to do good things for California, without undue influence from the career lobbyists, who prey on new inexperienced legislators.

Given that the Constitution of the United States did not place term limits as a requirement for our federal legislators, I think that it is time to rethink our present term limits law for state legislators. At the very least, the time frame should be longer than it is now, to be able to take advantage of good experience for a longer period of time. However, any adjustment to term limits should require that IF there is a change, that it will only apply to legislators who are elected AFTER a new law is passed. Other incumbents should have to play by the rules under which they are elected. If the number of years is extended, someone who is otherwise termed out under the OLD rules should have to stay out of office for at least one full term before they could run again to take advantage of whatever new extended term limits are approved. It is still open to debate whether or not the cumulative number of years should be totally fixed or whether the restriction should only be for consecutive years. I do not think the electorate would support eliminating term limits altogether, so an adjustment that lengthens the term allowed is more practical.

Having said all of that, I do believe in term limits for the chief executive, if it is an elected chief executive. So for President, Governor, or Mayor (but only those mayors who are directly elected as a Mayor by the people; not those who rotate as Mayor among councilmembers, like in most small cities), I think eight years should be sufficient for an elected chief executive. For regular city councilmembers, I do not think term limits are as productive, because at the most local level, if an incumbent is not being receptive to the will of the electorate, he or she is relatively easy to unseat by someone who does have the pulse of the community. I need only look to my own first successful election when I unseated an incumbent, so I know that it can be done. In fact, in that year (2000) in Moorpark both incumbents were unseated by two challengers.

4. What has made the most impact on the quality of life in Moorpark during the last few years?

(a) The passage of SOAR coupled with the defeat of the Hidden Creek and North Park housing projects (that would have vastly expanded the city if approved)—has positively impacted the Moorpark quality of life by reaffirming Moorpark residents’ desire to remain a small, safe, yet vibrant community;

and (b) the approval of and construction and opening of the Moorpark Marketplace, to bring a higher and more diversified quality of shopping to Moorpark (Target, Kohls, TJ Maxx, the Natural Café, and other shops).

I am the ONLY councilmember OR candidate who worked city-wide to support SOAR and to defeat Hidden Creek/North Park. (I co-wrote the Moorpark SOAR and led the effort to get it passed. Additionally, I coordinated the fights against Hidden Creek and North Park.)

I am also the ONLY councilmember left who voted FOR the Moorpark Marketplace to bring to Moorpark the best shopping experiences we have ever had. The other incumbent who is also running for re-election voted against the Moorpark Marketplace and has proudly stated that he opposed SOAR. The two challengers have not stated their positions either before the council during deliberations concerning those issues or (to my knowledge) since then.

5. What local official outside of Moorpark do you respect the most? What local official outside of Moorpark do you talk to the most?

There are a number of elected officials I respect and talk to about a number of different issues. But if I have to pick one, it would be Dr. Gabino Aguirre (Councilmember from Santa Paula), to answer both questions at this time. I have served on the Board of Community Action of Ventura County, Inc. (CAVC) since 2001. CAVC has been Ventura County’s official poverty–fighting agency since 1965. In 2005, Dr. Aguirre joined the board of CAVC and is the current Chair. I have also known Dr. Aguirre for many years before he was elected to the Santa Paula City Council, when he was Principal of Community High School in Moorpark. I have the utmost respect for his intellect, passion, and his steady, gracious, firm, but diplomatic demeanor. Since we currently serve on the CAVC board together, I talk to him more than to probably any other local elected official.