I HAD to laugh a bit after the November municipal election when I heard complaints that the off-year contest didn't bring out enough voters and "our citizens just don't care." Nothing could be further from the truth in this little beach town. Citizen activism is alive and well when it comes to protecting the status quo.
If you look back at some of the most important land-use decisions made in the last 10 years for our community, all were initiated by groups of citizens passionate in protecting first our agricultural lands and then our hillsides from development.
Now we have two other groups working to save Ventura from development. In the name of view protection, the Ventura Citizens Organization for Responsible Development is battling at this very moment to keep anything higher than 26 feet from sprouting in much of the city.
And yet another group of citizens, the Stop Wal-Mart Coalition, aided by the grocery union, announced plans to circulate petitions to keep Wal-Mart out of the spot just vacated by K-Mart on Victoria Avenue.
IT SEEMS we have no shortage of citizen activism here. But how unique is Ventura compared to other cities? I asked Deputy Mayor Bill Fulton, an urban planning expert who has studied other cities throughout the state and nation.
"I don't think we are more passionate or active than other communities," Fulton said. "But we do go to the ballot more. Coastal communities tend to do this more than inland communities anyway, but in Ventura we have done it way more than most other cities. It's part of the culture."
Ventura Mayor Christy Weir has often noted the extraordinary passion found in this town. "I do know that many other city councils meet twice a month," she said, "and we meet every week, to give our citizens more of an opportunity to be heard."
Weir also mentioned the numerous neighborhood councils and the abundant citizen input on the city's Ventura Vision, General Plan, and various community plans as another way for citizens to be heard and stay informed.
But there is another group of citizens in the business community who have become more vocal over the years. They point out quite correctly that development fuels our tax base, which pays for city services. Stifle growth at your own peril, they warn.
But it seems many others just want their beach community to remain the sleepy town it has always been.
I heard this summed up best by a woman who stopped by a table I was staffing during our last ArtWalk Downtown. "I just don't want Ventura to turn into another L.A.," she said. "I live here to get away from all that."
What do you think? Use the comments section below.
Thank you Marie for commencing your blog with a piece on citizen activism!!! Democracy lives or dies based on citizen activism; however, those citizens, in order to be effective, must be informed. The question becomes, what is the best source of information?
Having been born in Ventura and living around the world for a couple of years at a time, I have a unique perspective. I chose to return to Ventura to "live out my days" because it offers everything. Ventura's natural beauty, wonderful climate, schools, churches, quality of life and close proximity to major cultural arenas as well as a growing art's community of our own makes Ventura a fantastic place to live. Venturans maintain the small town feel dispite our almost 106K population which is no small feat. Why then are we surprised that others would want to live here too? Our challenge is to insure Healthy Growth. (Notice I refrained from saying Smart Growth). Our standards must remain high and be tempered with competence and creativity. Extremism will make that difficult.
I love Ventura and grew up there. Only, I can't afford to live their now, thanks to the 'no growthers'. It's a shame that I have to sacrifice the city I was born and raised in to people with just more money.
It's further a shame that the silent majority in places like Ventura aren't given more weight than the NIMBYs
Housing prices are high all over S. California even where growth has run amok.
Nowhere near as high as Ventura, and allowing the NIMBYs to essentially place artificial barriers to entry only forces families to not have their children stay. It's been like this for 20 years in Ventura, and just gets worse instead of better.
I love how selfish wealth makes people.
So you are OK with covering up the hills and agricultural areas with homes? Is it worth ruining what makes Ventura special in the process?
It's actually a good plan. Destroy the town's charm and nobody will want to live here. Then housing prices will fall for sure.
I am one of the silent majority who believes the City Council has not been looking out for the economic health of this community. They are constantly planning, but there is very little execution going on. In addition, they are not conveying a business friendly attitude when they do such things as arbitrarily limit the size of retail projects that may decide to go elsewhere because of this overly restrictive/interventionist approach by the city.
The other issue is how policy is shaped and advanced in the city. In my view, the City Manager seems to take this as his own purview. It seems like the City Council is being led, rather than leading, which I believe is a bit backwards.
I hear the City Council will be considering an ordinance this Monday (Jan. 28th) that would impose a new fee to utilize the 911 communications system. What??? Isn't this system already paid for through our general taxes, just like other police and fire services? Seems like a double whammy to me! I hope there will be much opposition at the meeting to this unfair fee. I certainly will be there to voice my opposition.
Ventura for Business,
I assume you're talking about the Victoria Plan. The General Plan explicitly calls for size limitations on retail businesses in that particular corridor in order to discourage big box developments and the traffic patterns they generate. But these projects would be allowed in other parts of the city. Should the council ignore the General Plan?
Marie, Congratulations and welcome to the blogosphere!! :)
Marie, does the General Plan dictate the exact size of retail establishments along the Ventura Corridor? I haven't read it from cover to cover, so I truly don't know the answer to this question. If so though, there are such things as amending the General Plan, you know? That's why it's called a "plan", right? Especially if it makes sense to encourage economic development in the City, which, in this case, it seems like it would.
I thought the City Manager interviewed for a job in Austin, Texas recently. Hopefully, they'll make him a good offer. He's turning our town into a ghost town, in terms of future business growth opportunities.
Ventura for Business,
Somehow I don't think there will be a groundswell of people clamoring to amend the General Plan to allow big box development on Victoria. But that sort of retail establishment could go behind the Auto Mall, I have been told.
I personally would like to see a good electronics/computer store go in where the K-Mart on Victoria was. It would fit nicely in that building size.
Hi Owen & Mongo,
Nice to see you made a trip over here from Brian Dennert's blog.
Mongo, you once told me you wanted a Ventura blog. You got your wish!
Owen, thanks for your support. You really do embody the spirit of citizen activism. Good luck on the campaign trail with McCain!
Marie, I agree there probably wouldn't be a huge demand from the public to amend the General Plan, but don't you think it would be a wise policy decision for the Council? If they're serious about encouraging economic development, that is, to pay for needed services, which I have my doubts about. It seems they'd rather charge us all fees instead.
You say we should put retailers like Wal-Mart behind the auto mall, but that may not be a desirable location for them. Victoria is where all the auto traffic in Ventura is right now, so no wonder Wal-Mart wants to locate there. In the current economy, they may be re-thinking their decision to put another store in Ventura anyways, so this may be a moot argument.
There is a plan afoot to extend Olivas Park Drive to behind the Auto Center where that new business area is now. I think with the proper signage, that would be a better place for a huge retailer.
I will be interested to see how the petition is worded from the anti-Wal-Mart folks. My fear is that they will write one which will prevent any large retail anywhere in the city. That would nix an IKEA, too.
People will sign it. I hear overwhelmingly from nearly everyone I talk to that they aren't interested in having Wal-Mart come to town. Around 10,000 signed VCORD's height restriction petition.
You do realize that Wal-Mart could just move into the existing space that K-Mart occupies without violating the new Victoria coding, right? It would just have to be a smaller store than they originally proposed.
Marie, under the scenarios you are presenting, the underlying assumption is that the City knows what's best for business, which is absolutely off the mark. I have been in the retail business for over 24 years now (as both a small business owner and top executive in a multi-national firm) and I can tell you that visibility and accessibility are the keys to locating a large scale retail operation. Olivas Park Drive has neither.
It's not the same as car dealerships. People will drive out of their way to purchase an automobile, since this is a large expenditure. They will not do the same to buy discount merchandise when the same opportunity exists right off the freeway a couple of miles down the road. Thus, I would be very surprised if Wal-Mart, IKEA, or any other big box would want to locate behind the auto center, even if it had better access and signage. The best spot from Wal-Mart's (not the City's) perspective is right at the K-Mart site on Victoria. But, I don't believe a smaller store is an option for them. They'd need at least 150,000 s.f. for it to be a profitable venture (i.e., groceries as well as other merchandise), especially in the current economy.
So, I think the City has intentionally nixed this deal by their overly restrictive square footage limitation, thereby shooting themselves in the foot for future retailing opportunities. But, it became too political and they didn't want to risk alienating the anti-Wal-Mart folks. They're already doing battle with the VCORD group and this is one more battle they couldn't afford politically.
The question then becomes: What is the right type of business for that K-Mart center? Through our citizen-generated General Plan, very large, big-box-type retail is discouraged there. Is Wal-Mart our only option? With two Targets and a 99 Cents Store in close proximity plus Smart & Final and Big Lots, does Ventura need another discount store? Why not an electronics store? The only one we had left years ago.
I know the city is also working with Macerich to develop more retail at the north end of the mall, a very high-traffic area.
As an aside, the city already has 63 square feet of retail per resident, which is very high. Not to say we don't need more, but I don't think our city revenues will live or die by that Wal-Mart. The City of Oxnard has a Wal-Mart and has pushed development to the brink and still they are thinking of increasing their sales tax by 1/2 a cent to add more money to the city coffers. That is more than we tried.
BTW, I recently read an article that said Wal-Mart may go to smaller stores. So maybe all is not lost there for you. We will see.
An electronics store going in at the K-Mart location is pretty dreamy, I'd say. I don't think there is a market for it there, at least not one the size you would need to make up for the revenues the City is foregoing by discouraging a Wal-Mart there.
The other, bigger picture issue is the message the City is sending out to potential businesses (retail, or otherwise) by discouraging a Wal-Mart on Victoria. The City is basically saying we don't need large retailers in our City and that will discourage others from even considering Ventura as a possibility to locate. Trust me, being the retail business, Ventura is fast establishing a reputation for being anti-business.
A typical electronics "superstore" averages 30,000 square feet and can generate up to $40 million annually. The largest Best Buy is 58,000 square feet; most are 30,000. The K-Mart building is around 90,000 square feet, which could easily accommodate something like this and then some.
But since you're in retail, you probably already know this.
The plan for Victoria, which, incidentally, was praised by business leaders at the last council meeting, calls for the creation of high-wage, high-value jobs along that boulevard. High-tech, finance and business companies will add much more to the local economy than a Wal-mart and its minimum wage and minimum benefit jobs.
Marie, I strongly disagree on both of your points. The City would need to squeeze 2 Best Buys into that space to make up for the lost revenue from a Wal-Mart (not likely to happen).
The City stands to gain far more in direct sales tax revenue from a large retail store, like Wal-Mart, than the jobs created by office workers on Victoria. Granted, some of these workers would be higher earning managers and executives, but a much larger percentage would be low-paid clerical workers. There are some tax benefits from these folks spending their money in town, but not all will live and shop here, especially given the cost of housing, so you would have to discount this factor.
The annual sales tax from a Wal-Mart is estimated at $400K a year (that's from a small store, not a super center). This is pure gravy and you could count on it year-after-year. How many police officers & firefighters would this pay for? A significant number, I would think.
An officer, benefits and a car and expenses is around $150,000. So $400,000 would buy about 2 1/2.
I think we could debate this all year and probably not come to an agreement. I am not in favor of amending the city's citizen-generated General Plan to add a big box retail establishment to Victoria. I don't know anybody who is. (Except you, who I don't know.) There are other places in the city where this sort of development can happen, if we so choose.
Good conversation. A few points.
The Kmart site would be a great location for Best Buy, paired with some other similarly sized store missing from Ventura -- Sports Chalet, say. This would be about the same size as a regular Wal-Mart store and would probably not suck the life out of other retail businesses in town, since Ventura has no electronics and limited sports. These stores ought to like the size with its freeway visibility.
As for the Auto Center, it may well be that there would have to be a reconfiguration of the site to accommodate a major retailer's desire to be right along the freeway. This might mean some auto dealers would have to be move as part of the deal.
Interesting, you don't know me, so, therefore, you discount what I have to say? I am a citizen of this community just as you and the other 105,998 citizens are who I'm sure if you, or, more appropriately, the City Council, bothered to ask them they might want to amend the General Plan if it meant adding 21/2 police officers to their town.
You don't know this for a fact because you haven't surveyed all 106,000 people in the City on this issue. So, what you're saying is absolute pure speculation and personal opinion.
It's all personal opinion, isn't it? That's what this blog is about.
Yes, it is personal opinion to a great extent and that's fine. But, the tone of your previous post seemed to imply that I was the only person in the entire City who felt that the City Council was wrong in limiting the size of the Wal-Mart slated to go in on Victoria. That is clearly not the case, as I've read numerous editorials and letters to the editor that support exactly what I'm saying.
Is this a controversial issue? Most definitely! By definition, controversial issues have two sides that are fully engaged in their viewpoints. That is certainly the case with Wal-Mart, as well as the new 911 tax.
There may very well be folks who are in favor of amending the General Plan to put a big box on Victoria, but I believe they are the minority.
Thanks for posting. I've enjoyed our discussion!
Hi Marie, well I see your still up to your old tricks of pushing all the spinning that comes out of the Ivory Tower. You are wrong on so many points it's usless for me to try to answer them here. But you are welcome to come to my blog page and see my rantings.
Rellis
Hi Rellis,
Glad to see you found your way here. Please continue to post. I always enjoy hearing from you! While we may not agree on some things, you always entertain me.
You're so right, Rellis. Has Cole been to any interviews lately? I've got a job for him. There's a Jack-In-The-Box manager-in-training position opening up on Victoria. That way he can really see what goes on in the corridor, although he may be a bit under-qualified.
So Marie has her own blog and a sponsor in the Ventura County Star. She is a pimp for Christy Weir and the slow growth crowd and that's pretty much what you can expect on this forum from her.
Hi Frank,
It's great to hear from you, too. How's your nice wife?
In the interest of full disclosure: I've worked on many council campaigns past and present, including Christy's. I've also worked on local grassroots causes, several bond measures and county-wide measures, etc. I sit on many boards across town and on the city's Cultural Affairs Commission.
But I have my own mind and nobody tells me what to write. Stay tuned. You'll see. If I think the Council has blown it, I'll say so.
As a general reminder to bloggers: This forum is meant to showcase the diverse viewpoints of our city. Everyone is welcome. I don't have to agree with you. But let's keep it civil.
The same rules apply here that apply to the Star's other blogs. Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. I will delete comments, or portions thereof, which are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. I reserve the right to make these calls.
Commenters who habitually violate these rules will need pre-approval for comments before they are posted.
Frank, you're right about this blog. You'll rarely see anything critical of the current City Council because Marie is such a groupie.
You'll rarely see anything overly critical of anyone from me, because that's not usually my style. I opt for fair and responsible.
You guys are free to say anything you want, though, within the bounds of the rules governing this blog that I outlined above. Go for it!
If you're looking for scathing, irresponsible journalism, go read Ann Coulter.
Or we could just go read Rellis' blog page.
Marie, don't forget Alan Colmes!
Or Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.
Or Keith Olberman (a bad sportscaster who resurrected as a liberal).