YOU CAN ALWAYS COUNT ON Ventura Mayor Christy Weir to leave an audience feeling good about the world. Despite a grim budget prognosis, Weir filled the latter part of her State of the City presentation tonight with an more upbeat look at the city we all know and love but sort of forgot was there under the pile of budget woes.
It's human nature to dwell on the negative and nobody understands this better than a blog moderator. But I've always been a glass-half-full kind of gal so I appreciated the chance to savor the good stuff.
No, it's not an easy time to be mayor of any city right now. Weir didn't mince words in her opening remarks: "To balance next year's projected $12 million gap will require additional steep cuts in services and staff and closing some city facilities. This level of reduction will impact every citizen."
The city is in the process of formalizing midyear cuts of $6 million. More cuts will be announced after the Budgeting for Outcomes teams report back next month. And a team of citizens will be busy researching whether or not to put a sales tax measure on the ballot, most likely in the fall.
Moving past the gloom, Weir put an emphasis on community involvement, listing the numerous public/private partnerships such as the WAV project which have kicked into high gear since the economy went south. Fundraising efforts for our homeless population, sports fields, and performing arts space were highlighted. City Corps, one of my favorite civic groups, got a big plug as did efforts by the Hillsides Conservancy, Ventura Botanical Garden Inc. and the Serra Cross Conservancy.
On the economic front, Weir said in the next year we will be welcoming Dan Frederickson's Class A office building on California Street, a Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, a Hyatt Place hotel, Wood Ranch, Urban Outfitters, and discussions are continuing with Best Buy. Upcoming are Embassy Suites near the Fairgrounds, expansions of Community Memorial Hospital and the Ventura County Museum of Art plus the new Anastasi Development project in Pierpont.
Our mayor called for the community to pull together in this difficult time. I agree. Our economic woes call for a rethinking of former positions and another look at how we've conducted public policy over the years. Hopefully we can emerge from the clouds stronger than ever.
I heard Simi Valley has started a program where homeless people living out of their car can perform community service to pay off their parking tickets, so they won't have their car (usually the only thing they have left) from being impounded. Have you thought about introducing this in Ventura?
According to the Star: The mayor says:
"Stressing the need for community “partners,� she asked listeners to donate to local charities, volunteer at beach cleanups and shop at local stores to buoy nervous business owners and help fill city coffers as Ventura works to fix a multimillion-dollar deficit."
And then in the same speech the mayor says that: Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market; a Hyatt Place hotel; Wood Ranch; Urban Outfitters; and (possibly) Best Buy and Embassy Suites are coming to town.
I'm confused. Am I supposed to "shop at local stores to buoy nervous business owners" or should I shop at out of state chain stores to "help fill city coffers as Ventura works to fix a multimillion-dollar deficit"?
The mayor (according to some) needs some help with her speech writing.
There have been plenty of suggestions in the comments section on the main Star sight on how to fix the fiscal problems of Ventura. It is unlikely that any of them will be acted upon.....
For the record, Tesco is based in Europe. They are Walmart on crack. And one of the greatest and most powerful economic entities in the world. I would shop there since, they are probably paying 10 times the property tax for their store than local businesses are, and also have great prices on a lot of stuff because their stores act as "discounters" and the best Tesco markets have manager discounts that literally knock off up to 90% of the price the day before its sell-by date. The Fresh and Easy in Newbury Park is the best to find these discounts, and has amazing deals on everything from meat to flowers, and they save money by not hiring from labor unions, and use completely automated cashiers, just like the self checkout lines you'd see at other large grocery stores like Albertson's. Genius.
John Doe, there is no productive discussion out on the Star's main story blogs. It's a bunch of people who have no idea what they are talking about most of the time and just want to vent. I go in there to correct inaccuracies occasionally, but what I read is mostly poison.
The Star's staff tell me a lot of the posters don't even live in Ventura. Even the reporter won't read that stuff.
As for our mayor's "shop local" plea: Shopping in local chain stores keeps sales tax here and helps keep local people employed. And remember, some chains are franchises which are locally owned.
Christy Weir is unusually gifted as a mayor. I think she inherited some less-tha-wise investment decisions.
According to the Wall Street Journal a month or so ago, Tesco's Fresh and Easy is 50% - 60% below U.S. projections.
Also, Marie, did you ever get a parking count at the WAV ? Regards,
Posted this back in December:
By Marie on December 8, 2008 8:35 AM
I heard from Chris Velasco and the project will indeed have at least 102 parking spaces. He said it could grow to as much as 130. I'm happy to forward his email to you, if you'd like.
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Christy's a great mayor! She is extraordinary with people and spends so much time out there talking to constituents. Yes, she's inherited a bad economy. One thing I am not sure people realize is that because of the Brown Act, the Council can't share much information among each other and they get the staff reports the same time they are released to the public. The Victoria Corridor Plan was 501 pages. (I know. I looked at it.. yikes.) Done in-house, by the way. No consultants.
I'm looking forward to the Fresh & Easy myself.
Our Cultural Affairs Commission meetings for the next few months will be sad because of the cuts. This is just breaking my heart.
There's nothing in the Brown Act that prevents council members from sharing information with one another so long as a majority does not get involved in a collective discussion of the information outside a properly publicized meeting. Nor does the Brown Act require that the council get staff reports only when released to the public. Quite the contrary; it says that when documents are distributed to the council, the public has an immediate right to see them.
Marie, I believe you indicated you were going to check out where the add'l parking was going to be located. I had indicated there are only 27 or so spaces on site. You had indicated you had been told there were far more on site. Regards,
I know some of the parking spaces are in a nearby lot; that was pointed out to me on a recent tour. I am sure you could send an email to PLACE or Deborah Pazen at the city to find out.
Council members cannot talk about any particular issue outside of council meetings to any more than two additional members.
In practice, staff reports are finished and put online at about the same time they are given to the Council. For instance, the recent round of budget cuts were released online at 5 p.m. on a Thursday and given to Council at the same time.
On the Cultural Affairs Commission we are really cautious. Our chair developed a policy consideration and only I looked at it before our meeting.
All this is done to make sure the process is open to the public.
So you are asking the citizens of our city to sacrifice for the budget that you personally helped squander on horrible investments. Have you considered maybe doing what good leaders do and leading by example? You should sacrifice if you wish the citizens to sacrifice. You should be taking a pay cut not only to help the budget but because you are at fault. It was your bad decision making that got us into this problem and it should be your sacrifice to get us out of it. This is not monopoly money and this is not a game - This is hard working citizens money who have contributed hard earned tax dollars which you toss around to your contracting associates and you wonder why we are in this mess.
Please answer me, why did you not reinvest that money back into the community? Why did you not try to build better bike lanes? Why did you not try to make this city more bike friendly? Why did you not invest in our schools and our citizens? You ask us to buy locally but you don't even invest locally
Getting a Best Buy doesn't give us tax dollars. They get tax breaks usually for building a BestBuy and when their time runs out on the tax breaks they move their business to a new building.
Not sure who you are directing your comments to, "name." Our mayor only gets $600 a month for her trouble. It is written into the City Charter that only a vote by the citizens can suspend Council pay.
The investment decisions were made by the City's Investment Committee, not the City Council. The committee is headed up by our city manager and other staff and a citizen adviser. The city manager has taken a 10 percent pay cut.
Please note that the investment losses represent just 6 percent of the city's portfolio; all municipalities have investments. The investments were in formerly AAA-rated bonds and the money was destined for capital improvements in 2012, not the general fund.
It is very unfortunate that so many municipalities and citizens lost money in these mortgage-backed securities. It has caused ruin on a global scale. The city is doing what it can to recover the money.
For more on this, go here:
http://blogs.venturacountystar.com/mlakin/archives/2008/10/public-agencies-at-risk.html
Should you be allowed to write articles Marie when you clearly support the Mayor? Isnt there some sort journalistic code where you don't use your medium to support candidates your favor?
This article is incredibly bias. Just look at the opening sentence.
You are bias.
I'm a blogger, "name." We write opinion pieces. But I never, ever write anything I can't back up with facts.
It's true that I like our mayor. She's very well liked here; the Star print article said the same thing. And she is very skilled at giving "feel good" speeches. Nothing wrong with pointing that out.
I also like Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Dianne Feinstein, Fran Pavley, Julia Brownley, Pedro Nava, Chuck Hagel, Olympia Snowe, and the list goes on. If I praise any one of them am I also biased?
While our mayor is personable and reasonable it only goes so far in a town largely run by men with rather big egos. Just my opinion.
Gallegly is bringing home 8 million in federal bacon!