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The 5-Year Thomas Fire Anniversary: Still Not Ready for Another Disaster

November 18, 2022/in Newsletters/by VREG Editors

December 4, 2022, marks the fifth anniversary of the Thomas Fire, and many issues are still unresolved. What has the City of Ventura learned since the catastrophe? Are we safer? Are we better off? What has changed because of the fire? Did the city government fulfill its commitment to the victims?

These are difficult but necessary questions to answer. So, let’s look at what transpired after the disaster.

Indeed, it was Ventura Public Safety’s finest hour. Not one person died in the City of Ventura during the fire. Also, Ventura Police and Fire safely evacuated 27,000 people. Truly remarkable.

Yet, what happened next at the city government level undid these extraordinary efforts.

A Brief History Lesson

2017 was not the first time that the hills of Ventura were aflame. On September 26, 1970, the Ventura Hillside caught fire in the precise location where, later, builders developed the Ondulando and Clearpoint subdivisions. Twenty-six years later, the hills erupted in flames behind City Hall near Grant Park on October 26, 1996.

Wildfires are not new, yet two things were different with the Thomas Fire. First, more houses were in the fire’s path; so, the property damage was more significant than in the last two fires. Second, the city government’s response to the disaster varied from the two previous fires.

When it comes to the Thomas Fire, other factors contributed to the destruction of over 500 homes. Failure of the water generators at Ventura Water and the role of Southern California Edison played a part. Insurance companies and the courts will settle these contributing issues. We won’t address them here. Instead, we’ll concentrate on the actions of the City Council and how Ventura delivered services to the victims.

Where We Are On The 5th Anniversary

In 2017, the City Council promised victims the city would do everything possible to return them to their homes quickly. Ventura Community Development Director Jeff Lambert said

“We are looking at least six months before construction can begin. So, if you are planning on rebuilding your home and seeking temporary housing, it would be best to secure a place for at least a year, if not 18 months to 2 years if possible.”

On the fifth anniversary of the Thomas Fire, only 299 families out of 535 have returned to their homes. That’s a mere 55.9% of the victims back home. Another 70 rebuilds are in process, and 39 more are in the plan-checking phase. The owners of the remaining 127 homes may not rebuild for various reasons. They include:

A lack of adequate insurance to pay for the rebuild
The owners moved out of the area
The owners chose to keep the lot vacant until they either sell it or have the funds to rebuild in the future
The owners are searching for an architect or builder to help

All residents should ask themselves, “How can this be?” Is this what the City Council meant by returning victims to normal quickly?

Did Ventura Fail The Victims?

Soon after Ventura Fire extinguished the blaze, concentration on recovery waned. Whatever new “emergency” came before the City Council held their attention. Concentration on the recovery waned. The City Manager lost focus, and the successive City Councils allowed him to be unaccountable.

Focusing on what was immediate (the new issues) rather than the essential needs of the victims rendered homeless had a negative impact. Several examples illustrate how the City Council worked against the rebuilding process.

Inexperienced Leaders For The Thomas Fire Recovery

After the fire, Community Director Jeff Lambert left the city. Unfortunately, several other seasoned Community Development employees left, too. The departures decimated the department most critical to returning victims to their homes.

Community Development was leaderless while Mr. McIntyre sought a replacement. Finally, he settled on Peter Gilli, someone with no prior experience in a similar role. To compensate for Mr. Gilli’s inexperience, Mr. McIntyre layered on another level of bureaucracy. He appointed Assistant City Manager Akbar Alikhan to supervise Mr. Gilli., although Mr. Alikhan didn’t have experience in disaster recovery.

Delaying Thomas Fire Rebuilding Ordinances

The City Council added to the delays as they kept waffling on second-story height restrictions for rebuilding victims’ homes. The Council’s indecisiveness delayed the rebuilding process for many. Councilmembers attempted to please some fire victims wanting to improve their homes and, by doing so, delayed rebuilding for everyone.

Digital Subjugation Through The Permitting Process

To compound the victims’ woes, along came COVID-19 forcing Ventura City Hall to close. As a result, all rebuilding projects moving through the Community Development Department halted while the city scrambled to find a way to keep the government operating.

In a rush, though, mistakes happened. In the most egregious one, over a dozen plans submitted and in process under the old system disappeared when the city moved to the new online system. Weeks later, Community Development corrected the mistake, but the error further delayed the homeowners involved.

Under the new system, the only acceptable inquiries about the status of projects were by email. The system provides an email acknowledging the receipt of the plans upon submission. Yet, there is no way to track a project until a “reviewer” accepts that project into the system. A project is only recognized in the system after someone assigns it to a reviewer. Depending on how long it takes to choose a reviewer, the plans could languish for days. As a result, the system delayed many applications in the early days.

Revelations At The Thomas Fire Situation Review

The City Council reviewed what happened during and since the fire two years later.

The presenters brought to light several disturbing facts during the report. Chief among them is that Ventura is no better prepared today for a natural disaster than in 2017.

Ventura Fire Chief David Endaya said, “Ventura Fire is better prepared to clean up after a wildfire moves through.” And VFD is ill-equipped to fight such a wildfire, he said.

What was seriously lacking and not treated in the report to the City Council was how the city:

Liaises with the County, State and Federal governments during a crisis
Coordinates disaster relief
Councilmembers are visible, and the steps they take to lead
Evacuates citizens from disaster areas more effectively
Communicates with the public (both providing warning and information)
Handles mass care and shelter

Editors Comments

On the fifth anniversary of the Thomas Fire, Ventura residents still need a clear picture of how the city will perform in the next disaster. Furthermore, citizens have learned that Ventura City Hall is indifferent to returning them to normal.

The lessons the Thomas Fire taught are clear five years on. First, you can rely on only limited help from Ventura Fire and Police. They will do their best, but they have limited resources.

Second, you shouldn’t believe the city government when they say they will help. As we saw with the Thomas Fire, the city government may impede the recovery rather than improve it. The last five years reveal flawed systems, inexperienced people in crucial roles and a lack of follow-up and attention to detail.

Third, three successive City Councils made promises to the victims. Yet, each failed to follow through on the commitments—exhibiting a lack of attention to detail. Moreover, today’s Council still needs to establish whether the city has improved its readiness in the six vital areas listed above.

Fourth, there were other sources of delay besides the city government. Citizens also contributed to the slow recovery. Some homes were underinsured. Other homeowners expanded their homes’ footprint, adding time to the process.

Finally, the bottom line is that government cannot solve all our problems. Nor should we expect that.

Ventura will have another disaster in the coming years. It may be another wildfire, an earthquake, an act of terrorism, or something we can’t yet imagine, but there will be one. As a resident, you deserve to know if the city is well prepared.

Ask your Councilmember For Answers to the Shortcomings That Surfaced During the Thomas Fire

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Ventura’s 2021 State-of-the-City Address Lacked Visionary Leadership

August 10, 2021/in Newsletters/by VREG Editors

“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.”

—Peter Drucker

Ventura Mayor Sofia Rubalcava presented the 2021 State-of-the-City Address (SOTC) in June. Unfortunately, over time, the City Council has lost sight of the purpose of a State of the City address. The speech should aim to praise accomplishments when deserved but not ignore major problems where improvement is needed.

For Mayor Rubalcava, who has only been in public office for three years, her address avoided the topics of the challenges, did not give a sense of vision for the future, or reset the city’s goals as her recent predecessors attempted to do in their speeches.

To many Venturans, a State of the City is a formality—a feel-good report—to make everyone comfortable and have pride in their ‘fair city.’ To others, it is an opportunity to celebrate accomplishments, reset goals and provide a vision for Ventura’s future. However, what the residents need is a candid assessment of how the city will combat its challenges.

What Was Missing in This Year’s State-of-the-City Address

The mayor’s address didn’t mention the city’s critical issues. For example, Ventura has a precarious financial situation, as ranked in the State Auditor’s Report. Mayor Rubalcava ignored it. In addition, she never communicated any vision for how the city could be doing better with the Thomas Fire rebuild, the burden of pensions on the Ventura, the needed street repairs, the growing homelessness on city streets, or economic development. What a missed opportunity.

What We’ve Heard Before

Mayor Rubalcava began by saying, “The city is re-imagining the delivery of city services.” Regrettably, the only thing she discussed was implementing the Matrix Report, something her predecessor, Mayor LaVere, mentioned in last year’s address. Madam Mayor explained the backlogs and gaps in service but glossed over how much of the Matrix Report the city has implemented. Staff reports indicated that the city staff planned to implement 50% of the Matrix Report by June 30, 2021, but they did not meet that goal.

In 2020, the city implanted a program named Main Street Moves to allow businesses hurt by the pandemic shutdown to serve limited customers outdoors. Forty-seven businesses applied for outside operating permits under the program. Mayor Rubalcava gave an update on business operating permits. By June 2021, the number of companies requesting outside operating permits was 51. Most of the credit for those accomplishments belongs to those implementing them in the prior year.

Mayor Rubalcava lauded The Trade Desk’s multi-million-dollar remodeling of the fourth and fifth floors of 505 Poli—improvements completed in 2020 during Mayor LaVere’s term and mentioned in his 2020 address. Yet, the tenant improvements were not a city accomplishment. The city only leased space to The Trade Desk. The Trade Desk made the needed changes to suit their needs. Mentioning leasing the fourth and fifth floors of 505 Poli attempts to gloss over the Brooks Institute debacle. Leasing the space to the photography school revealed poor management by the Council and the City Manager’s office. A poor decision six years ago cost the community hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The lack of new information is unfortunate because the casual observer believes that the city accomplished very little in 2020-2021.

A Major Undertaking Mentioned in the 2021 State-of-the-City Address

One key point the mayor did make was that the 2021 General Plan update is underway. The updated plan will replace the 2005 General Plan that the city has been using. A 22-member committee is selected and ready to begin work recalibrating the city’s vision for the next 15 years.

Staking Our Vision on a New General Plan

The 2005 General Plan said, “…today in Ventura, as all across America, there is concern about the health of our democracy.

“Over those years, the ability to build consensus about future development has been undermined by sharply polarized divisions, showdowns at the ballot box, and often rancorous public hearings. The complaint often recurs that planning decisions are made without adequate notice or consideration of the views of those affected. Many citizens criticize the City decision-making process as convoluted and counterproductive.”

No one would blame you for thinking our city leaders expressed that vision in 2021, but they didn’t. Yet, the statement was the preamble to Ventura’s 2005 General Plan. The planners faced these conditions in 2005. Not much has changed. In fact, it’s worse.

Sixteen years later, we’re updating the General Plan because the state dictates we do it, yet the same problems persist. What’s more, we have new issues to address, such as recovering from the Thomas Fire and the COVID-19 Pandemic, shaky city finances, repairing our aging infrastructure, water, street repair, economic development and homelessness. Significant challenges, such as these, require visionary leadership.

Unrealistic To Plan 15 Years into the Future

Long-range planning like this is a fool’s errand. Nobody can look in the future to see what Ventura will need, let alone look 10-15 years in the future. It’s harder still for a 22-person committee. What committee could have predicted the Thomas Fire, the pandemic, Anthony Mele’s murder, and the business shut?

Even though long-range planning is nearly impossible, California instructs Ventura to update its General Plan periodically.

One Final Thought on The 2021 State-of-the-City Address: Majoring In Minors

Mayor Rubalcava spent a good portion of her address describing Ventura Police and Hate Crimes. Several things about that were troublesome. First and foremost, she spent all that time talking about four instances in 2020. While hate crimes have received a great deal of national publicity, four out of 6,500 crimes locally in 2020 is a minuscule number of cases to be singled out and dramatized.

Second, when one goes to the Ventura Police site, something there is listed as a “Hate Incident.” It’s a non-crime where someone is demeaned or perceives someone demeans them. Dealing with perception appears to be an unenforceable situation for the police. Furthermore, if the police base the Hate Incident on perceived hate, who is the arbiter of that? Where does free speech end and the hate incident begin? Yet, this seems to be a feckless attempt at posturing to make Ventura appear that it’s in line with the national zeitgeist. Unnecessary, and it detracts from policing the other severe crimes in the city.

Who on the City Council or in the police force considered the costs of implementing the new program? It’s hard to imagine the added bureaucracy and reporting will outweigh the benefit of enforcing the hate incidents.

With so much attention focused on a few hate crimes, it diverted City Council attention from other critical issues like water, pensions, Ventura Fire Department, the fissure between management and staff at City Hall and the homeless.

Editors Comments

An opportunity exists for the City Council to demonstrate genuine leadership. The results of the last two elections have delivered an unprecedented turnover of all the Councilmembers quickly. The voters expressed their desire for new leaders. Can these new members do something different from the past Councils?

Currently, any direction the city has seems to be haphazard. We see examples of a lack of leadership in a variety of places. Whether it’s a “phone-it-in” State-of-the-City Address, an anemic refreshing of the General Plan, or fretting over a negligible number of hate crimes, it shows the city leaders bounce from one topic to another without regard to the city’s long-term well-being. Voters should not accept this anymore.

Mayor Neal Andrews got it right in his 2018 State-of-the-City Address when he said, “We [Ventura] are no longer a quaint little beach town. We’re among the top 10% of the largest cities in California.” He recognized a truth many of us have known for years. Ventura has urban issues, and we can’t solve urban problems with provincial solutions. We need fresh thinking.

Tell the Council to Tackle the Real Problems that Need Addressing In the General Plan.

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Ventura Fire Department Wants More Money

If Ventura Fire Department Is So Terrible, Why Don’t Statistics Show It?

May 14, 2021/in Newsletters/by VREG Editors

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

—Albert Einstein

Ventura Fire Department (VFD) is asking the City Council for more money so they can maintain the inertia they’ve had for the past fifty years. The basis for their demands is an operational assessment of Ventura Fire by Emergency Services Consulting International (ESCI). Another multi-million decision based on flawed data faces the City Council. And it appears that they’re in a hurry to make it.

How We Got Here

In 2019, Ventura Fire confronted newly installed City Manager Alex McIntyre with a massive overtime bill. This prompted Mr. McIntyre to recommend a thorough evaluation of VFD’s operations. He told the newspaper he proposed a report to determine if Ventura Fire’s activities were “consistent with contemporary fire services practices.” The Council concurred, and they selected ESCI to do the evaluation.

Things Have Changed For The Ventura Fire Department

Ventura Fire was initially designed to fight fires. Over time, their duties expanded to include safety inspections, and they built their processes to meet those needs. It was a model that had worked. After all, it was a 100-year-old tradition. Firefighters waited in the firehouse to be dispatched to an emergency.

The problem for VFD is that the community’s needs changed. The ESCI Operational Assessment of the Ventura Fire Department shows that only 3% of the calls were for fires. The majority, 73%, were for emergency medical service (EMS). Another 15% were “good intent” calls, or what ordinary people call false alarms. Ventura Fire is using an outdated business model to address modern challenges.

What Hasn’t Changed For Ventura Fire

The response time for VFD to respond to a call is in the 90^th percentile compared to other fire departments nationally, according to the ESCI study. That’s good news for Ventura citizens.

Confronted with the changed requirements of what Ventura Fire does, one would expect the fire department to rethink its role. Yet, it still clings to the 100-year-old way of doing business. There is no new thinking within the department and no original ideas in the operational assessment done on the department.

The Flaws In The Study

The Ventura Fire Department seized on the ESCI assessment to lobby the City Council for more money. How much money? They’re asking for between $3.9M and $14.9M in the first year, with more in subsequent years. The study outlines several short-term, mid-term and long-term recommendations. (See attachment B)

Close examination of the ESCI report reveals several flaws. First, the ESCI is the consulting service of the International Fire Chiefs Association. The people interviewed to gather data for the assessment were Ventura firefighters. The report is built on fire chiefs asking firefighters what they need, then comparing that to what other fire departments across the nation have. The potential for inherent bias exists in this report.

For instance, when asked in an online survey (page 219) about how city firefighters feel: 75 percent of City Firefighters say more tax money “would allow us to better support fire prevention in our community.” Unsurprisingly, ESCI concluded that Ventura Fire needs more money.

ESCI’s Assessment Lacks Local Context

Second, the review presents detailed costs associated with each of its recommendations. What it fails to offer are the benefits to citizens that each proposal represents. For instance, the report calls for adding eight more firefighters. What benefit is there to hire eight more firefighters? VFD is already in the 90^th percentile in response time. Page 21 of the report says, “VFD call processing time and turnout response time performance are excellent compared to other agencies studied by ESCI.” The actual turnout time is one minute and 21 seconds (81 seconds).

To support their recommendation for more firefighters, ESCI compares firefighting personnel per 1,000 population based on the 2016 National Fire Protection Association Study for the Western United States. By that measure, ESCI concludes Ventura Fire Department staffing is 38 percent below the Western US median. There is no support for the formula by any data, and it appears to be irrelevant.

Third, the evaluation fails to recognize the number of firefighters added since Measure O passed. In that time, the Ventura Fire Department added twelve sworn officers, bringing its force up to 75—a 19% increase in the workforce. Compare that to Ventura Police (VPD). They added ten sworn officers, bringing the force up to 137—a 7.8% increase.

Fourth, the ESCI recommendations don’t mention the long-term financial impact of adding new firefighters to Ventura’s pension obligation. One estimate is that the city needs to set aside an additional $42,000 a year per firefighter to grow enough over 30 years to cover the pension benefits.

Ventura Fire Department Looks For More Money

Fifth, ESCI recommends on page 195, “Recommendation 1-G: Explore the option of an additional special measure to support (V)FD operations and to obtain a larger share of Measure O to support recommendations to increase staffing.”

Over time, the purposes of Measure O get fuzzy. None of the current City Councilmembers were on the Council when voters passed Measure O. The Measure O literature specifically said the city would not use the money to supplant existing positions. Yet, the Ventura Fire Department is asking for more employees paid for by Measure O. VFD seems to forget that at the time, Ventura Fire received funds from Measure O to keep Fire Station N^o. 4 operating. They have also received a 19% increase in firefighters since Measure O.

With the city’s other needs—aging infrastructure, pension liability obligations, homelessness, and more—Ventura Fire’s requests seem self-interested.

Sixth, on page 197, ESCI presents, “Recommendation 2-H: Explore the implementation of a fire services subscription program, where residents pay an annual membership fee for the fire department service.” This recommendation seems insensitive. It wasn’t that long ago that the City of Ventura tried to impose a 9-1-1 fee on all emergency calls. That decision was abruptly reversed, but not before the city collected the fee from several residents and never returned it.

Open Debate On The Issues

The ESCI report is 227 pages long. There is much detail to comprehend. Mayor Sofia Rubalcava introduced a motion to create a subcommittee for a more detailed of the fire department’s report and recommendations.

Jim Friedman objected, saying, “We made it clear we’re not interested in kicking the can down the road. Why a whole layer of discussions and subcommittee? That part I don’t understand.”

Councilwoman Lorrie Brown said she wanted the council to take action on the study and was not in favor of a committee taking months to make a recommendation.

Councilman Mike Johnson said he didn’t want to wait and see if a sales tax gets passed.

“There are things we can do,” Johnson said. “I look forward to really getting into the numbers. I’m not looking forward to making the hard choices, but I’m looking forward to having that discussion with my colleagues.”

It bears mentioning who has received campaign money from the Ventura Fire Department.

In the end, Mr. Friedman won. There will be no subcommittee to do a thorough evaluation of the recommendations.

Editors Comments

There are too many flaws in the ESCI Operational Assessment of the Ventura Fire Department for the City Council to decide where and how to spend the money. We urge the Council to be extremely skeptical of the data presented. We hope they will see the same flaws and incompleteness in the report that we’ve reported here.

The crucial, objective metric on which residents can judge Ventura Fire is response time. And VFD’s response time is in the 90^th percentile. It will be hard to improve on that.

The City Council must realize from this study that Ventura no longer has a Fire Department. It has a medical triage team in red trucks. It’s irresponsible to focus on new fire trucks and adding new fire stations when 73% of their work is emergency medical services, not fighting fires.

To ask citizens to pay an additional tax to support the fire department is untenable. Residents will be paying higher water and wastewater bills, and they’re already paying higher electricity bills to support the Clean Power Alliance.

The notion of a subscription fee for fire department services seems absurd. Ventura already tried a similar idea with the 9-1-1 fee, and citizens rejected it.

Suggesting the Council divert money from Measure O to support the Ventura Fire Department violates the spirit—and the stated purposes—of Measure O. If the city does use Measure O money, it will send a clear message to voters, “All political promises are worthless.” The Council will use Measure O for whatever purposes it wants. Councilmember Friedman will appear prescient when he said, “It’s all green and it’s all spendable.” Measure O and the General Fund are really all the same money.

In the end, progress will happen if Ventura Fire rethinks the role of VFD. They can no longer rely on a 100-year-old tradition of firefighting. Trying to extort more money from residents to pay to continue doing things the way they’ve always been done is unconscionable. It gives the appearance that Ventura Fire is more interested in fighting change than fighting fires. Citizens should expect more from our fire department. We should expect thoughtful solutions, not ones that throw more money at existing problems.

Insist The City Council Seek More Original Solutions

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It Was The Best And Worst Of Times For Ventura In 2018

January 15, 2019/in Newsletters/by VREG Editors

“Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”— Winston Churchill

Last year was a most transformational year in Ventura’s history. Every aspect of life in Ventura was affected. The city was in the national spotlight, twice. Leadership changed but at a high price. Old ways of doing business didn’t change, though. Overall, it was a year to remember.

December 2017

To understand 2018, you must appreciate December 2017 and the Thomas Fire. The fire destroyed 535 houses in Ventura. The city was the epicenter of the national news.

Thirteen months later, Ventura had the opportunity for the most significant economic stimulus since the oil boom but failed to capitalize on it. Rebuilding the homes will stimulate the local economy by $350 million. The only thing standing in the way of that economic windfall is the city.

What are the lessons we learned from the Thomas Fire? Good question. Thirteen months later we still don’t know that answer. The city has yet to produce a report on its findings. [Read More]

January 2018

The Montecito mudslides closed off transportation into and out of Santa Barbara along the 101. Many Venturans that work in Santa Barbara were unable to commute.

March 2018

The City Council waffles on second-story height restrictions for rebuilding Thomas Fire victims’ homes, delaying the rebuilding process and adding costs for many. [Read More]

April 2018

Jamal Jackson slays Anthony Mele, Jr. on Ventura’s promenade. Once again, the city was thrust into the national news.

Ventura Police increased patrols along the promenade. The City Council approved funds to continue the patrols. Arrests increased after the incident.

Post-incident, the Police department reviewed its procedures. There have been changes to the security camera monitoring as a result. The review also concluded the call was not improperly prioritized when it came in two and a half hours before the murder.

Since May, the community has returned to business as usual. [Read More]

June 2018

Ventura Police officers sign a new contract with a 5% pay increase. The timing of the announcement was questionable, but the contract was a fair one. [Read More]

July 2018

The City Council instructs Ventura Water to focus on connecting to State Water over Direct Potable Reuse (DPR). DPR takes recycled wastewater and injects it back into the drinking supply.

The City Council approves a $600,000 per year “roving” fire engine and three paramedics over the objections of Interim City Manager Dan Paranick. Ventura Fire hired two of the three paramedics before the Council approved the funding. [Read More]

September 2018

Ventura Water hires eight new positions. The City Council approved the department’s budget that included these positions. Ventura Water based that budget on Direct Potable Reuse (DPR) projects being the city’s top priority. When the Council realigned Ventura Water’s priorities in July, the department didn’t adjust its manpower requirements.

October 2018

Ventura Water begins installing new digital water meters. It is a $9 million project that will take three years to complete. The new meters allow more precise leak protection. The new meters also measure water usage more precisely. You can expect your water bill to be more accurate, too.

November 2018

Ventura held its first City Council elections by voting district. Lorrie Brown (District 6), Jim Friedman (District 5), Erik Nasarenko (District 4) and Sofia Rubalcava (District 1) won. The candidates raised a record amount of money, despite campaigning in districts instead of citywide. The cost-per-vote skyrocketed to win a seat from $2.75 per vote in the last election with an open position to a record-high $26.42. [Read More]

December 2018

Alex McIntyre starts as City Manager. He replaces Mark Watkins who resigned in November 2017. The city had operated with an interim-City Manager since January 2018. McIntyre comes to Ventura from Menlo Park where he was City Manager for six years.

Ventura’s new City Councilmembers are sworn in. The Council has four female members: Lorrie Brown (District 6), Cheryl Heitmann (District 7), Sofia Rubalcava (District 1) and Christy Weir (District 2). Ventura has its first female-majority City Council in history. It’s also the most diverse set of Councilmembers the city has ever had.

Wish The Councilmembers Good Luck In 2019

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Special Precaution Continues After Murder On the Promenade

January 9, 2019/in General News/by VREG Editors

Jamal Jackson stabbed Anthony Mele, Jr. to death on Ventura’s Promenade in April 2018. Once again, the city was in the national news.

Poor Judgment Exercised With The Murder On The Promenade

Jamal Jackson

Jackson was a repeat offender and homeless. Many citizens jumbled his criminal act and his impoverished state. Ventura Police received a call that Jackson was acting suspiciously. Patrol units were not immediately available. Instead, the dispatch center observed Jackson via remote camera. Two and a half hours after the initial call, Jackson committed the murder.

The crime prompted an immediate reaction by Ventura Police. First, patrols along the promenade increased. At first, two officers patrolled the boardwalk 20 hours per day. Shortly after that, police expanded the patrol radius to include downtown. In July 2018, the City Council approved funds to continue the patrols. Now two officers patrol 12 hours per day. Arrest data increased since the incident. Ventura Police still deal with a significant number of recidivist criminal homeless.

Police Response To The Murder On The Promenade

Following the incident, the Police department reviewed its procedures. Chief Ken Corney admitted lousy judgment. Substituting video monitoring for an officer responding was not the right choice. Since then, there have been changes

to the security camera monitoring. The changes include:

Extra cameras
Active surveillance
More training
Changes in monitoring policy
Re-prioritization of Calls for Service response.

The review also concluded police adequately prioritized the call when it came in.

Policing The Homeless Gets Harder

In September 2018, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in Martin v. Boise. The ruling hinders Ventura Police’s ability to curb homelessness. The court concluded that imposing criminal penalties for sleeping outside on public property violates homeless persons’ Eighth Amendment rights. They deem it cruel and unusual punishment.

Within two months, the community returned to business as usual. Public outcry diminished, but the problem of criminal homelessness continues.

You Have Reasons To Be Concerned About Ventura’s Pensions

August 27, 2018/in Newsletters/by VREG Editors

“Courage Cannot Be Counterfeited. It Is One Virtue That Escapes Hypocrisy”

—Napoleon Bonaparte

The City of Ventura has a spending problem, and it’s time for an intervention. The fiscal crisis is not widely understood. At its core are the promised unfunded pensions for public employees.

Ventura’s pension contributions for 2018 are $17,410,000. The annual contributions will balloon to $32,630,000 by 2025. That’s a compound annual growth of 9.4%. No other expense item in the US economy is growing that fast. As of 6-30-15, the entire unfunded liability for the City of Ventura is over $169.2 Million ($169,292,212). It is not possible to get out of the CalPERS retirement plan. As of 6-30-15, to terminate the CalPERS plan would costs $1.2 Billion ($1,197,537,902).

Ventura is not alone. Cities up and down the state must face up to the problem. However, Ventura’s pensions are a debt time bomb.

Ventura is already paying 34 cents to CalPERS for every dollar it pays its active employees. In six years, that amount will go up to an unsustainable 51 cents for every dollar of payroll—more than any city in Ventura County. Pensions are already crowding out other essential city services like filling potholes, fixing infrastructure and even hiring more police officers and firefighters.

How Pensions Affect You Directly

Pensions Will Crowd Out Needed City Services

Expect senior programs and after-school activities to disappear first. Next, the city will defer maintenance and capital

expenditures. The city will extend service contracts for police cruisers, city vehicles, and equipment. These things represent only a fraction of Ventura’s budget. Reductions in services will never be enough to stop the detonation of the pension debt bomb.

Ventura can only fix the problem by raising taxes, cutting needed services, or both. There is a direct correlation between the money Ventura spends on pensions and the city’s ability to pave streets and repair sewers.

Reckless Spending Continues

Despite knowing this, Ventura’s City Councilmembers increase spending without regard to the long-term consequences.

The Roving Fire Truck Crew Adds To Ventura’s Pensions

Last month, the Council voted 4-2 to give the fire department $600,000 for a roving paramedic fire engine. City staff, the fire department and the fire union proudly pointed out grants and budget manipulation will pay the first year expense. No one on the Council asked what happens in year two and beyond. Fire Chief David Endaya asserted Ventura needs the engine because of an increase in calls. Yet he lacked specifics about whether there are more cost-effective ways to deliver the services.

To their credit, Councilmembers Mike Tracy and Christy Weir voted “No.” They wanted more details. Nonetheless, the Ventura Fire Department got its new engine, even though no one gave adequate data to support the decision.

Interim City Manager Dan Paranick did not recommend funding the roving engine for this year. Paranick worked with Fire Chief Endaya, but in the end, he said, “I haven’t gotten myself to a place where I’ve been comfortable yet, where I could sit here and justify the need based on the demand. That’s why I did not recommend it.”

Days later, he announced his resignation to accept a position closer to his home in Simi Valley.

The Fire Department isn’t the only group benefiting from the spendthrift City Council. Earlier this year, the police received pay increases of 5% adding to the city’s future pension liability.

In 2017, 90 of the top 100 salaries on the city payroll are police officers and firefighters. Every one of the Top 100 earns more than $198,800 in pay and benefits. For perspective, the average family in Ventura earns $66,000 per year with two wage earners.

In reality, Ventura pays pensions for 3.3 retired police and fire employees for every two public safety employees on the job. That’s untenable.

So how is the Ventura City Council managing spending, and considering the long-term financial effect of their decisions? In short, they’re not.

Elected officials first believed the extra $10.8 million collected from Measure O would afford them the ability to meet new programs. But, Measure O is now a supplement to existing projects. Councilmembers frequently discuss the need for tax increases.

Moreover, it is not only about pensions.

According to the Capital Improvement Plan (CPI), Ventura Water Department insists on spending $538 million to convert wastewater into drinkable tap water. There remains the probability that water rates will increase by 200%.
Ventura’s golf courses lose $1.7 million annually on the debt they incurred.

When the money runs out, it has forced other cities to find solutions. They turn to the only tools they have at their disposal: raising taxes, cutting needed services, or both. Some even filed bankruptcy.

Economist Herbert Stein once said, “If something can’t go on forever, it won’t.” Ventura is on a trajectory that cannot go on forever.

Your Chance To Make Ventura Better

This November, Ventura has an unprecedented opportunity to tell the City Council, “No more new spending.” There are three open seats on the Council in this November’s election.

Past financial overspending must stop. New Council Members with an economic understanding of operating a city must prevail. Voters need to look past the individual candidates’ popularity to carefully consider their ability to understand and manage city finances.

Desirable candidates will:

Treat city money as if it was coming out of their pocket, which it is
Understand the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) before taking office
Understand the city budget and capital expenditure projects
Hold city staff accountable to present successful projects to the Council
Hold the City Manager accountable for results
Make difficult decisions knowing their decisions will anger some constituents
Do the right thing, not the same old, easier thing
Represent of the citizens of Ventura, not be a cheerleader for city staff recommendations

Editors Comments

You have the opportunity to make Ventura better this November. Voter turnout needs to be high for this crucial City Council election if Ventura is to improve. Decisions these new Councilmembers make will immediately impact the city’s economic vitality. We mustn’t leave this election to chance.

Encourage people to vote. Educate everyone on the grave crises facing the city today. Ask candidates how they plan to address these crises. Listen to their answers. Hold them accountable after they’re elected. If we do all these things, we’ll improve the chances Ventura will remain fiscally sound now and in the future.

Hold These Councilmembers Accountable For Their Past Spending

Below you’ll find the photos of our current City Council. Click on any Councilmember’s photo and you’ll open your email program so you can write directly to that Councilmember.

Let them know what you’re thinking. Tell them what they’re doing right and what they could improve upon. Share your opinion. Not participating in government weakens our democracy because our city government isn’t working for all of us.

Neal Andrews, Mayor		Matt LaVere, Deputy Mayor
Cheryl Heitmann		Jim Monahan
Erik Nasarenko		Mike Tracy
Christy Weir

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Ventura asks for more money in Measure A

Shameless Politicians Propose Measure A For More Money

September 1, 2009/in Newsletters/by VREG Editors

“No creature smarts so little as a fool. Destroy his fib, or sophistry – in vain! The creature’s at his dirty work again.”—Alexander Pope

911 TAX – POSTMORTEM

[THE GREAT BOONDOGLE. WHERE DID THE MONEY GO?]

The City Council keeps saying they do not understand why the citizens of this community have such distrust for city government. They are not likely to understand if they are not listening.

Ventura refunded only part of the money collected in the 911 Tax.

No need to again examine the history and the woof of the pathetic effort of the City Council to tax 911 calls, but it does serve to examine the aftermath.

This idea, spawned by our City Manger, Rick Cole, followed on the heals of the defeat of his Measure P6. Of course he has no public exposure and can duck any critics’ comments because he was not elected to office, and did not vote for the tax. Councilmen Monahan, Summers and Brennan, currently up for re-election, however were elected to office, and they did vote for the 911 tax.

Citizens protested, but did so in vain. Lawsuits followed, and only then did the Council take steps to set this all aside to avoid being tagged with a huge bill for attorneys’ fees if they lost. Make no mistake, they were going to lose. It would then be logical, and reasonable, to assume that the money collected under this concocted scheme would be refunded to the people who were FORCED to pay into the program, right? Au contraire!

Citizens left hanging for refund of over $1.2 million from 911 tax.

Our fine City government collected $1,220,005 during FY 08-09, representing 54.2% of the hoped for annual revenue of $2,250,000. Once the law was cancelled you were then offered a refund, if you could prove you paid, only if you had “opted out”, and only then if you attached the necessary documents, and jumped through the required administrative hoops to get your money. Why only if you “opted out”? Because the City Manager surmised that if you did not “opt out”, you must have chosen to “opt in”, meaning that you wanted the city to have this money, and it was your intention for the city to keep the funds all along.

Only $17,096 was refunded. The City kept over a million dollars, used $800,000 to balance the 2008-09 budget and kept $402,909 in the general fund for use this year. Having bilked the citizens of this community, and having failed to refund the money to those who paid, it would seem that at least the Council would have the decency to do the right thing and use the money for its declared purpose – fund the 911 system! That did not happen. Instead the money was stuffed down the proverbial rabbit hole. [okay! used for other expenses like?]

Editors Comment:

Are we hoping in vain that this Council may exhibit some shame, and do the right thing?

THE NEW SALES TAX- “MEASURE A”

[COUNCIL ASKS VOTERS FOR MORE MONEY TO FINANCE FAILED POLICIES]

Ventura politicians are shamelessly asking for more money with Measure A.

It has been clear, since Measure P-6 was defeated at the polls, that this Council would attempt a new sales tax measure. This new measure to raise the city sales tax by ½% was put on the ballot for November, 2009, on a vote of 6 to 1. Councilman Neal Andrews opposed that measure.

In the process of approving Measure A the Council referred constantly to the fact that a “Blue Ribbon Committee”, appointed to consider this proposal, had recommended that a sales tax increase be put on the ballot for public approval, and that the tax be automatically cancelled after 4 years. This was something to behold — that this Council would have our good citizens believe that the Council really needed a Blue Ribbon Committee’s approval in order to place a new tax measure on the November ballot. Members of the Council appointed a majority of the blue committee because they were “friends of the Council” (FOC), so the result was always a foregone conclusion. Former Mayors Jim Friedman and Sandy Smith were on that committee, and each was heard to smirk that they thought “the Council was just trying to seek political cover”.

Now the spinning and fact distortions begin anew. As you are reading you will recall what happened when P6 was proposed. The Council wanted a 1/4% special tax for police and fire. That measure failed, as well as the lawsuit filed by “the City” ( Actually, it was filed by a political action committee headed by Assistant Police Chief Corney, to which each Council member contributed money) against citizens who opposed the tax. They lost that too after paying their Santa Monica lawyers $30,000.

The Council and the City Manager vowed to come back at the citizenry with a new tax. Thus Measure A was put on the ballot seeking double the amount of money sought by P6, but this time as a general tax, which only requires a 50%+1 voter approval. Their hope is that since they received 61.95% of the vote on P6, ergo the voters will approve a ½% general tax increase.

So the rhetoric and distortion begins by the cabal controlling “the City”. To avoid the label of being a “special tax”, requiring a 2/3 vote, the Council decided to promise to spend any new sales taxes in certain ways, but without telling the voters at the same time that they were not obligated to do so [ one could almost see a sly grin and wink from the 6 Council members as this statement was made]. Their promise of how they will spend this $10,000,000 in new sales tax money may prove to be their undoing.

If approved by the voters it will be interesting to see how Measure A survives a legal challenge, and it will be challenged under Proposition 218. That state proposition requires a 2/3 voter approval for any tax devoted to

Police and Fire departments would receive 40% of the money collected from Measure A.

a special purpose as opposed to general tax, which is collected and placed in the general fund. The Council hopes to avoid this problem by saying the funds are “not required” to be used for any specific purpose, yet they announce that the funds will be used for a specific purpose as in inducement to get voters to approve the measure.

Interestingly one of the specific promises made by this Council, as an inducement to voters to approve the measure is that they will spend 40% of the new tax on police and fire — the exact sum they sought to raise in the failed P-6 measure.

Today it’s hard to know what the City is really doing, except that most of the individual Council members are campaigning hard to convince you that you should ignore the waste and spendthrift policies of the past and impose the new tax. They do not want to address the underlying economic malady – overpaid public employee unions and the millions wasted in ill advised decisions like the plan to narrow Victoria, or the ill-fated 911 tax or increasing the fire department retirement programs by 50%. Councilman Fulton, who is also campaigning hard for the incumbents advised one contender that he could not approve of their candidacy because they (the Council ) would lose “consensus” – he really means control. He also stated in a public meeting that we should forget the past and move on. So how, again, was the 911 tax money spent?

Editors’ comments:

Only a fool does not learn from the mistakes of the past.

THE STATE STRIKES

It is now official. Remember that money that you sent in for property taxes, and which is supposed to be returned, in part, to our community? Well our fine state government has decided that to correct their mismanagement and budget deficiencies by taking the money that is supposed to be returned to the cities. Thus our City will not receive $2,760,358 that would be normally returned. We have been forced to loan to a state government that has achieved junk bond status in the market place.

The money is not gone, just delayed in delivery. Of course the State promises to pay this back in 3 years. How about interest? The answer we get is that this will be set by someone and sometime in the future — you know the line — “trust us”.

It gets worse. In addition to the loss to the general fund, the Redevelopment agency has lost $1.2 million, and that will never be repaid. It is gone. Makes you wonder if Ventura had spent some more Redevelopment agency funds in the last 2-3 years, whether there would have been any funds to raid?

CITY COUNCIL USES A SMOKESCREEN

[NEVER LET A GOOD CRISIS GO TO WASTE]

This City Council again has to scramble to adjust their budget to allow for this loss. The hyperbole and spin from City Hall, and the proponents of this tax is that we really need the new sales tax because they have adjusted the budget as much as they can, employees have taken a 5% pay reduction and our State Government has taken our money. What is a poor City Council to do? Long before the state did its most recent raid on City funds the die had been cast. The ½% sales tax was already in the plan. The City Council members are campaigning hard for the new tax as if the problem is all due to the State and they had some great insight – in short playing the fear game as a reason for the voters to approve the new tax.

Opponents point out that such a tax is regressive, that business has never prospered in such in an environment, that even though there is a 4-year sunset provision the Council proposes to use the new tax money to make long term commitments to police and fire (40% of the new tax money), and that when the 4-year period is up the Council will go back to the voters arguing that if we do not extend the tax there will be cuts in services — you know the old saw — crime, untimely emergency responses to medical emergencies, etc. The opponents also point to the spendthrift policies of this council over the last 6 years, for example $1,000,000 alone was spent to narrow Victoria Avenue. That should be money in the bank, but instead is sitting in the pockets of City employees and Los Angeles consultants. There are $13,000,000 of such expenditures, which should be in the bank, but is not because of unrealistic planning and spending by a liberal out of touch Council.

Mayor Weir is campaigning for the new tax and has stated publicly “we will not spend any money we don’t have”.

Editors’ Comments:

We hope each citizen will reflect on whether the past should matter in deciding how to vote.

Editors:

B. Alviani S. Doll J.Tingstrom

K. Corse B.McCord T. Cook

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