Food, Glorious Food: Can we be leaner and greener?

We all eat, yet what we eat and where it comes from has changed drastically in the past generation.

Some changes are for the better, some much worse.

We have more varied diet options, with fresh food available from across the planet. We also have lots more heavily processed and modified "food." The overall result is that Americans are heavier -- and heavily reliant on a food industry that exacts a serious toll on our environment.

As one of the remaining California counties with vibrant local agriculture, Venturans have the opportunity to make conscious choices that could emphasize the positive changes and begin to reverse the negative ones.

This Friday, September 4, a wide range of active Venturans are gathering at City Hall to organize for a "leaner and greener" Ventura covering a wide range of related issues:

• Promote children's health through better diets and exercise
• Improve workplace wellness
• Build and rebuild walkable, bikeable neighborhoods
• Encourage individuals and groups to establish gardens; access to healthy local food; and support local agriculture
• Help businesses and families go green

Cos-sponsored by the Ventura Unified School District, VC LEAN (the countywide coalition for healthy, active diet and life) and the City, the event runs from 9 AM to noon. It will be kicked off by welcoming remarks by School Board President Mary Haffner and Mayor Christy Weir. Charlotte Dickson of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy will outline what other communities are doing on this issue and then participants will break up to tackle specific issues and how to coordinate what is already happening with what else should be happening.

A healthy light lunch follows concludes the event. It will be catered by Main Course California, a healthy new restaurant and catering business. Donation for the lunch is just $10.

Back in 2005, Ventura embraced health and active living in the General Plan unanimously adopted by the City Council. Our farmer's markets, agriculture preservation policies, staff wellness efforts and active recreation programs all support this important strategic vision. But stronger community partnerships could obviously accomplish much more -- so Friday's session is a great opportunity to work together for a "leaner and greener Ventura."

RSVP to asimmons@cityofventura.net if you'd like to come. The meeting will be held in the Community Meeting Room at City Hall, 501 Poli Street.

Killed in the line of duty

Wednesday is the twenty-five year anniversary of the death of Ventura's K9 Sonny (pronounced “Sony”) who was shot in the line of duty on August 26, 1984.

Specially-trained police dogs are a key part of Ventura's law enforcement team. "They do things that planes or helicopters can't do," marvels Sgt. Jack Richard, whose two decades of experience with K-9 police dogs has made him a statewide expert. He tells the story of using seven officers to hold a square mile perimeter to isolate a dangerous suspect. "It would have taken 25 additional officers to search an area that large, but with a single dog, the suspect was located hiding in a lemon tree invisible from the ground or the air." The suspect tried kicking the dog. Bad move. He ended up being pulled out of the tree by his foot.

But clearing buildings and pursuing fleeing criminals aren't the only useful roles for the K-9s. Their sense of smell so far exceeds humans that they are also invaluable at locating lost kids and criminal evidence. "I've seen a dog find a knife in a strawberry field," Richards recalls. "Their training means a kid can come up and pet them -- and on command a moment later they can outrun and bring down a dangerous criminal."

They also fiercely protect their officer partners as Sonny did 25 years ago. Dogs are not normally used against armed suspects unless officers have the advantage of surprise. In this case, Sonny was deployed to subdue the suspect from behind, but his killer wheeled and shot Sonny twice in the head.

Sonny's partner was Officer Vern Alstot, who is now a Battalion Chief with the Ventura Fire Department. The bond between K-9s and their police officer counterparts is extraordinarily close. The dog and human not only work together, they live together and the devotion of K-9 dogs is legendary. “Even after twenty-five years it is still hard for me to appropriately describe the connection an officer develops with their canine partner," Alstot comments. "I will never forget his dedication and loyalty."

While the suspect was later convicted of the crime he was being pursued for committing, he was not charged with the death of the K-9. As a result of this incident in 1985 California State Senator Robert Presley successfully introduced an amendment to Section 600 of the California State Penal Code (PC), which made the killing of any police animal a felony.

In tribute to Sonny's service and sacrifice, Ventura patrol cars will be displaying a sticker commemorating the anniversary of his loss. His name is also scheduled to be added to the "Faithful Partners" memorial at the University of California Davis, which honors California police canines killed in the line of duty.

600 active young people making a difference

For the second year in a row, the entire incoming freshman class at California Lutheran University will be spending a day cleaning up the Ventura River bottom. Last year's clean-up removed more than five tons of trash from the Ventura River bottom.

In tough economic times, government services have been reduced. Ventura cut $11 million to balance this year's budget. But that doesn't mean that we can't be creative and work together for a better community.

On Monday, August 31, 600 students from will join forces with the City's Volunteer Ventura! and work alongside staff from the Community Services, Public Works/Environmental Services, Police, and Fire departments for the City's largest annual volunteer project. Cal Lutheran president Chris Kimball, along with staff, faculty and cabinet members, will participate in the event.

Student volunteers, City staff, and community members will begin work along the beach at the Ventura River mouth and spread out north along the riverbed to remove mountains of trash left behind by homeless encampments.

This event will reduce the waste washed into the ocean during the rainy winter months, while raising students' awareness of the social issues surrounding homelessness and its impact on the natural environment. Under new environmental regulatory requirements, the City of Ventura could be fined as much as $25,000 per day if trash levels exceed already stringent standards.

Stine Odegard, CLU's Coordinator for Community Service, declared, "We believe that getting incoming students to help with the river clean-up in their first few days on campus is a great way to introduce them to CLU's commitment to service and justice and to connect them to the local community in a meaningful way."

The partnership extends well beyond Cal Lutheran and the City of Ventura. Local waste disposal company E.J. Harrison, Home Depot, the Water Store, the Salvation Army, Goodwill Industries, and Costco in Westlake provided services, donations and financial support to make the clean-up a success.

Last week, media around the State covered a push by business leaders to promote constructive Economic Development in California. Zoe Taylor, President/CEO of the Ventura Chamber was prominently featured, telling the story of how business, community and environmental leaders came together through our Economic Summit to build consensus and take united action. She urged California to pursue a similar approach.

"Partnerships" is more than a buzzword. Working together works. Carl Guardino, President of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, clearly spells out the formula for community success. "People often ask us how we've been able, in the face of intense competition, to keep Silicon Valley a world leader in technology. It's simple. Communities and regions that succeed are the ones that spend at least 80% of their time on achieving the 80% of the goals on which they agree. Communities that fail spend 80% of their time bickering about the 20% of their goals where they disagree. Nothing gets done and everyone blames everyone else. Shared success is the only way to go in today's world."

It's election time in Ventura, with 15 candidates for City Council and three ballot measures vying for attention. There will be lots of debate on issues of disagreement. But the bigger picture shouldn't be missed. When elections are over, everyone has to work together if we want to achieve the vision of Ventura's citizens for a better future. Whether it is students wading into the river bed to clean up five tons of trash or 150 citizens banding together to work for economic development in their community, partnerships are the way to shared success.

State budget: adjusting to reality

To close the huge gap in the State budget, legislative leaders and the Governor struck a deal that would have grabbed local property tax revenues; local property tax from redevelopment areas; and the local share of gas taxes. At the last moment, the State Assembly balked at the gas tax theft, which would probably have been thrown out by the courts anyway.

That still leaves the City of Ventura having to "lend" the State of California $2,760,358. This is a "one-time" diversion of local property taxes. Under the State Constitution, the State must pay this back within three years -- with interest. We must also send the State $1,150, 913 of local redevelopment revenue, with more next year.

To balance our budget this year, the City Council cut $11 million -- from $96 to $85 million. This was done in March, by unanimous vote. No IOUs, no tax increases. Just "living within our means."

In November, local voters will be asked if they want to join Oxnard and Pt. Hueneme in temporarily raising local sales tax revenue to help restore vital services. But regardless of the outcome of that vote, Mayor Christy Weir spoke on behalf of the entire Council when she vowed in the annual State of the City address: "We will not spend money we don't have."

That is not the State approach. They continue to rely on borrowing or stealing from local government and accounting gimmicks to "balance" the budget. That means we probably haven't heard the last of State "take-aways." A feature of the proposed November sales tax measure is that because it can only be used locally, the State could not legally lay claim to any of it. Unfortunately, that is not the case with current City revenues.

Building a sustainable Ventura economy: Economic Summit Update

This week, three months after the Economic Summit, the City Council heard an update on how much has already been accomplished -- and what comes next.

Fifty-four ideas emerged from the May session. Every one of them is being pursued and progress is already visible. Two weeks ago, the Council unanimously voted for a set of major changes to the development entitlement process to provide more expeditious reviews:

• Provide all applicants a tentative schedule for each project listing all necessary review steps and an expected timeline. For projects with a net public benefit of$500,000 a year, monthly status reports would be provided to the City Council
• Initiate fiscal and economic analyses on large-scale projects
• Establish "pre-screen" public review to make sure important issues are addressed up-front rather than at the end of the entitlement process
• Enhance focus on customer service to improve communication, reduce duplications and identify timelines and deadlines
• Limit reviews of project plans to two hearings at any level of review
• Expedite reviews to provide a final determination within six months for projects not requiring environmental impact reports and 18 months' for projects that do with the promise to refund all entitlement processing fees if that deadline is not met, unless the applicant requests additional time for making changes to their submission.
  

But improving the city's entitlement process is only one piece of promoting prosperity. Working closely with Summit participants and the co-sponsors of the Economic Summit, the Ventura Chamber of Commerce, five working groups have been pursuing:

• Fostering a Green Economy to create new jobs and protect our quality of life
  
• Creating an Economic Development Commission, either as an advisory body to the City Council or as a stand-alone non-profit
  
• Identifying an "ombudsman" to help businesses work through the sometimes daunting hurdles of different rules and different regulators
• Promoting "high tech" jobs and businesses
• Coordinating efforts to train (and retrain) residents for Workforce Development for the jobs of the future.

Details of their efforts are presented in the staff report to the Council here (click on Agenda Item 13)

The Council unanimously adopted recommendations for moving forward, including joining an Economic Summit Coordinating Council under the umbrella of the Chamber of Commerce that will include representatives of the City, the Downtown Ventura Organization, the Ventura Visitor and Convention Bureau and public members.

The partnership with the Chamber has been a positive one, reflecting a recognition that while government and business won't always see eye to eye, they can accomplish more working together than at odds. Chamber President Randy Hinton recently told his members, "The most exciting achievement so far this year has been the successful creation of the first Economic Summit in partnership with the city of Ventura and the City Council. At the beginning of the year, I pledged the Chamber’s cooperative efforts to work with the city to pursue our many shared goals for economic prosperity. The Economic Summit, originally conceived last year under Ted Cook, my predecessor, is one of the results of that cooperation. The most exciting thing about that event is that it created real results.”

In the midst of the toughest economic times in seventy years, there are no shortage of ideas about how to improve things. What's key, as Hinton notes, is not good ideas -- it is following through on them. That's been the focus for the past three months -- and the positive momentum will keep going . . .