Someone to turn to . . . Ventura's new ombudsman

It isn't easy in this economic climate for businesses to thrive. On top of everything else, sometimes it is City rules and regulations that can be a hindrance. While most city rules and regulations are there for a reason, how they are interpreted and enforced can make a huge difference -- including whether a business opens its doors, closes its doors or moves to another community.

At the Ventura Economic Summit in May, participants came up with dozens of suggestions and recommendations to foster local prosperity. One of them was to appoint a city "ombudsman," a real person who could lend a sympathetic ear, help direct businesses down the right path and occasionally intervene to untangle red tape (in Sweden, every government has an "ombudsman" who has the power to investigate complaints and correct errors -- in America, the word has come to mean something a little different -- someone who can be a helpful guide and/or ally in navigating bureaucratic challenges.)

In August, the City Council unanimously approved appointing an "ombudsman" for Ventura to help businesses start, stay and grow. In our tight economic times, I was directed to find a way to do this within our budget. Yesterday, I appointed Alex Herrera to be this new role.

I thought hard about what kind of person would best fit the job. Someone from the private sector might bring a fresh perspective and be a little more understanding of the business point of view. On the other hand, someone with public sector experience might better know the ropes and be more effective in coming up with workable solutions. I selected Alex Herrera because he brings both.

Alex grew up in a family of entrepreneurs and started out in the private sector. But he also has ten years experience working for the City of Ventura, often directly with businesses in his most recent role in our Economic Development Division. He's also a perennial optimist who enjoys tackling problems and "getting to yes."

He will report directly to me (while continuing to work part-time in Economic Development.) He will have the authority to work with every department and he intends to be pro-active and visible in offering his services. You can reach him at aherrera@ci.ventura.ca.us or 805 654-7740.

The spirit of the Economic Summit continues to guide our efforts to promote a prosperous Ventura. For more on our partnership with businesses and the community to retain and attract high-value jobs and investment, see the City's website.

The Councilmember who first proposed the Economic Summit was Ed Summers, chair of the City Council Economic Development Committee. He welcomed Herrera's appointment as "indicative of the City's more positive approach to making business happen in Ventura, and a very proactive step in follow-up from the Economic Summit. We look forward to the results the position will yield."

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow . . .

There seems to be some gathering critical mass around preserving and protecting our future quality of life and standard of living here in Ventura County. I blogged about the series of community workshops finishing up this week, co-sponsored by the Ventura County Civic Alliance and public planning agencies. Marie Lakin attended one and participated in a mapping exercise to chart future growth. Attendees start with a map of current communities and asked to devise a way to allow for expected population growth in the next twenty-five years:

"Our group decided to invest in more mass transit opportunities with town centers situated near transit stations. These areas would encompass living, shopping and high-wage centers in one spot. To do this we had to trade in most of our single-family home tokens, a decision that didn't sit well with everyone in the group. We didn't add major highways, but added connector roads instead to alleviate congestion on major thoroughfares and freeways." (More of her experiences on Marie's blog.)

Then last week, SOAR (the organization behind the County's boundaries that require public vote on conversion of agricultural land to other uses) co-sponsored a morning discussion of regional planning out at Cal State Channel Islands. Nearly 200 community leaders and activists turned up to hear why the time is now for Ventura County's ten cities should work together to plan the future.

Hasan Irkhata, the Executive Director of the Southern California Association of Governments, predicted that over the next twenty-five years, Ventura County's population is projected to grow by another 200,000 to nearly a million people. While many shudder at that estimate, Irkhata pointed out that SCAG's conservative numbers have always been generally exceeded by actual growth in Southern California. Irkhata, Marsha Brown from the State Attorney General's office and Karen Schmidt of SOAR outlined the converging State planning and environmental laws (and lawsuits) that mean that if we don't work together to plan Southern California's future, others may step in and do it for us. Even more ominously, they made the case for why simply going down the road we are currently on is unsustainable and unaffordable. As I noted in my remarks, the one thing Ventura County residents agree on is that they don't want to end up like the San Fernando Valley, a sprawling sea of faceless development. (For more on the SOAR forum, see Kathleen Wilson's story in the Ventura County Star and David Comden's Ventura County Reporter blog.)

A key question remains: who will lead such an ambitious effort to involve thousands of citizens in a genuine visioning of our future? The Ventura County Transportation Agency has always been focused on mobility -- and our future involves far more than roads and transit. The Ventura County Council of Governments is made up of elected officials from all 10 cities and the county, but hasn't demonstrated much clout in the past. The Ventura County Civic Alliance is comprised of thoughtful community, environmental and business leaders, but is essentially a volunteer effort.

The realistic answer seems to be: all of the above and more. This is an opportunity for fresh leadership to bring people together around things everyone can agree on: a prosperous local economy, protecting the environment and providing quality housing for a growing population. Others regions have done it -- now it's our turn. Participants at last week's forum and in the series of workshops are taking the first step.

The "Glocal" economy

Like the beer commercials where one side shouted, "Tastes Great!" and the other "Less Filling!" -- most political "debates" exclude agreement. So it is with the debate between "Go Global!" and "Buy Local."

The Global Economy is not going to go away. For the last five hundred years, world trade has been growing and it isn't going to go away. But it isn't going to continue growing at the blistering (and reckless rate) of the past decade.

That provides an opportunity for local business, local products and local investment. For a while, cheap energy made it possible to hunt out cheap labor and undervalued raw materials almost anywhere on the planet. But that unsustainable binge is now in the hangover stage -- and we are all making resolutions to be a little more responsible about what we consume.

The obvious centerpiece of this is food. Kids growing up in America are the first generation in history not to know there is such a thing as seasons. Fresh fruits and vegetables are now available year-round by air freight. But it isn't just the calendar that's been conquered -- on a day when you can get fresh strawberries from Oxnard at our local Farmer's Market, if you go to Vons, they've been shipped nearly 400 miles from the Monterey Peninsula. For a huge supermarket chain like Safeway (which owns Vons), it's cheaper to buy in huge quantities for all stores nationwide than to try to look for local (or even regional) sources for your stores. Of course, the real costs of shipping fruit you pop in your mouth four hundred miles are missing from Safeway's bottom line. These include loss of freshness, dependence on foreign oil, costly road repairs, increased carbon emissions and air pollution, not to mention the missed opportunity of our dollars going to local farmers and distributors, who in turn spend that money in the local economy, enriching us all. For a long time, global economies of scale trumped both the shipping costs and the insidious toll on our health, environment and local economies.

So comes the movement to "eat local!" for the health, environmental and economic benefits. Will Ventura consumers stop buying Chilean apples in the summer? Probably not entirely. But if they start eating more Fillmore oranges instead, we might see the beginnings of a fundamental rebalancing of where our consumer dollars go.

It's a hard sell to ask today's stretched consumers to pay more for local product or to patronize local businesses. Some do, otherwise the lady that sells little $12 bottles of olive oil at the Ventura Farmer's Market would be out of business. But while such "luxury" (or "quality") choices wouldn't be nearly as expensive if two things changed: if the hidden costs of sending olive oil around the world were reflected in the price at the supermarket and if more local consumers bought locally, giving local businesses more of the benefits of "economy of scale." To stick with the olive oil lady -- her costs of driving her truck from her farm and renting a booth are the same whether she sells ten bottles or 100. While those aren't her only costs, the principle holds that if she sold 100 instead of 10 each Saturday, she could charge less than $12 a bottle. And the lower the price, the easier it would be for her to sell more . . . and so on.

Will those things change? The price of energy will -- as the global economy recovers, rising demand will send prices back skyward. The price of carbon emissions may also be on the rise if the world's squabbling nations find a shared path to curb the rise in global temperatures. The big question is: will consumers change? Will we start shifting our dollars away from (currently) cheap products from far away toward more locally sourced ones? Will we spend more money in locally-owned businesses -- and less in chain stores or online? That is a harder question.

What do you think?

10 month old baby alone in a motel room at 2 a.m.

It was 2:00 am on Wednesday morning when Ventura PD officers were dispatched to the Mission Bell Motel on Main, in response to a 911 call about a domestic disturbance. When our officers arrived, there was no response when they knocked on the unit door, but they could hear an infant crying inside the room. When they gained entry, the officers discovered a ten-month-old infant abandoned and crawling around inside the motel room.

It wasn't until thirty minutes later that the 24 year-old mother, a Las Vegas resident, was located walking near the motel.

She was arrested for abandoning the child and booked at Ventura County Jail.

It's hard to imagine mitigating circumstances for leaving a baby alone in a motel room in the middle of the night for an extended period of time. But it is up to the justice system to sort through the tragic circumstances that surround an incident like this, not city managers or readers of blogs and newspapers.

Yet I can't help but reflect on the job of cops.

Villify them, glamorize them -- call them heroes or call them names, practically everyone has an opinion. All too many of those views either seem to come from watching television or personal opinions about how someone felt the last time they were pulled over for a traffic ticket.

But who else goes out at 2 in the morning and ends up having to deal with situations like this?

Police officers are human beings. Yes, they have a job to do. In cases like this, it means taking charge of a 10 month old, tracking down the missing parent(s), making sense of the conflicting stories that come spilling out and making often agonizing judgment calls about whether laws have been broken and how to enforce them, knowing those decisions will inevitably be second-guessed by others who are sleeping in their beds at 2 a.m.

Still, no matter how experienced or trained they are, police officers can't help but be affected by situations like this. Many are parents themselves. After finishing their shift, they go home and try to put the emotions aside and live a normal life. But no one can do a job like that for years on end and not have it take a toll.

It's a tough job -- and someone has to do it. But the next time I hear some loud mouth generalizing about cops and what a lousy job they do -- I'll be thinking about a ten month old baby alone in a hotel room at 2 a.m. And thinking about what a lousy job we give to some of the most caring and courageous people I know.

"Positive, but disappointing growth for years to come"

Dr. Alice Rivlin was the last Director of Management and Budget to have balanced the Federal Budget, so her opinions come highly regarded. The former Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve spoke at this morning's general session of the ICMA conference here in Montreal.

She traced, with the benefits of hindsight, the now familiar sources of the global economic reckoning from outright greed and corruption to the larger problem of "overborrowing and overspending." On that foundation, she discounted the chances of a second dip ("possible, but not very likely") and inflation ("inflation happens when demand is high and the labor market is tight -- we should be so lucky.") But she ruefully acknowledged that "if I'm right, you are going to have continuing tough times" because the prospects are for "positive, but disappointing growth for several years to come."

"It's not going to be good for shopping centers, commercial property and new housing," she predicted, especially in regions (and at the edge of regions) where too much suburban sprawl occurred in the last boom. Consumers are simply tapped out and will need to pay down debt before they can resume spending.

To Rivlin, the greatest threats ahead are "looming Federal budget deficits" that are "the product of making too generous promises combined with uncontrolled per capita costs on medical care." This mismatch between our appetite and our ability to pay for it forces us to continue to borrow from other countries, particularly China and Japan. "We can't go on doing that," she noted dryly. "We're going to have to cut entitlement spending and raise taxes." Both are politically difficult, but necessary for the two parties to compromise on.

Turning attention to local government, she joked, "If you wanted an easy job, you wouldn't have gone into this line of work." Because local government revenues will recover even more slowly than the sluggish economy, there will continue to be a clash between citizen expectations and willingness to pay. The only bright side of this squeeze will be that it will be easier to win political backing for difficult, but overdue, efficiencies. There will simply be "no choice" about making even painful changes.

That certainly resonated with our challenges in Ventura. Having cut $11 million from this year's budget, we will either have to live with reduced services or pay more for years to come. The "recovery" predicted for the end of the year simply won't come strongly or quickly enough. "Living within your means" is not easy. But the alternative of "overborrowing" to finance "overspending" has been spectacularly discredited at both the Federal and State levels. We must and will take a different, more sustainable, route.

Thriving in the global economy -- cities learning from each other

"The bottom line is not dictated by the economy, it is determined by our need for clean water, clean air and healthy food from soil," declared Dr. David Suzuki, the Canadian scientist, environmentalist and award-winning broadcaster who opened today's session of the International City/County Managers Association annual conference in Montreal.

The theme of this year's conference is "Thriving in the Global Economy." Suzuki emphasized that economic sustainability derives from environmental sustainability. He noted that both "economy" and "ecology" come from the same Greek word for "household." The management of our household (economy) and the study of our household (ecology) are both rooted in our home: planet earth.

Suzuki traced the evolution of life beginning 4 billion years ago. "If I could push a button and transport us back to that time, we could not survive beyond a few minutes because the atmosphere before plants was filled with carbon dioxide." It was only the spread of plant life around the planet that eventually infused oxygen to the level that animals like us can survive.

Modern humans are just 150,000 years ago -- and would not have been particularly impressive in our debut. "We were the scattered clusters of naked apes in a world teeming with animal life, including woolly mammoths and giant sloths." He attributed our explosion into planetary dominance to the size of our brain -- and our ability to envision a future. He argued that the advantage of foresight is exactly what we are neglecting today as disturbing environmental trends send warnings about danger ahead.

The talk set the tone for three days of speakers, workshops and committee meetings that brings more than 2000 city managers and other public professionals together to compare notes, sharpen their skills and focus their attention on common problems. I'm here to learn. I also serve on the organization's "Sustainable Communities Advisory Committee" and on the Editorial Advisory Board for ICMA Press, which publishes a wide range of books, reports and training materials as well as Public Management Magazine. Today I hosted a roundtable session on Community Design that included participants from the U.S., Canada and New Zealand and tomorrow I will be doing the same for a discussion of "social media" -- like blogs, Facebook and Twitter and how these emerging technologies reshape how local government communicates with our citizens.

In these tight fiscal times, I'm conscious of the expense of this kind of training experience -- and wonder whether these kinds of conferences may be as endangered as the daily newspaper in the driveway. Attendance is down significantly this year. It appears to be less due to fewer cities participating than to fewer participants from each city. City Managers in year's past often brought potential leaders in their organizations to expose them to the wide range of issues facing cities large and small. More of us are taking advantage of video conferences, teleconferences and online training to keep current in our field and sharpen our skills. Adjusting to this trend, this was the first year that many of the annual conference's sessions were webcast.

There is also the challenge of time away from work and family -- although in the age of email on smart phones, work is frequently right there in your pocket. We're spending much less on training and conferences -- and economizing in small ways. I skipped the conference hotels and found a less expensive option a 15 minute walk from the conference center.

Yet the opportunity to hear, meet and interact with some of the most creative and successful professionals in the field of local government is still worthwhile. With more than 3 billion people now living in cities around the planet, it turns out we face common problems even if how we tackle them is vastly different. Learning from each other is part of tackling those challenges -- and I'm looking forward to applying what I've learned.

Preparing for Ventura County's future

On the eve of September 11, I hope it isn't disrespectful to note that Americans are magnificent at responding to crisis. When it comes to preventing them, not so good.

Whether it is safety for Metrolink trains or the unfolding collapse of the banking system, we tend to ignore warning signs. It's only when natural or man-made disasters strike, scandals erupt or national problems grow too big to be ignored any longer that we scramble to respond.

That's one reason that auditoriums are usually pretty empty when citizens are invited to help plan for the future. Those who do come tend to be either people with a particular ax to grind or long-time civic leaders.

But when something controversial arises in their neighborhood, you can count on people suddenly coming out of the woodwork.

As the father of three kids, I know how busy people's lives are. But for everyone rushing to get the kids to the Saturday soccer game or huddled around the kitchen table helping with homework -- there is another important priority for our children's future: how we plan today for the communities they will live in twenty years from now when they have kids of their own.

Coming up later this month, a broad coalition of public agencies and the Ventura County Civic Alliance are working together to invite citizens to have a real say in planning our future land use, transportation and economic policies for the County and its ten cities.

An analysis of current plans shows that projected population growth will mean that by 2035 development might cover 20 new square miles of land, and global warming-related greenhouse gases might grow by 30 percent. The upcoming workshops will give citizens an opportunity to actively map-out where they think tomorrow’s residents might live, which areas should be kept undeveloped, where new workplaces and shopping centers might grow, and how people might travel about the County.

“There are no wrong or right answers at these meetings,” said Patti Walker, Mayor of Fillmore. "Over the next few decades it will be a challenge for all of us to maintain what we love about Ventura County while more people come. Our hope is to hear how residents would respond to this challenge.”

Based on the maps citizens make at these workshops, three computer-based simulations will be developed of what life might be like in 2035. These snapshots of the future will be the focus of a public discussion over the coming months to learn which ‘future’ residents most favor. This is all part of an effort to make a long-term, county-wide game-plan for growth that is part of an effort called the “Compact for a Sustainable Ventura County.”

There are a variety of venues at different times of the day across the County:

Ventura–September 21, 1:30 to 4:00 pm
Ventura County Government Center Multi-Purpose Room
800 S. Victoria Avenue
Ventura, CA 93009

Oxnard–September 21, 6:00 to 8:30 pm
Traductores Españoles
Pacifica High School Student Dining Area
600 East Gonzales Road
Oxnard, CA 93036

Santa Paula–September 22, 6:00 to 8:30 pm
Traductores Españoles
Santa Paula High School Cafeteria
404 North 6th Street
Santa Paula, CA 93060

Thousand Oaks–September 26, 9:00 to 11:30 am
California Lutheran University Lundring Events Center
60 West Olsen Road
Thousand Oaks, CA 91360

Simi Valley–September 28, 6:00 to 8:30 pm
Simi Valley City Hall City Council Chambers
2929 Tapo Canyon Road
Simi Valley, CA 93063

Camarillo–September 29, 6:00 to 8:30 pm
Camarillo Library
4101 Las Posas Road
Camarillo, CA 93010

The Ventura time is not ideal -- during the time when most people are working. But if the meetings around the County are well-attended, it will encourage the sponsors to schedule more to accommodate greater interest than they anticipate. I know they'd be delighted . . .

Facing the pay issue: Ventura leads

Reading the on-line comment section of local stories in the Ventura County Star gives the impression that taxpayers are boiling mad about out-of-control pay and pension costs for city employees. Yet public servants who work for the City feel the public doesn't understand that Ventura city employees are generally paid less than even the average of people doing similar jobs in other cities -- and that every member of our staff took at least a 5% cut in compensation this year.

Unfortunately, the anonymous critics and the unhappy city employees haven't been talking to each other.

It is tempting to personalize the tough times we are all experiencing. It's easy to look for someone to blame, whether auto works, bankers, corporate executives or public employees. It's not surprising that taxpayers are asking questions about where their money goes.

But is public pay really out of control? Or are Ventura city employees being short-changed? In a world of soundbites and short attention spans, it's easy to spout opinions. But what are the facts?

The City Council has appointed a working group to tackle this controversial issue head on -- to sort out the facts and recommend solutions.

The "Compensation Policies Task Force" includes respected citizen leaders, the three members on the City Council Finance Committee (Neal Andrews, Ed Summers and Jim Monahan) as well as union representatives. They are working toward an October deadline to report back to the City Council.

Their first meeting was held today. The group elected retired city manager Ed McCombs as chair. Two business leaders, Randy Hinton and Bart Bluel were named co-deputy chairs.

Ventura's Chief Financial Officer, Jay Panzica, provided an overview of more than 500 pages of reports and data analyzing compensation costs, formulas and data. It's true that pension costs have risen in the past ten years -- but that's because the stock market boom a decade ago had so padded pension reserves that in 1999, the City owed nothing for it's share of employee pension costs. Looking back over thirty years gives a more balanced picture. Pension costs fluctuate as investment portfolios rise or decline -- and are lower today than they have been in the past.

Are pension benefits out of line? Since pensions are public, much has been made of the highest earnings of those who spent thirty or even forty years in public service and retired in senior positions. But keep in mind that career city employees do not participate in Social Security and rely instead on their city pensions. The actual average pension for all of Ventura's police and fire retirees is $38,131 a year. The average civilian pension is $14,391.

Few Ventura residents know that, unlike most California cities, Ventura does not offer any form of retiree medical coverage. In fact, according to a massive study done by a commission set up by Governor Schwarzenegger, these benefits are offered by 86% of the cities they surveyed. It is these kinds of expensive "extras" (and the foreclosure crisis) that drove Vallejo into bankruptcy. Despite the scare talk of some, Ventura has long lagged behind comparable cities in both pay and benefits. Ventura's current firefighter pension formula remains below that of every single other department our size or larger in the entire State of California.

All this and much more information in the task force's handbook is on-line for taxpayers to take a look for themselves here (click on the Compensation Policies Task Force 9/08/09 Meeting Materials in the lower right hand corner.)

Because they are published in the newspaper like ballplayer pay, public employee salaries and benefits will always get noticed and debated. We owe it to citizens to keep employee costs in line to deliver cost-effective services. Living within our means means shared sacrifice -- and Ventura city employees have rallied to that challenge. Effectively managing public resources is a vital part of maintaining a healthy community. The work of the task force is an accountable way for everyone to ensure that Ventura continues to lead in tackling tough issues and finding solutions.

River clean-up: A glimpse of our future

It's an old cliche that young people are our future. If it's true, I think we are in good hands.

Yesterday, 600 freshman from Cal Lutheran flooded the Ventura River bottom to haul out tons of trash from litter and homeless encampments. University staff, older student team leaders, community volunteers and City staff coordinated the massive clean-up effort. Mayor Christy Weir joined the students in the dirty job of picking up and bagging garbage.

The students worked in small teams, but as they streamed out of the thick undergrowth, the magnitude of the combined effort was evident.

I spoke with a number of the students about their experience -- and came away inspired by their idealism, intelligence, good humor and common sense.

Josh from Lakewood said the squalor of the homeless camps was unlike anything he'd ever encountered. "It makes quite an impression," he told me. "It makes you understand and appreciate how lucky we are."

The students encountered heat, snakes, mud and various unmentionables, but came away with an upbeat attitude. One team leader asked a student whether he thought he'd made a difference. "No, all by myself I don't think the litter I cleared changes the world," he replied. "But I hope that all of us working together -- and I hope being inspired to do more -- we've done something worthwhile."

Especially in the context of building long-term partnerships. Last year, Cal Lutheran came up with the idea of having their new students plunge into community service in a tangible and memorable way. Now it is growing into an annual tradition. No one knows how many lives will ultimately be changed by the experience. But it is clear that these young people welcome the opportunity for the learning, the bonding and the contribution that comes from community service.

At the end of the long day, as the students gathered on the Ventura beach to reflect on their experience, a team leader asked, "Which is a more valuable lesson -- talking about social issues in class or volunteering to do something about it?"

I was impressed by the answer offered by a thoughtful young man who answered, "You need both. We need to understand the larger picture that we can gain in school and to be personally involved the way we were today. Both reinforce our understanding how the world is -- and how it can be."

Indeed. I'm sure Cal Lutheran feels that they have accepted some very special students for this year's freshman class. Yesterday demonstrated how right they are.