City Council Race Erupts Into War Over Donations : Politics: Contributions by Orange County developers and local environmentalists have brought charges of attempts to buy votes.

A Ventura City Council election fought primarily over the issue of growth has turned into an unprecedented political spending war between a group of Orange County developers and local environmentalists.

A coalition of Orange County construction firms has contributed an estimated $5,000 to $7,500 to the campaigns of four of the 16 candidates vying for four council seats in Tuesday’s election.

Candidates who have received money from individuals and groups in the Orange County coalition include Mayor Jim Monahan, Councilwoman Nan Drake, Gary L. Nasalroad and Julie Van Maanen, all advocates of managed growth for the city. The largest share, about $3,500, has gone to Van Maanen.

A fifth candidate, Berta Steele, has received about $400 from one Orange County developer not associated with the coalition but rejected a $250 donation from Presley of Southern California, an Irvine firm that has led the Orange County fund-raising effort.

At the same time, the owners of Patagonia Inc., Ventura’s third-largest employer and its most environmentally active firm, have donated $1,600 each to three slow-growth candidates, and the company says it is spending about $15,000 for campaign advertising.

The three candidates who have each been given $1,600 by Patagonia owners Yvon and Malinda Chouinard are Cathy Bean, Gary Tuttle and Todd Collart, all running on a campaign to sharply limit growth.

The combined spending by the Orange County developers and Patagonia in this year’s council race--the most expensive in Ventura history--has touched off charges by rival candidates that both groups are trying to buy the council race.

Collart, 41, a supervising planner for Ventura County, said the money being spent by Patagonia “may be a way of leveling the playing field for environmental candidates” who cannot count on contributions from developers.

He criticized contributions from Orange County developers primarily on the basis that most were made as part of an organized fund-raising campaign run by a Westwood public relations firm--the Dolphin Group--on behalf of the Presley firm, which has two proposed housing developments pending in Ventura.

“I don’t like it,” Collart said. “Ideally, all the money for an election here would come from the community. It’s not an unexpected thing but the unfortunate part, in my view, is that they are using a professional organization to solicit these contributions.”

Just as Collart was critical of Orange County involvement in the campaign, however, Drake and other candidates who have received money through the Dolphin Group expressed indignation that Patagonia’s owners had decided to spend heavily in support of slow-growth candidates.

Describing Yvon Chouinard as a “surfer who lives on the Rincon,” Drake said she thinks that he opposes proposed developments such as establishment of a four-year university on the Taylor Ranch because college students might clutter up his beachfront property.

“Is he trying to buy the election?” Drake asked. “That shocks me more than a spattering of contributions from developers. More than anybody, I think, Patagonia has turned the race into a partisan race. They’ve grouped a whole bunch of us together, and I think it’s unfair.”

Saying he doubts that any candidate could be influenced by relatively small donations of $250 or more, Monahan said too much attention has been focused on the Orange County contributions and not enough on the fact that the individual donations have not been for large sums.

“We haven’t solicited Orange County money, and nobody wants Ventura to become another Orange County,” Monahan said. “A lot of the so-called large developers have sent me $99, which doesn’t even show up on the financial statements. But no amount of money can buy my vote, and I have faith in the integrity of all the candidates in this race.”

Van Maanen, 29, the first woman president of the Ventura Jaycees and a political intimate of Monahan, said the amount of money she has received from companies associated with the Dolphin Group is only a small percentage of the $17,118 in contributions that she has raised so far in her campaign.

While disclosing that the Dolphin Group has also provided non-monetary help to her campaign--”They’ve done a lot of word processing for me and provided ideas for my brochure”--Van Maanen said any suggestion that she might be obligated to the developers is an insult to her character.

Far more upsetting to her, Van Maanen said, is Patagonia’s involvement in the campaign. On Tuesday, she wrote to the California Fair Political Practices Commission requesting an investigation of Patagonia’s expenditures to see if they were made in cooperation or at the request of the candidates that Patagonia is endorsing.

State law forbids companies or individuals from contributing more than $1,000 to candidates who actively solicit such donations. But it allows unlimited donations otherwise.

“I am both shocked and concerned by millionaire Yvon Chouinard’s extensive financial involvement in the Ventura City Council race, a city where he doesn’t live, but where his major business interests lie,” she said in a press release. “I also demand that he immediately stop this grossly unfair influence-peddling and allow the integrity of this election to be saved.”

In response to Van Maanen’s charges, Kevin Sweeney, director of public affairs for Patagonia, said all of Patagonia’s advertising was done independently of the candidates it is supporting and was not at the behest of any candidate.

“Any entity can make independent expenditures of any amount if they are not at the behest of a candidate,” Sweeney said. “We have fully complied with the spirit and the letter of the law.”

In addition to $750 from Presley of Southern California, Van Maanen’s contributions include $250 from Robert Kahn & Associates of Newport Beach, $500 from Jonathan Petke Inc. of Costa Mesa, $500 from Hardy M. Strozier III Inc. of Costa Mesa, $250 from Dutchman Plastering of Orange, $100 from Boyer Engineering Co. of Costa Mesa and $100 from Telephone Systems of Mission Viejo.

Monahan’s contributions include $250 from Robert Kahn & Associates, $200 from J. M. Peters Co. of Newport Beach, $250 from Dutchman Plastering, $100 from Boyer Engineering and $100 from C&R; Telephone Systems of Mission Viejo.

Drake and Nasalroad also have received contributions from Dutchman Plastering of Orange and other firms and individuals connected to the Dolphin Group coalition.

Ventura City Planner Everett Millais said Presley of Southern California has two proposed projects in Ventura, one for 300 housing units at Telegraph and Kimball roads and another for about 250 units at Telephone and the extension of Saratoga Avenue.

He said Both projects are stalled because of the severe restrictions on housing development caused by the August adoption of the city’s comprehensive growth plan. The plan has forced the City Council into a prolonged study of how to allocate construction of 1,850 housing units over the next 10 years.

Ventura’s growth plan calls for a maximum population of 115,000 by 2010 and no more than 102,000 by 2000 unless state water can be obtained by that time. The main tool in enforcing growth limits is housing allocations.

While the City Council was planning to dole out its allocations during a lengthy meeting Monday night, it decided to postpone a decision until after the election. A dozen developers, including Presley of Southern California, had urged the delay.

Fred Karger, a vice president of the Dolphin Group, said Presley’s involvement in this year’s City Council race has nothing to do with any attempt to influence candidates to vote for more projects in the city, explaining that the company is interested only in becoming more involved in the community because of its pending projects.

Karger said about eight to 10 firms make up the Orange County group contributing to the campaigns of Van Maanen, Monahan, Drake and Nasalroad. He also said the Dolphin Group was also soliciting money for Steele.

Steele, however, said she was not aware of any fund-raising efforts by the Dolphin Group until receiving a check from the Presley firm for $250 last week. She said she decided to return it because she did not want to be involved in the controversy surrounding the Dolphin Group’s activities.

While Steele rejected funds from the Presley company, she said she did accept about $400 from Orange County developers Eric Wittenberg and James Livingston, who have built close to a dozen housing projects in Ventura over the last decade. Wittenberg and Livingston also have two large housing projects pending before the city, but Karger said they are not part of the Dolphin Group coalition.

“I’ve raised close to $20,000 and about $1,000 of that has come from developers,” Steele said. “I met with the Dolphin Group and they said they were looking for candidates to support. I didn’t think that meant they would be raising money.

“I’m for slow, managed growth,” she added. “There is nothing wrong with getting support from developers, but I decided not to accept the money because I don’t want to be put in that group.”

Steele and other candidates noted that Ventura and Los Angeles area developers have contributed substantial amounts of cash to numerous candidates in previous City Council races without the donations becoming a campaign issue. But an organized Orange County fund-raising campaign, Steele said, raises the emotions of voters who feel strongly that Ventura should not become another Orange County.

“It’s a buzzword,” she said. “It’s ‘Orange County developer.’ People are so frightened of what Orange County represents--fast growth.”

While the fund-raising efforts of Orange County contractors and Patagonia stirred the most controversy in the closing week of the race, this year’s campaign was important in several other respects, candidates and city officials agreed.

Patagonia’s Kevin Sweeney, an environmental activist who was press secretary for U. S. Sen. Gary Hart’s unsuccessful presidential race, said part of the significance of this year’s race is that four of the seven council seats are at stake in a year when the growth issue has reached a critical stage.

The key issues facing the city include the questions of developing Taylor Ranch into a university site, importing state water and limiting population growth in an effort to combat traffic congestion and air pollution, Sweeney said.

“What we’re trying to do in this election is raise the stakes,” he said. “To a certain degree, the Chouinards are fed up. In terms of being able to change a City Council, this is a phenomenal opportunity. This race is really important.”

While the best-financed candidates in the race, those who have raised close to $20,000 or more, include Monahan, Drake, Nasalroad, Van Maanen and Steele, another heavy-spending candidate is Rolf Krause, a retired businessman who has loaned himself $17,500 to run on a campaign emphasizing a crackdown on drugs, encouragement of a “strong economy” and support for planned growth.

Among the leading slow-growth candidates, Collart has raised the most money, more than $13,000, and has the most endorsements from mainstream political groups such as the Mobile Home Owners Coordinating Council, the Ventura Police Officers Assn., Ventura City Fire Fighters Assn. and the Public Employees Assn. of Ventura County.

Bean has raised $7,738 as of Oct. 21, while Tuttle raised $11,717.

Other candidates are Andrew M. Hicks, a retail clerk; Frederick D. Hoff, an insurance agent; Andrew Prokopow, a general engineer; Carroll Dean Williams, a perennial council gadfly; Bill Locey, a writer and landscaper; Thomas B. Caterson, a retired technician, and Marvin A. Kwit, a teacher who has the support of the anti-growth Alliance for Ventura’s Future.

In addition to the race itself, this year’s campaign pits some new Ventura political groups such as the Alliance for Ventura’s Future against more-established political powers such as the Mobile Home Owners Coordinating Council.

Grant Phillips, a leader of the Alliance for Ventura’s Future, said his group’s contribution to the campaign includes turning out as many as 75 volunteers to walk precincts on behalf of four slow-growth candidates that the group supports--Bean, Tuttle, Collart and Kwit.

Phillips said his group was formed in the aftermath of the 1987 council race, which saw the election of two relatively slow-growth candidates, Donald A. Villeneuve and Richard L. Francis. In some respects, he said, the 1989 race has been an extension of the campaign two years ago.

“This is a turning point for Ventura,” Phillips said. “That’s clear from the money that’s being spent. If we can only elect one of the candidates we are supporting, I would view it as a setback. If three or four of our people are elected, we would have a very new direction in Ventura’s growth.”

Of the candidates being supported by the Alliance for Ventura’s Future, however, only Collart has the endorsement of the Mobile Home Owners Coordinating Council, considered by some politicians to represent the single most powerful voting bloc in the city.

Since 1979, the mobile home council, representing up to 3,000 residents of mobile home parks in the city, has helped elect 15 of the 17 candidates it has backed for office. In recent years, however, its candidates have lost two races and some pro-environment candidates say its power may be declining.

Marion Woods, chairman of the coordinating council, said the mobile home group decided this year to back Monahan, Drake, Van Maanen and Collart not only because of their support of mobile home rent issues, but for their positions on broader political questions such as growth and importation of state water.

Woods said he believes that his group has as much political power this year as in the past, but conceded that there might be a question of whether the council can deliver a single voting bloc on the growth issue--as opposed to a year when the group’s only concern would be rent control.

“I guess it remains to be seen,” Woods said.

Ventura City Clerk Barbara J. Kam, who has supervised the last 10 City Council elections, said there is no question that this year’s race is different in several respects from others in the past.

“There is a keener interest by the public in growth, traffic, transportation and the availability of natural resources such as water,” she said. “And all of the candidates are hitting the street more this year, which is different.

“It would seem that for a variety of reasons, it costs more to run a campaign now,” she added. “What I’m seeing more this year are a lot of contributions coming from outside the city. Some are clearly from major corporations.”

Kam said that in previous council races, the voter turnout has ranged from about 25% to 28% of the registered voters. With more than 54,000 registered voters now, the likely turnout could be about 15,000, and the number of votes needed to win a council seat could be roughly 7,000.

Despite the controversies over outside spending and Patagonia’s involvement in the campaign, some of Ventura’s veteran politicians say this year’s race will be decided like most in the past--by hard work and the electorate’s basic belief that the primary qualification of a council member is common sense.

“The biggest change that’s happened is the expense. All the other is just walking the precincts and getting known,” said John McWherter, a council member since 1973. “They try to make a big thing about candidates getting money from developers, but I can’t imagine that’s going to influence the vote much.

“To me, name recognition is the most important thing, then the candidate’s position on growth,” McWherter said. “I don’t know if the Orange County business will have an effect or not.”