Putting Differences Aside

Ventura County’s five lawmakers say they strive to put aside personal and party differences when decisions are being made to split up state funds for local public works projects.

Lynn M. Suter, a capital lobbyist for the city of Ventura, agrees that the “vast philosophical differences” among the county’s three Republican and two Democratic lawmakers “don’t get in the way of the delegation responding to local needs.”

She cited a successful bipartisan effort in the past two years to pry loose a $3.5-million package to rebuild the Ventura Pier--severely damaged by storms in 1986--over the objections of Gov. George Deukmejian’s Administration.

“The pier funding would never have worked” unless the delegation had banded together, Suter said. The delegation includes Sens. Ed Davis (R-Valencia) and Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) and Assembly members Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria) and Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley).

Hart, the area’s senior lawmaker, who played a major role in the pier funding, acknowledged “one thing that can work to a county’s benefit is having people from both parties” champion local issues.

McClintock agreed, noting that he lobbied Deukmejian to support the pier funding. “The Republicans can intervene with the governor and the Democrats” in both houses of the Democrat-controlled Legislature, he said.

Hart also cited cooperation among lawmakers to obtain state transportation funds for projects such as the completion of the interchange of the Simi Valley and Moorpark freeways.

Not all the efforts have revolved around construction projects. Suter has organized delegation members to urge support for a $59,000 grant from the state Department of Conservation to expand Ventura’s residential recycling program. Under the proposal, about 100 recycling containers would be placed at apartment buildings, mobile home parks and condominium complexes.

Ventura County Supervisor Susan Lacey agreed that the lawmakers “seem to work well” when local projects are at stake. But, she said, McClintock “has a tendency to be less part of it” than the others.

McClintock has been embroiled in an ongoing public feud with the Board of Supervisors, especially Supervisor Madge Schaefer, over the county’s need for money.

“It’s a very liberal board, I’m a conservative legislator, and there’s bound to be friction on welfare spending, tax increases” and other issues, McClintock said.

But Schaefer complained that McClintock “doesn’t have a clue as to what is happening in the county.”