City Manager Skippers--and Rocks--the Boat : City Hall: Ventura’s John Baker, viewed by many as an abrupt, results-oriented person, faces perhaps his toughest task.

There’s a phrase circulating around Ventura City Hall these days to describe the changes the city has been undergoing since a pro-environment City Council majority was swept into office six months ago--a phrase coined by City Manager John Baker:

The city is like a big battleship, city officials are fond of repeating. Big ships can’t make 180-degree turns in a single maneuver--it takes a number of gradual, progressive turns to point it in the right direction.

“Yeah, I came up with that analogy,” Baker acknowledges. “I like to use it with the council members and staff so that they realize the city doesn’t change overnight.”

Implicit in the analogy is that the skipper of the ship in Ventura is none other than Baker himself, a retired Navy officer who served for years on the carrier Midway at the height of the Vietnam war.

“He runs a tight ship,” said John McWherter, the council’s elder statesman, with the benefit of his 17 years in office.

It’s not easy to dispute McWherter’s assertion--John Baker is viewed by many as abrupt and short-tempered at times, but he leaves no doubt of who is in charge.

“John can be very direct,” said City Planner Everett Millais, one of Baker’s closest aides. “He’s not very high on being a people-person, although he can be. He’s restless, nervous, and seldom sits still for more than an hour. But he’s one of the brightest persons I know, he’s a natural leader and he’s on top of everything that’s going on.”

Now in his eighth year as city manager, Baker is probably facing his biggest challenge since taking the job. With five first-term council members committed to changing the face of Ventura, it is Baker’s job to infuse the new council’s philosophy to the 650 city employees under his supervision.

It is by no means an easy task.

The city staff is being scrutinized by council members as never before, city officials say. Council members, for instance, have openly questioned the ability of the city’s Public Works Department in dealing with Ventura’s water crisis. And city planners are being required to explain in detail practically every development they approve.

The Parks and Recreation Department, on the other hand, has expanded its functions considerably to reflect the council’s bias toward environmental concerns.

Affordable housing, promotion of the arts and social services have become high priorities. Upgrading roads, improving City Hall facilities and other such “hard” capital improvements are no longer at the forefront of the city agenda, council members and city officials have said.

Baker acknowledges that all these sudden changes have made some members of his staff feel uncomfortable.

“Sure, some of them get frustrated,” he said, sitting impatiently on the edge of his office chair, his eyes shifting their focus from his computer screen to his visitor. “They’ve spent so much time doing things a certain way, they got comfortable with it.”

It’s hard to imagine that Baker would allow that to happen. Restless, intense and seemingly tireless, he spends the better part of his 60- to 80-hour workweeks pacing nervously about City Hall, from one office to the next, spelling out directives to his department heads, keeping council members abreast of his every move, sitting in on practically every committee and commission meeting.

“He just blows into the office, says ‘I need this and that’ and then blows out. And you’re left thinking, ‘Oh well, that’s just John,’ ” Millais said.

At City Council meetings, Baker rarely plays to the audience. Usually quiet and always dead-serious, his sporadic interventions are generally devoted to pointing out the legal or economic constraints of implementing a program or policy in which council members show interest.

He avoids drawing public attention toward himself. At a recent council meeting, for example, he stepped down from his seat to allow the assistant city manager to deliver a generally self-congratulatory report on the city’s efforts to improve the environment.

It is thus not surprising that some council watchers have made Baker the target of intense criticism.

“If there is any weak link in the way the city is run, that link is John Baker,” said John Middlebrook, a leader of the Alliance for Ventura’s Future, a grass-roots political group that helped three slow-growth candidates get elected in November.

Middlebrook blames Baker for Ventura’s water crisis and just about every other problem the city has, but he can’t point to any specific mistake Baker is guilty of committing.

Perpetual council gadfly Marvin Castleberry is even more unsympathetic: “Baker in my book should have been gone a long time ago. He’s got a very short temper and he tries to take it upon himself to get me off the City Council members’ backs.”

For the most part, however, Baker has stayed clear of controversy. One exception occurred when he was singled out last June during an impassioned appeal to the council from the city’s former accounting manager Angela Spaccia, who urged that a pay raise for Baker be turned down.

Spaccia accused Baker of protecting budget coordinator Michael Solomon from accusations that he had sexually harassed her. After investigating the accusations, Baker suspended Solomon for 20 days but refused to fire him, as Spaccia had demanded. Despite Spaccia’s forceful plea, Baker, who earns $99,900 annually, was granted the raise.

For whatever reason, Baker accepts that he’s not the most popular person in City Hall.

“I’d love to have everybody love me,” he said. “But in my position you just can’t have that. You can’t stay on this job long enough and have everybody like you. Sometimes you have to say no and people don’t like that.”

While Baker willingly agrees to discuss city issues, he is far more reticent than most public officials when it comes to disclosure of even the most basic information about himself.

Baker said he was born in Idaho but won’t say where. When recently asked his age, he replied that his age “doesn’t matter.” (City officials believe he is 48.) Baker, who is married and has two daughters, also refuses to discuss publicly anything about his private life.

After returning from Vietnam in 1972, he worked his way up the ranks of Oakland’s civil service ladder and served as assistant city manager before being hired as Ventura’s city manager in 1981.

Before Vietnam--he said he volunteered because he would have been drafted anyway--he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Idaho, a master’s degree in public administration from Washington University, and served as administrative assistant to the mayor of Seattle.

But beyond his career and his job, there’s not much more Baker is willing to discuss. He is quick to make the point that the only questions he feels obliged to answer are those posed by his seven “bosses” on the council.

And those bosses happen to be his biggest supporters.

“John is a workaholic, a very dedicated person,” Councilman Jim Monahan said.

“He’s a better politician than any of us,” Mayor Richard Francis said. “With seven bosses who disagree on a variety of issues, he has to be.”

Council newcomers Todd Collart, Cathy Bean and Gary Tuttle said they are impressed with Baker’s intelligence, work ethic, knowledge of the city and the efforts he puts into making sure council members are fully informed on how city issues are being handled.

McWherter praised Baker’s leadership abilities, loyalty and commitment.

“John doesn’t care if he doesn’t get along with people as long as he carries out the City Council’s policies,” the veteran councilman said.