Lofty Visions for Ventura Stop Somewhere Short of Goals : City Council: A study session produces paradoxes and dreams--and the dismay of one member.

If Ventura City Councilman Gary Tuttle’s vision comes true, in 20 years the city will be practically unrecognizable.

Public transportation would be composed of buses that would arrive at residents’ doorsteps as easily as home-delivered pizzas. Bicycle lanes would take up half the city streets and replace the car as the preferred mode of transportation.

As do Saudi Arabians, Venturans would drink purified seawater instead of the fresh water preferred by the rest of the world. Thanks to environmental conservation programs, the California condor would be just as common a sight in Ventura as the California sea gull. Ventura County would be home not only to a four-year university, but to a Tuttle-coached track team that would win the national championship.

Such a scenario may seem far-fetched, but Tuttle told fellow council members that it can be accomplished with careful planning, during this council’s first Visions for Ventura study session held Tuesday at the Clocktower Inn.

Tuttle’s vision failed to provoke much of a reaction. Councilwoman Cathy Bean noted that “counting on technology to solve all of our problems is a cop-out.”

With that, the council members moved on to the next subject: the age-old paradox of how to stop growth when slow-growth policies make cities attractive to prospective newcomers. Nobody could come up with an answer.

So it went at the Visions session--government officials outlined paradoxes and spelled out dreams but not much else was accomplished. City Manager John Baker--who organized the session to have a better idea of what the council members wanted to accomplish during their tenure in office--said that unless the council begins refining visions into goals, there is no real point in continuing the meetings.

Although a previous council held a similar meeting, it was the first time for this group of members, and Baker declared the exercise a success.

“Some of it might be pie-in-the-sky,” he said, “but you have to start somewhere. Most of the council members said ‘there may be no solution to this, but at least I can do some dreaming.’ ”

But Councilman Jim Monahan decided that he had better things to do Tuesday evening than dream: He skipped the Visions session and attended a St. Patrick’s Day parade meeting instead.

“I think we should get our heads in the real world and start worrying about the issues facing us today,” Monahan said. “I think sharing visions is useful if we keep it in the realm of reality and plan for the short term where we can have an influence.”

Monahan didn’t seem too impressed with Tuttle’s vision for Ventura’s future. “I don’t know what Gary was smoking,” he said.

Tuttle responded that he doesn’t necessarily believe all of his dreams will be realized, but that “if good things do happen, it’s going to be thanks to people with vision, not with closed minds.”

The council agreed to hold another Visions session in the fall, with possibly more sessions to follow.

Times staff writer Santiago O’Donnell contributed to this story.