ELECTIONS / VENTURA CITY COUNCIL : Advocate of Slow Growth Enters Race

Slow-growth advocate Steve Bennett joined the Ventura City Council race on Tuesday in hopes of besting more than a dozen pro-business candidates in a write-in campaign.

The write-in effort is necessary because Bennett, a 40-year-old Nordhoff High School economics and history teacher, filed candidacy papers four weeks after the Aug. 21 deadline.

In midsummer, slow-growth Mayor Richard Francis and moderate Councilman John McWherter decided not to run, leaving three council seats vacant.

Then, just before the filing deadline, several slow-growth candidates balked at running and never filed.

That left incumbent Deputy Mayor Donald Villeneuve to carry the slow-growth banner alone against 16 other candidates, many of whom want to reverse the City Council’s slow-growth makeup and make Ventura friendlier to business and development. Of the four council members who are not up for reelection, three are slow-growth advocates and one is pro-business.

Bennett said he joined the race because somebody had to protect the interests of Ventura voters, most of whom, he said, oppose swift growth. He said he also supports Villeneuve’s candidacy.

“We need more candidate representation that is clearly committed to slow-growth principles,” said Bennett, head of both the 100-member Alliance for Ventura’s Future and the 400-member Voters’ Coalition of Ventura. “We think the field is thin.”

Bennett carries the political backing of both groups into his campaign.

Write-in campaigns are difficult, but not impossible, to win, said Kevin Sweeney, a spokesman for clothing manufacturer Patagonia Inc., which backed the slow-growth slate that won election in 1989.

“I think it’s credible, I signed his papers,” Sweeney said. “I don’t know if they can do it. If he can get several thousand votes, it shows that even if a bunch of other candidates win, it’s an example of the slow-growth movement’s strength in Ventura.”

Francis said that before Bennett’s candidacy, he predicted that voters would elect Villeneuve and two of the three pro-business candidates endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce and Venturans for a Responsible Government. The three include labor attorney Tom Buford, Mound Nursery owner Greg Carson and personnel consultant Jack Tingstrom.

But Francis said Tuesday, “I’m fascinated, I think it’s a great race now. . . . Bennett’s throwing a curve in here that’s going to take some thinking to figure out.”

Francis said Bennett would have had little trouble earning the 6,000 or so votes needed to win a council seat had he been on the ballot. “But 6,000 write-ins is something else,” he said. “There’s certainly easier ways to do this, but I think he’s got a good organization and he may be able to pull it off.”

In addition to opposing swift growth in Ventura, Bennett outlined positions on several other issues Tuesday.

He said he wants the city to build a seawater desalination plant to augment the city’s water supply during droughts. But he said the city’s water study committee, of which he is a member, should keep studying the feasibility of hooking itself to the state water system.

Bennett said he agrees with pro-business candidates that the city should fill more than 70 vacant buildings downtown. But the city should revitalize Main Street according to the Downtown Comprehensive Plan, rather than pushing for quick occupancy of those buildings, he said.

He also said the city government should pay for more workers to intervene with gang members and divert their energies away from violence and toward art, recreation and theater projects.