Newcomer Selected as Mayor in Ventura : Politics: Greg Carson, the top vote-getter in last month’s council election, is named as the compromise candidate. The choice angers one member.

Nursery owner Greg Carson was chosen as mayor of Ventura shortly after taking his seat as city councilman Monday.

In picking Carson as the compromise candidate, the City Council broke its longstanding tradition of naming an incumbent to the city’s top post.

Ventura County planner Todd Collart was picked as deputy mayor during a ceremony in which Carson and two other new pro-business council members were sworn in.

Carson, a fifth-generation Ventura resident, thanked his supporters and said, “I know we are going to have differences of opinion, but we will work through them for the benefit of the city. I pledge to create an atmosphere of positive relations.”

Collart, who received the most votes in the 1989 landslide election that swept three slow-growth candidates into office, said, “We have many difficult jobs ahead of us. I hope we get them to work.”

Carson, 33, the top vote-getter in November’s election, said before the meeting that he didn’t think that his inexperience would be a liability.

“Being a mayor means running a meeting and pulling everybody together. I can do that,” he said. “I haven’t campaigned or asked for the job, but if that’s what the council wants, I’ll be happy to do it.”

The elections of both Carson and Collart were unanimous and without comment. They followed a week of telephone consultations among the council’s three slow-growth incumbents and the trio of new pro-business councilmen--Carson, Jack Tingstrom and Tom Buford. The six pledged to work together and avoid the divisiveness that crippled the past administration.

“The most important thing is to move into the future and to do it in a peaceful and polite fashion,” Buford said.

But the bickering began even before the new council was sworn in, as former Mayor Jim Monahan accused the three new councilmen he supported in November’s election of betraying him.

“I’m very disappointed,” said Monahan, who had lobbied hard for the mayor’s job since election night. “I gave them a lot of help and they didn’t reciprocate at all.”

Monahan said he can’t work with the new council and will not complete his term. But council incumbents, who have heard such threats before, said Monahan was bluffing.

“You always take everything Monahan says with a grain of salt,” Councilwoman Cathy Bean said.

Last week, Monahan threatened to quit on the spot if he wasn’t picked as mayor, according to several sources.

But the three slow-growth incumbents made it clear to the newcomers that they would back anyone except Monahan, whose pro-growth policies and offhand remarks led to his isolation by the previous council.

When asked if she could support Monahan as mayor, Bean said: “Not in my wildest nightmares.”

By Monday, Monahan’s colleagues had agreed to pick Carson as the compromise candidate.

“We wanted to make sure Monahan wasn’t picked, and they (the three newly elected councilmen) wanted to make sure it was one of them,” said Councilman Gary Tuttle, a slow-growth advocate. Tuttle added that he helped broker the deal.

“I support Jim as a councilman, but he doesn’t have the votes to be mayor,” Carson said.

But Monahan called his rival incumbents early Monday to let them know that he would support any of them--just as long as one of the freshmen councilmen was not selected mayor.

“My feeling was we have four members from the old City Council. I think the mayor and deputy mayor should come from this more experienced group,” Monahan said. “I told them I would vote with our group, but nobody believed me. They thought I had something up my sleeve.”

The disagreement between Monahan and his new colleagues dealt a blow to the interests represented by the Greater Ventura Chamber of Commerce, which backed Carson, Tingstrom and Buford in an attempt to add pro-business voices to Monahan’s on the council.

“Personally, I would like to see Jim become the mayor, because he has the experience,” said Jim Barroca, the chamber’s executive director. “But the new council members are trying to keep peace in the family, and that’s important too.”

Barroca said he understood Monahan’s disappointment, but dismissed his threats to quit the council as “a little conflict.”

“Nothing will come out of it, and the main thing is we have the majority,” Barroca said. “Jim will stay in the council and be a good team player . . . at least I hope so.”

Before the new council was seated, the city bade farewell to three outgoing council members: Mayor Richard Francis, Deputy Mayor Donald Villeneuve and John McWherter. McWherter, first elected to the council in 1974, thanked his constituents.

“I enjoyed the council and serving the city for 17 years. I know the new council members will continue to make the city the great place it is,” McWherter said.