Focus on the Positive

This is an angry response to a paragraph in your Sept. 5 article concerning the moving of the office of the county superintendent of schools from downtown Ventura.

In the largest shopping area in the county, easily accessed by freeway and close to the Amtrak station, there is much to see and do in downtown Ventura. Yes, there are “thrift stores, coffee shops and furniture outlets.” There are also hotels, fine restaurants, jewelry and clothing stores, gift boutiques, new furniture stores offering a variety of styles, antique shops and malls, and yes--count them--six bookstores, two selling new books and four offering previously owned books that range in price from affordable to collectibles costing in the thousands of dollars.

As a comparatively new full-time resident who deliberately chose to live near the downtown area (and a devoted viewer of the televised City Council meetings), it appears to me that the main stumbling block to the revitalizing of the downtown area is politicians who seem to relate increased business to increased population, totally ignoring the possibilities of tourism, and a redevelopment administrator whose main objective is the acquisition of property--only to leave it undeveloped.

It is time for those writing about the downtown area to start focusing on the positive. It is also time for the backward-looking politicians in this city to recognize the unique vitality of downtown Ventura, and to accept that the only sure thing in life is not death or taxes, but change.

PATTY GROSSMAN, Ventura