Countywide : County Democrats Elect Party Head

Hank Starr of Bell Canyon was elected Tuesday as chairman of the Ventura County Democratic Central Committee.

Starr, 60, a family law attorney, defeated retail merchandising manager Paul Chatman, 48, of Oxnard, who was later elected first vice chairman of the committee.

Starr pledged at the Camarillo meeting “to reach out to every segment of Ventura County to make the party truly representative of the people.”

“We are more unified now than we have been since (President John F.) Kennedy’s days,” he said before Tuesday night’s meeting.

Starr replaced Nels Henderson, 26, who held the post for two years. Henderson, of Camarillo, did not run again.

Starr said Democrats made major strides last year in narrowing the voter-registration margin in the county to a point where Republicans hold sway by only about two points.

But Starr said more progress still needs to be made because county voters in last year’s general election put three Republicans in the state Legislature and a fourth Republican in the House of Representatives. Only one Democrat, Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Jack O’Connell, won big in Ventura County.

Starr lost one county race to Assemblywoman Cathy Wright (R-Simi Valley) in a contest for a state Senate seat. It was the first time he had run for public office. “My sense of the purpose of the Democratic Party is that we must not only speak out but listen to what our community is about,” he said.

Henderson said he hoped that the Democratic Party could build a stronger base in the eastern section of the county, particularly in Simi Valley, a Republican stronghold.

“I would like to see a major registration drive in the 23rd Congressional District,” he said.

The district includes all of Ventura County except most of Thousand Oaks. Voters in this district last November overwhelmingly reelected Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) to a fourth term in the House.