Camarillo’s Newest Mayor Is a Big Dreamer : Leadership: Ken Gose, elected by council peers, hopes to land a minor league baseball team and cut red tape, among other goals.

If Ken Gose gets his way, by this time next year, Camarillo will have landed a minor league baseball team, rid the city of red tape, and attracted a host of clean industries and the skilled jobs that come with them.

The city’s newest mayor is not shy on ambition.

Gose, the 72-year-old Tennessee farm boy who made good, climbed into the mayor’s seat Wednesday after being unanimously selected by his council peers. He takes the reins with a host of pet projects he hopes to shepherd through the City Council.

“I guess it’s a dream more than anything else, but I want to get a sports complex big enough to house a professional baseball team,” said Gose, who has floated the idea of a 5,500-seat stadium around the community for several years.

“You can do a lot more with a complex like that than just baseball,” he said. “There could be concerts, graduations, tournaments--a lot of different events.”

The stadium would have to be completed--admittedly with private money--before any team owner would commit to locating in Camarillo, Gose said.

“But we’ve had quite a few nibbles on the idea,” he said. “If I keep saying it long enough, who knows what will happen?”

Gose stopped short of saying that he would ask his colleagues on the City Council to financially support a ballpark. But he clearly sees a stadium as an opportunity the community should not pass by.

“My concern is that if we don’t get something in the next few years, there won’t be any (adequate) land available,” Gose said.

The new mayor has also pledged to continue to shorten the permitting process for new companies and keep business taxes as low as possible.

“We’ve already done a lot to streamline the application process,” Gose said. “For example, in the past, it would take several days, maybe longer, to set up inspections.

“Now we’ve got it down so we can be there to look things over a lot quicker,” he said.

Under city law, Camarillo’s mayor has no executive powers beyond those of other council members. But the mayor is responsible for conducting council meetings and representing the city at ceremonial events.

Gose won election to the City Council in 1990, months after retiring from his second career, a 22-year stint as a high school civics teacher in Oxnard.

Prior to teaching, he was a U. S. Navy pilot and flight instructor for 26 years, serving through World War II and the Korean War.

He campaigned for the council chiefly on a slow- or controlled-growth platform, emphasizing the importance of preserving what little farmland is left in Camarillo, Pleasant Valley and the Oxnard Plain.

He garnered 9,215 votes on the 1990 ballot, enough to top the list of eight candidates vying for three seats.

On Wednesday, however, Gose sided with the rest of the council in recommending to county officials that 120 acres bordering Camarillo be annexed into the city.

The acreage, now zoned for agriculture and producing tons of vegetables, is targeted for a business park in Camarillo’s long-range planning documents.

But by recommending that the city annex the parcel, the council has hastened the farmland’s development.

“I haven’t changed my mind at all,” Gose said. “I’ve got to be realistic. We’re better off bringing it into the city so we can control it.”

For her part, property owner Roz McGrath pledged to the council that she would work to keep the acreage producing crops as long as possible.

Gose said the city can attract clean industry--manufacturing plants that produce little or no byproducts that are hazardous to the environment--by keeping its regulations at a minimum and smartly marketing Camarillo to firms outside Ventura County.

“We have a good staff to do the economic development work,” he said. “And unless we think a law is really worthwhile, I won’t support it. I don’t believe in passing ordinances for ordinances’ sake.”

Although an elected official in Camarillo for just three years, the new mayor has won the confidence of his peers and department heads.

Councilman Stanley J. Daily on Wednesday nominated Gose for the top spot seconds after nominations were opened, and Councilman Michael Morgan seconded and closed the nominations just as quickly.

Gose has been “an effective member of the council for three years,” City Manager J. William Little said. “He’s been actively involved in council decisions during that period of time.

“I think Ken will do a good job.”