Policy Urged for Ventura Committees’ Volunteers : Ethics: Some officials want conflict-of-interest rules on when appointees may or may not take paid, professional contracts with city.

Ventura needs a clear conflict-of-interest policy for city appointees, spelling out when citizens volunteering for municipal committees may or may not accept paid, professional contracts with the city, some council members said Tuesday.

The issue arose one day after Planning Commissioner Curtis Stiles accused the council of publicly embarrassing him by declaring he could not remain at his post and continue his work on a $25,000 city landscape contract.

“As of this evening, whether you say I have integrity or not, I feel humiliated,” an emotional Stiles told the council Monday night.

With that, Stiles abruptly announced his resignation as planning commissioner as well as his membership on the city’s architectural review committee. He also turned down the contract on a downtown plaza after pouring three weeks into its design.

Admitting that other council-appointed committees are filled with such potential conflicts, some council members said they want to draft a policy so in the future, appointees know what the rules are before they take a city contract.

“We need for everybody to be aware in advance that if you work for these commissions, you don’t get any of these contracts,” Councilman Steve Bennett said.

The law states only that city officials who are making money off a project cannot discuss that project or vote on it when it comes before their board or committee. But council members say they are concerned with the public’s “perception” of cronyism as well as the legality of the issue.

Some city committee appointees said the council must be cautious, however, when delving into the gray area of perception.

“If they go to a higher standard than the law, people will have to decide between their ability to earn a living in the city and their ability to serve the city” on committees, said Planning Commissioner Ted Temple, a local builder.

Stiles said in an interview Tuesday that Ventura may be too small for the council to make such rigid distinctions.

“In Los Angeles, you can specialize,” he said. “But in a small town, or even a small county like this one, you have to do as many kinds of projects as you can.”

Some council members dwelt particularly on the city’s tourism committee, which some of them assert is packed with appointments that teeter on the line between acceptability and profiteering off of city service.

Marilyn Woods, vice president and general manager of KBBY-FM, is among the appointees. Though her station does not enter into monetary contracts with Ventura, it regularly runs public service announcements on events like the annual beach party in return for sponsorship of the festival, she said.

Woods and others on city-appointed committees say they do not understand what would be called a conflict of interest and what would not.

“But I’ll tell you this,” she said. “If it was a choice between being on this committee or forgoing $25,000 worth of business, it would be very difficult for me to stay on this committee.”

At Monday night’s meeting, Stiles found it impossible to do either.

An infuriated Stiles told council members that he did not apply for the contract to design California Street Plaza. Instead, he said, city planners approached him after the staff member in charge of the project resigned.

The site of the proposed California Street Plaza is now a cluster of vacant storefronts at the south end of California Street, next to the beach promenade and across from the Holiday Inn. The city hopes to redesign the plaza as part of an overall downtown redevelopment project, and plans call for including a new restaurant with outdoor dining.

Stiles said he twice offered to resign his city appointments to accept the contract, but city staff repeatedly said that would be unnecessary.

“I think it’s appropriate for me, because I didn’t want to do anything to harm the city I grew up in, to resign the planning commission, resign my position on the design review committee, and turn down the contract for this project, which I’ve already put many hours into and gotten the design under way,” Stiles said after the council made its decision. “It looks terrific, it’s going to be great----and somebody else can carry it on from here.”

Surprised by Stiles’ impassioned reaction, council members vowed to write him a letter of apology, pleading with him to remain on the plaza project.

“I have felt really bad about things,” Councilman Gary Tuttle said Tuesday morning. “That’s not the way I wanted to see things go.”

Meanwhile, they wondered what they should do next. Councilman Gregory L. Carson said the council’s decision on Stiles and the plaza project may have forced a de facto policy on the city.

“I’m worried that . . . we’ve set a precedent,” he said.

Councilman Jim Monahan, the lone council member to vote against the motion to deny Stiles the contract if he kept his city appointment, said his phone was ringing off the hook Tuesday with “people who really thought the council had egg on its face.”

Monahan said he did not see why the council did not merely stick with the law.