Official to Chart City’s Fiscal Rebirth : Ventura: Former Burbank Mayor Thomas Flavin is praised for his expertise in reinvigorating aging commercial districts.

A former Burbank mayor known in his hometown for his enthusiastic support of business has been selected by the Ventura City Council to chart the city’s economic revitalization.

Thomas Flavin, 47, will finalize negotiations with the city in the next two weeks on a six-month contract to determine Ventura’s economic needs and outline how Ventura can meet its financial goals.

Flavin, who is seeking a salary of $6,000 per month, could be kept on at the end of his contract to serve as Ventura’s permanent economic development coordinator, council members said. The economic coordinator would be responsible for attracting new businesses to the city and encouraging existing ones to stay.

“I think Ventura has recognized over the last few years that it needs to become more proactive in economic development, and I think it has potential to do so,” said Flavin, a longtime Burbank resident who moved to Camarillo this year.

Council members praised Flavin as an expert in reinvigorating aging commercial districts.

“He brings a wealth of experience in the field of economic development,” said Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures, who said she hopes Flavin will help the council “come up with a vision and prepare a strategy” for economic revival.

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A Vietnam War veteran, Flavin has worked as an assistant city manager for Oceanside and Burbank and as a corporate and business consultant. He served as a Burbank City Council member and mayor from 1989-1993.

“For better or for worse, Tom is a really strong individual,” said Burbank City Manager Bud Ovrum, a Flavin supporter. “He was the driving force that took (Burbank) from being a status quo kind of city to (one that is) much more aggressively pro-business.”

Several of Ventura’s council members say they are looking for exactly such a transformation in their own city. Measures, the biggest vote-getter in last November’s council election, swept into office on a pledge to make Ventura more friendly to business.

In Burbank, Flavin supporters and detractors alike say he should have little trouble satisfying such expectations.

After Lockheed Corp. announced a year into Flavin’s term that the company was moving to Georgia and taking more than 10,000 local jobs with it, Flavin and other council members began pushing to bring other businesses to the city.

The Burbank council worked to create a “media district specific plan” that examined how local movie and television studios could continue to expand without encroaching on nearby residential neighborhoods.

“That plan has been an absolute blessing for us, that helped take the sting out of the loss of Lockheed,” Ovrum said. “The studios are now growing by leaps and bounds.”

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Burbank City Councilman Bob Bowne praised Flavin for opening up communication between the city and businesses by holding quarterly, round-table lunches between city leaders and owners of Burbank’s biggest corporations.

“Tom saw the advantages in trying to create a very user-friendly environment in the community,” Bowne said.

His critics, however, said Flavin steam-rolled over any opposition in his path in the name of economic improvement.

“In terms of mistrust of government and encouraging people to hate the City Council, he was like gasoline on the fire,” said Tim Murphy, a former Burbank City Council member who served with Flavin. “He tried to control dissent, and he turned people off.”

Some Burbank voters were so turned off, in fact, that they tried to recall Flavin and fellow Councilman Michael Hastings in 1990, accusing them of favoring developers. The campaign, however, died from lack of interest after supporters gathered only 7,239 of the 8,720 signatures needed to place the initiative on the ballot.

Ted McConkey, one of the recall movement’s organizers, on Tuesday criticized Flavin for indiscriminately wooing new businesses to Burbank without first supporting existing ones.

“He managed to toss a lot of cash at a lot of companies to get them to move here,” he said. “So far, it’s produced no new jobs, the companies just moved from elsewhere in Los Angeles and all they are doing is bringing their old employees to Burbank.”

Flavin dismisses such criticisms, saying he does not wish to rehash what is already past.

“The proof is in the pudding,” he said. “You’ve got the revitalization of ‘Beautiful, Downtown Burbank,’ which stands out in Southern California as one of the area’s top revitalization efforts.”

Besides, he added, there will always be disagreement.

“Whatever you do in a community is not going to have 100% support,” he said.