Challenges Aplenty : Limited Revenue Threatens Transit Commission Agenda

Crumbling roads, stifling smog, and a public transit plan gridlocked bypolitical bickering.

That was the future envisioned by Ventura County leaders in 1989, spurring them to scrap a divisive transit agency and build a new body to tackle the county’s growing transportation needs.

Since then, the Ventura County Transportation Commission has zoomed ahead with long-awaited highway improvements, Metrolink commuter train service and a countywide bus system.

Now, escalating costs and shrinking funds are pitting roads, buses and trains against one another.

Sharp differences of opinion on how best to spend the limited revenue is threatening the transportation equilibrium the commission has maintained in the county since the panel’s formation.

And concern is growing among city and county leaders that the seven-member commission might not be equipped to keep transportation in Ventura County on the right track.

The problems are daunting. Miles of county highways and city streets are deteriorating and in need of repair. Millions of dollars in federal transportation funds hang in the balance as officials seek to persuade county residents to forsake their vehicles for the public transit system.

And the county is facing a transportation funding shortfall that could climb to $1 billion by 2014.

“We’re heading for a crisis situation,” county Public Works Director Art Goulet said. “There is more and more demand on transportation funding and less of it to go around.”

In the past decade, the county’s population has nearly doubled to more than 700,000 residents and the number of vehicles on local roads has increased by more than 50%.

But cities have seen their budgets for road repair and construction plummet by as much as half.

Meanwhile, the county’s bill for Metrolink service next year will double, from $800,000 to at least $1.6 million.

Some cities fear they will be forced to cut into local bus funding to keep the trains running. And the commission next month will launch countywide bus service that could eventually cost an additional $600,000 annually.

“Without new funding, we are really going to get into trouble,” Ginger Gherardi, executive director of the commission, said. “I think we have a number of challenges ahead.”

As funding woes mount, battles are brewing between civic leaders, commission members and commission staff members over how best to meet the county’s transportation needs.

All agree, however, that on its current course the county might soon be confronted with the two problems it has so far largely avoided: congestion and bad roads.

And some critics contend that efforts to stave off those problems by implementing a countywide transit system will only make matters worse.

“Ventura County is facing the same transportation problems everyone is facing,” said William Fulton, an independent Ventura-based researcher and urban planner. “The hard, political reality is that decisions are going to be made that meet some needs, but which are not going to be entirely pleasing or effective for everyone.”

As funds get tighter, city leaders are blaming the commission for not dealing responsibly with the needs of the cities.

“It seems like the commission and its staff are out of touch with what the transportation needs of the people in this county really are,” Simi Valley Councilwoman Judy Mikels said. “Decisions get made and money gets spent on programs that benefit very few people.”

Supervisor Vicky Howard, who has served on the commission since its formation, defended the panel, saying it has dramatically improved the transportation picture in Ventura County.

“Before we formed the commission, we weren’t doing the proper job in long-range planning or in expanding public transportation,” Howard said. “Now, even though it’s not perfect, at least we’re looking more closely at some of the problems, and in many cases, coming up with workable solutions.”

Until 1989, an organization called the Ventura County Assn. of Governments handled transportation planning. But quarrels between city and county members over funding and policy decisions, as well as a lack of authority to disburse state and federal funds, led officials to disband the agency.

With the help of state legislation that gave them control over funding, city and county leaders then formed the Ventura County Transportation Commission.

From the beginning, critics argued that the seven-member commission would not be able to adequately represent the full range of transportation needs cropping up around the county.

Now those concerns are coming to a head. As the city of Ventura, for instance, worries over a shortage of money to repair its aging road system, Camarillo is throwing its support behind a plan to dip into road money for Metrolink.

The commission is made up of two county supervisors, three city council members and two residents--one chosen by the supervisors and one by the cities.

The commission operates under rules set by special state legislation, which also gives the panel the power to distribute state and federal transportation funds.

The current commission includes four members from the east county: Thousand Oaks Councilman Frank Schillo, Simi Valley Councilman Bill Davis, Supervisor Howard, whose district includes Simi Valley and Moorpark, and county appointee Nancy Grasmehr, a land-use consultant who lives near Thousand Oaks.

The other three members are Camarillo Councilman David Smith, Supervisor Susan K. Lacey, whose district includes Ventura and Ojai, and city appointee Michael Wooten, a Camarillo resident who manages the Ash Street Card Club in Ventura, run by the local chapter of the Elks Lodge.

Each member and alternate is appointed to a four-year, renewable term and is paid $50 for each meeting. The commission meets the first Friday of each month at Camarillo City Hall. If an elected official who serves on the commission leaves office before the term ends, the official must surrender his or her seat.

Seven alternates are also appointed. But while the alternates are strongly urged to attend meetings, encouraged to participate and are first in line when seats on the commission open up, they cannot vote.

Supervisor John K. Flynn, who serves as an alternate to the commission, says the current panel is unfairly biased in favor of the east county. Flynn, who represents Oxnard, suggests that commissioners be chosen based on population, not politics.

“We need a stronger voice in the west county,” Flynn said. “It’s making Oxnard pretty upset because the largest city in the county doesn’t have any representation.”

In the five years since the commission was formed, the panel has included representatives from only half the county’s 10 cites: Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Oxnard, Camarillo and Santa Paula.

Ventura traffic engineer Nazir Lalani says his city has suffered because it has never had its own representative on the commission.

“It gives you a leg up to have someone on the commission, and we’ve been trying for years to get one of our council members on,” Lalani said. “It is a very political process and a very hard thing to do.”

To be sure, many of the commission’s actions benefit the county as a whole.

Since its formation, the commission has established a model freeway call-box program and has won statewide bidding competitions to fund countywide bike paths.

Along with Caltrans, commissioners guided the construction of the connector between the Moorpark and Simi Valley freeways and the Saticoy Bridge improvement project, scheduled for completion in August.

They have also set aside $8 million to buy rights of way for a rail line linking the county to Los Angeles through the Santa Clara River Valley.

But the commission’s crowning achievement--the launch of Metrolink commuter rail service to Los Angeles--has become its biggest headache.

For the past two years, the county has funded Metrolink service to Moorpark and Simi Valley. Metrolink supporters have long pushed the commission to extend service to Oxnard, Camarillo and Ventura. Until this year the commission refused, saying there was not enough funding.

But after the Jan. 17 earthquake, the commission agreed to extend service to Camarillo and Oxnard on the condition that the service be financed largely with federal earthquake relief funds and that it be discontinued when that money ran out.

But at the May commission meeting, director Gherardi told the panel the county is obligated under state law to continue to pay for Metrolink trains to those stations indefinitely because the service is taking in enough money in fares to meet state minimums.

After a six-hour meeting--the longest in commission history--the panel voted 4 to 3 to pay $1.6 million for another year of Metrolink service, including service to Oxnard and Camarillo.

At its meeting this month, the panel reaffirmed its commitment to continue the service until next June. The commission also agreed to consider at its June 24 meeting a plan to place a half-cent sales-tax measure on the November ballot to help pay for Metrolink and other transportation projects.

Gherardi said putting more money into Metrolink is prudent, because public transit services are essential to help the county meet strict federal air quality mandates. If the county fails to meet those requirements, it could lose up to half its annual $64-million transportation budget.

In fact, continuing service to Camarillo and Oxnard for another year will cost only about $260,000, because Metrolink is treating the first year of operation as a trial run, charging just a fraction of the actual cost, Gherardi told the commission. After June, 1995, service just to Oxnard and Camarillo would cost an estimated $2 million, Gherardi said.

A majority of the commissioners said they felt tricked into granting long-term funding for a service they initially thought was only temporary.

“Most of the time I’m reluctant to blame staff because in the end it’s up to the policy-makers to ask the tough questions and make the decisions,” Commissioner Schillo said. “But in this case I have to say we asked the questions and I do blame staff for not giving us correct and complete information.”

Schillo, who helped form the commission and has served on it ever since, is seeking a second opinion. He has asked Thousand Oaks city staff members to examine the laws to determine whether the county must indeed pay to continue Metrolink. Oxnard has already decided to challenge the decision and Ventura may follow suit.

“We were given only one recommendation and no options by the staff,” Schillo said. “It all pointed in one direction, which gave us very little room to make a decision, and that is very unsettling.”

Commissioner Davis, who represents Ventura County on the regional Metrolink board, said he was not aware the county would be forced to pay for continued service.

“We were duped,” Davis said. “Staff did not give us the whole picture, and I don’t think this is going to be forgotten any time soon.”

Howard, the commission chairwoman, agreed.

“I don’t feel there was an adequate presentation,” Howard said. “If the staff had spelled out more clearly what their opinion was, and what was fact, we might very well not be in this position.”

But Gherardi, the commission director, said she stands by her recommendation. Gherardi said she thought the commission understood that it could be required to pay to continue Metrolink.

“I believe we made it clear when the service went into place that they (commission) might have to continue it,” Gherardi said. “I’m sure we talked about it, although they might not remember it.”

Gherardi said she and her six-member staff pride themselves on researching the issues and guiding the commission to decisions that are responsible and fiscally sound.

“Part of the reason we are here is to give the commission recommendations,” Gherardi said. “I think their voting record will show they have been fairly comfortable with the recommendations they have been given.”

Despite their concerns that Gherardi withholds information, commissioners praise her for coming up with creative ways to fund important projects. They say her job is especially difficult because the county lacks the revenue that would be generated by a local transportation sales tax. Every other large county in California collects the local tax.

“Ginger is very aggressive in finding transportation funding,” Davis said. “She’s got the best understanding of transportation funding of anyone I’ve ever known.”

Gherardi said most of the recommendations that come before the commission have first been filtered through at least one of the panel’s four satellite committees. The committees, made up of residents, transit officials and city and county officials, can make recommendations to the commission but have no policy-making power.

“There is ample time to discuss and examine these proposals before they come to the commission,” Gherardi said. “We are always seeking input from the cities, the county and the public.”

But Goulet, the county public works director who chairs the commission’s technical advisory subcommittee, said it is difficult to get his group’s recommendations into commission agendas.

“We have our point of view and the commission staff has theirs, and the two don’t always match,” Goulet said.

Also, Goulet said the staff members make it difficult for city and county workers and residents to address the commission during the public comment period at meetings.

“You’ve got the entire staff crowded around a table right in between you and the commission,” Goulet said. “I’m a fairly forceful character, but under those circumstances I feel ineffective.”

Schillo said he and other members of the panel jokingly refer to Gherardi as “the eighth commissioner” and say they must be fast on their feet to keep her from steering the meetings.

“The person who has the knowledge has the power,” Schillo said. “Ginger has the knowledge.”

But Dan Greely, Camarillo’s director of engineering, said if cities are unhappy with the decisions the commission is making, they have only themselves to blame.

“Every city and transportation agency in the county is responsible for keeping abreast of what is going on,” Greely said. “If they fail to keep up with what’s going on, or fail to share information with the commissioners, it is their own fault.”

Although only an alternate to the commission, Supervisor Flynn attends most of its meetings. He said he is disturbed by the lack of preparation of some commission members.

“People come to the commission meetings not fully engaged and not as informed as they should be,” Flynn said. “There is quite a reliance on staff.”

Commissioners say it takes time to learn the workings of complex transportation laws and regulations.

“We are all very concerned about transportation, but we are also very busy people, so we have the staff to keep up with all the details,” Commissioner Lacey said. “I think you will find that to be true with any government body like this one.”

But the questions over Metrolink funding have led some commissioners to look beyond staff reports for information on the county’s transportation problems.

Commissioner Schillo said he plans to ask the commission to fund a countywide transportation study and plan. The last such study was conducted nearly 20 years ago.

While Schillo acknowledges that pressing transportation projects can’t wait for the completion of a study, he said it would help with long-range planning.

Schillo said without studying transportation needs throughout the county, the commission’s transfer of transportation dollars from street repair to public transit is haphazard and dangerous.

“We are barreling ahead without considering the consequences,” he said. “We need to step back and take stock of all of the services and the costs, or we are going to be facing some major problems.”

Speaking recently to the commission, Ventura City Manager John Baker echoed Schillo’s criticism, telling commissioners that they too often act hastily and make uninformed decisions on funding.

“Your obligation is to deal with the whole range of transportation needs in Ventura County,” Baker said. “You’re the ones we should count on to step back and make decisions based on long-term goals and objectives.”

Even if such a countywide plan is formed, city workers say they fear it is inevitable that roads will receive a smaller share of the transportation funding pie.

“In the past there was a good balance between roads and transit,” one city traffic planner said. “But now I see that balance tilting toward transit. And I see that as a problem because in the future, the roads will not be maintained because of lack of funding.”

Monday: The search for money to repair Ventura County’s aging roads.

VENTURA COUNTY TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION

Vicky Howard Commission chairwoman Age: 60 Occupation: County supervisor Years on commission: 5

*

David M. Smith Commission vice-chairman Age: 49 Occupation: Camarillo city councilman, certified financial planner Years on commission: 2 (previously served two years as an alternate)

*

Bill Davis Commission board member Age: 67 Occupation: Simi Valley city councilman Years on commission: 2 (previously served two years as an alternate)

*

Nancy Grasmehr Commission board member Age: 57

Occupation: Land-use consultant

Years on commission: 3 (previously served two years as an alternate)

*

Susan K. Lacey Commission board member Age: 53

Occupation: County supervisor

Years on commission: 5

*

Frank Schillo Commission board member Age: 60 Occupation: Thousand Oaks city councilman, president of a financial consulting company Years on commission: 4 (previously served one year as an alternate)

*

Michael Wooten Commission board member Age: 46 Occupation: Card club manager Years on commission: 1 (previously served three years an alternate)

*

Ginger Gherardi Age: 51 Occupation: Commission executive director Years as director: 4 Annual Salary: $125,600, including benefits