OJAI CITY COUNCIL : Candidates Disagree on Chain Stores, Importance of Tourism : Campaign: The three incumbents and four challengers all back the town’s tight restrictions on growth.

In a town known for its slow-growth policies and disdain for strip malls, the race for three seats on the Ojai City Council has focused attention on some familiar issues: traffic, tourism and the presence of chain stores in the Ojai Valley.

All seven candidates in the low-key contest say preserving the quality of life in the picturesque valley is the top issue facing the city in years to come.

They support Ojai’s tight restrictions on growth, though they are split on allowing chain stores inside the city limits.

They agree that too many cars crowd the downtown area on the weekends, but they differ on whether the best solution is more traffic lights, a parking garage, or a network of bike paths and walkways.

As for tourism, the candidates, including three incumbents and four challengers, offer a range of opinions on how the city should balance its only industry against the concerns of full-time residents.

“I’m very anti-tourist,” said Bruce Roland, 41, a political novice and liquor store clerk, adding that he is frustrated that many downtown businesses now cater to tourists by offering upscale clothing, jewelry and gifts.

“There’s no real services in town for the people who live here,” he said. “You can’t even really get a toaster up here.”

Other candidates, however, say the city cannot afford to ignore the importance of tourism. A quarter of the city’s revenue is generated by taxes on hotel rooms, and another quarter comes from sales tax.

“We have to make sure we have the revenues we need for our budgeting,” said three-term incumbent Nina Shelley. “We need to keep this town going and our only industry of note is tourism.”

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Along with Shelley, Mayor Joe De Vito and Councilman Steve Olsen are running to keep their seats on the five-member council. They are being challenged by Roland, carpenter Richard Fernow, yoga teacher and columnist Suza Francina and environmental activist Stan Greene.

With only 4,000 registered voters in Ojai, campaigning consists mainly of mailing flyers, walking the precincts and attending a few back-yard fund-raisers. All together, the four top money-raisers have spent less than $7,000 on the campaign. And the other three candidates filed statements saying they would spend less than $1,000.

“Ojai has always been a grass-roots type of campaign,” said Steve Olsen, 45, a city councilman for eight years. “I think it’s extremely important to get out and meet with the people.”

Of the four challengers, Francina and Greene are both known for their activism in the community and have built their campaigns around environmental issues.

Francina, 45, has owned the Ojai Yoga Center since 1976 and writes a regular column on health and environmental topics for an Ojai newspaper. Her goals include “traffic calming” and expanding Ojai’s network of bike paths and walkways to encourage tourists and residents to avoid driving.

“Traffic calming,” Francina said, means landscaping and narrowing streets so that cars are forced to slow down. “You immediately communicate that this is shared space and you better slow down.”

To reduce congestion and promote exercise, Francina said she wants to persuade the Ojai school district to give physical education credit to students who walk to campus. And she wants to replace fluorescent lighting in the council chambers with full-spectrum lights, which she said are closer to natural light and less stressful to sit beneath.

“Lots of studies show those neon lights are stressful,” she said. “Any public place should have full spectrum lights.”

Greene, 65, is a former aerospace engineer who, for the last 23 years, has owned an air-conditioning and heating repair business in Ojai. He was elected to the board of the Ojai Valley Sanitary District four years ago, and has served as the president of Citizens to Preserve the Ojai for 12 years.

Under his direction, the group successfully stopped the expansion of an oil refinery on Ventura Avenue in the early 1980s. In 1989, the group’s lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency led to strict new air quality regulations for Ventura County.

Greene said those battles have given him experience working with the county and tackling issues on a regional scale. “I know how to win battles,” he said.

Greene opposes large chain stores entering the Ojai Valley, because he said they will create unfair competition and drive local merchants out of business.

“People argue that’s a non-competitive position, but it’s these large stores that create the non-competitive environment,” he said.

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All three incumbents say the issue of chain stores needs to be studied further as part of the city’s process of updating its General Plan.

“We the council will have to debate that and open up a dialogue with the people in the community,” Shelley said. “We certainly have a great deal of respect for our business people who are already here.”

While the incumbents are not running as a slate, each makes a point of talking about the cooperation among council members. They defend the panel’s environmental record over the last four years, pointing to the fight against Weldon Canyon, the introduction of a “green waste” composting program, the opening of a Park ‘N Ride lot and Ojai’s tight restrictions on growth.

“We have worked very, very well together,” De Vito said. “We’re not afraid to voice our opinion and get in and get our hands dirty.”

A retired elementary school principal and president of the Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament, De Vito, 62, favors a plan to install new traffic lights to ease congestion on Ojai Avenue, and he has proposed a valleywide assessment district to support the Ojai Public Library.

Olsen, 45, principal at Chaparral High School, said the city needs to maintain its strong tax base by keeping high aesthetic standards and a low crime rate. While other cities have cut services or laid off employees, Ojai has doubled its reserves since 1987.

“People don’t want to come to Ojai if they think they’re going to get mugged,” he said.

Shelley, 73, said the council should continue to make Ojai’s downtown the focus of commercial activity, and to present a united front against the Weldon Canyon dump.

Like De Vito, Shelley said the experience and harmony among present council members would be an asset during the next four years.

“There’s no rancor or any of the problems that plague some of the councils we know about,” she said.

Fernow and Roland, however, think the current council has catered too much to businesses that draw in tourists. Instead, they say the council should pay more attention to local residents and work to bring in a non-tourist industry.

“Those of us who get up and go to work in the morning need a voice,” said Fernow, 44, who works as a carpenter in building and replacing bridges.

“I don’t think we need to have a tourist-based attraction every weekend in town,” Fernow said.

To help with parking and traffic, he has suggested building a two- or three-story garage near downtown.

And he thinks the city should do more to encourage the construction of mid-priced and affordable homes.

“If you’re not established here, you can’t afford to live here,” he said.

Roland, 41, who is building several houses with his father in Meiners Oaks, said he entered the council race out of anger over the city’s treatment of businesses off Ojai Avenue.

He opposes the city’s restrictions on business signs and its anti-smoking ordinance.

“I’m very anti-government,” he said. “Government needs to be pared down and gotten out of private peoples’ lives.”