ELECTIONS / VENTURA COUNCIL : Candidates for 3 Seats Not Rushing to the Fore : Campaign: So far only one incumbent is plotting strategy. City is facing crucial issues.

Mayor Tom Buford will call it quits. Councilman Gregory L. Carson says he is still pondering a reelection bid. Only Jack Tingstrom is actively planning another term on the Ventura City Council.

With three seats up for grabs next fall, a full plate of issues and just one incumbent plotting strategy, no one outside City Hall has so far stepped up publicly to announce a run for the council.

“It’s unusual,” said Jim Barroca, an executive of the Ventura Chamber of Commerce, a group perennially involved in who gets elected. “Maybe people are losing interest.”

By Memorial Day weekend two years ago, when four council seats were contested in an election that pitted slow-growth advocates against pro-business interests, as many as eight people, including three incumbents, had announced plans to seek the local office.

Fourteen candidates ended up on the ballot, spending more than $220,000 on the city’s costliest campaign in history. When it was over, newcomers Rosa Lee Measures and Steve Bennett joined incumbents Jim Monahan and Gary Tuttle on the seven-member panel.

But things are different this year.

Many of those who sought election two years ago said they can no longer spare the time a council seat takes away from career and family.

“Not me,” said Nancy Cloutier, the local publisher who received more than 6,600 votes in 1993. “I don’t believe I’d have the time. It’s kind of a thankless job.”

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Others are waiting for official announcements one way or another from the incumbents. “Everyone so far has been very closemouthed about it,” said Jim Friedman, president of the Ventura Chamber of Commerce. “People are waiting to see how many of the incumbents are going to run.”

Roma Armbrust, an environmental activist who has been active in several past campaigns, said would-be candidates are just now getting a feel for the 1995 political season in Ventura.

“People don’t seriously consider doing it until it’s right there in front of them,” she said. “You have until August to file, so people can consider it until June or July.”

Several potential candidates said the city has many important issues to decide in the next two years--policy decisions that could shape Ventura for years to come.

Former Mayor Richard Francis has not ruled out seeking a second term on the council, saying he may run “if nobody else steps up.” But Francis added he is buying a new house and that it may not be within city limits.

Ed Warren, who owns the Busy Bee restaurant downtown, said he has had some “informal discussions” about making a run at a council seat. But, he said, his mind is not made up.

“A lot of the merchants downtown would like to see one of us run,” Warren said. “But most of the small-business people down here don’t have the time to put into it because it’s a real commitment.”

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The City Council is facing a series of daunting challenges that could explain why no one has yet announced his or her candidacy.

In coming months, the panel must consider a sweeping redevelopment area expansion, a deal to upgrade the Ventura Auto Center, a proposed baseball stadium, an open-space initiative that would preserve existing farmland, and ambitious plans for a more vibrant commercial core.

Also among discussions will be tax-sharing plans for a sprawling department store proposed for Victoria Avenue, several huge development proposals, a visitors and convention center, a proposed marine center and campaign-financing reform.

John Walters, the Doubletree Hotel general manager who chairs the chamber’s political action committee, cited the open-space initiative, economic development, campaign reform and downtown revitalization as the top issues facing the city.

But in the chamber’s May newsletter, Walters wrote that things are “mysteriously quiet on the Ventura political scene” with so few months remaining before the election.

“There are some really tough decisions that are going to have to be made in the next couple of years, and a lot of them are coming to a head right now,” Walters said in an interview.

“Somebody’s eventually going to have to make a decision.”

Walters and other committee members are in the midst of evaluating issues, and finding a candidate who shares those concerns.

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“We need to identify some people and begin promoting some candidates,” he said. “We’re trying to prioritize what we would like to see happen.”

One potential candidate willing to take on those issues is Clark Owens, the real estate broker and former planning commissioner who placed fifth in 1993, fewer than 2,200 votes behind Tuttle.

“I’m looking at various options,” Owens said. “I’m not precluding it, but I haven’t made any firm decisions yet.”

Among the first to declare his candidacy two years ago, Owens said he would take a different tack if he runs again.

“When I made the announcement as early as I did [in 1993], some people said it might have been premature,” Owens said. “I wound up hitting a premature peak.

“The intelligent thought [this year] is to get everything together, make the announcement, then go all-out in a shorter period of time,” he said.

Former Councilman Todd Collart, the environmentalist who lost a reelection bid in 1993 after being targeted in a barrage of negative ads financed by Ventura businessman Ray Ellison, said the prospect of negative campaigning is keeping candidates away.

“A lot of people are just hesitant about participating because the campaigns are dirty, slimy and expensive adventures,” said Collart, who said he has no interest in running this time around.

“I have no regrets about my four-year term,” he said. “I planned on doing it twice. I ran twice. I was elected once and [running again] is out of my mind.”

Ellison, the millionaire thrift-store operator who financed thousands of dollars worth of negative newspaper and radio ads during the 1993 campaign, said he is waiting to see who will run before deciding on any endorsements.

Besides, Ellison said, he is still bitter about a lack of productivity on the city panel.

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“Most people that are capable of contributing something just see it as a dead horse,” he said of the council. “They can’t get anything done, and they have to live with the foolish things that are done.”

Among those missteps, Ellison said, are unnecessary studies and analyses--lack of tangible progress that has held back potential candidates.

“Everything takes a $100,000 analysis,” he said. “They want someone else to tell them what to do rather than taking the bull by the horns.

“Who wants to be involved in all that?” Ellison asked. “I think that’s the stumbling block.”

John McWherter, who quit the council in 1991 after 18 years of service, predicted a crowded field, but not until summertime.

“This council’s been getting so much negative publicity that I don’t think anyone wants to tackle it just now,” McWherter said. “But after the [Memorial Day] holidays, I think there will be a lot of people that will throw their hat into the ring.”

For his part, Mayor Buford said he has no idea why no candidates have stepped forward. “I’m assuming it’s coincidence,” Buford said.

“I hope it’s nothing we’ve done.”

NEXT STEP

Three seats on the Ventura City Council will be decided on the November ballot. Candidates are expected to begin announcing their intentions to run sometime in June. County elections officials said candidates must file election papers between July 17 and Aug. 11.