ELECTIONS / VENTURA COUNCIL : Two Novices Become First Candidates to Declare

The campaign for three Ventura City Council seats began taking shape Tuesday as two political novices announced plans to seek election to the panel in November.

Stephen L. Hartmann and John S. Jones said Tuesday that they will run. But neither would say from what political interests they expect to solicit the most support.

Hartmann, 32, is a marketing consultant who was the Ventura city publicist for five years before moving in April, 1994, to a similar position with an Oxnard-based health products company.

“It may sound cliche, but [I’m running] to try to make a change and try to put things back on track,” Hartmann said.

Jones, 34, works as quality assurance technician for a Ventura-area software firm.

“I’ll be very open to listening to the residents of Ventura,” he said.

With five months until the November election, Hartmann and Jones are the first candidates to declare their candidacies for three seats held by Mayor Tom Buford and Councilmen Jack Tingstrom and Gregory L. Carson.

Buford has said he will not seek another term, and Carson said he is still considering whether to run. Tingstrom said he will run, but has not yet announced for reelection.

The council has been split for years over growth issues, with the current majority repeatedly backing business and development proposals.

Of the two candidates, Hartmann was most critical of recent council decisions. He opposes plans to rebate taxes to developers and possible construction of a taxpayer-supported professional baseball stadium that could cost $15 million.

Jones said he supports the council’s decision last week to return as much as $20 million to owners of the Buenaventura Mall if they expand the shopping center by about two-thirds. He would place the stadium issue on the ballot for voters to decide.

On one key fall issue, however, Jones would buck pro-business council members. He supports each of two measures to preserve farmland from construction.

Hartmann said he was not very familiar with the so-called “greenbelt initiative” that has already qualified for the November ballot, or a measure being circulated that would patch legal holes in the first. He said he has no position so far.

Hartmann attended Nordhoff and Ventura high schools. The son of an Ojai school administrator, he spent his childhood in the Ojai Valley and west Ventura.

Following his high school graduation, Hartmann served in the Navy, working as a journalist aboard a guided missile cruiser based in Hawaii. He said he graduated from college in 1985 with a degree in journalism.

He worked as the marketing director for the city of Ventura for five years and supervised public relations for the $3.5-million reconstruction of the Ventura Pier.

Jones, who spent his boyhood on an upstate New York farm, has no college degree but has worked on computers for more than 15 years. He is employed by Elixir Technologies in the northern Ventura Avenue area.

Jones said he is most interested in rebuilding downtown Ventura, an ongoing effort strongly supported by the City Council.

He also said he wants to build houses and businesses in the portions of Ventura that are vacant, instead of pushing into the agricultural lands that surround the city. Jones said he already has signed the two farmland initiatives.

“I would rather see areas be redeveloped rather than building on farmland,” he said. “Once you’ve developed farmland, you can never go back.”

In a statement, Hartmann criticized the City Council for supporting tax-sharing plans with developers.

Projects such as a proposed oversized K mart on Victoria Avenue and the Buenaventura Mall expansion should not be approved at the expense of taxpayers, Hartmann said.

“It’s a shakedown,” Hartmann said of the tax-sharing deals. “The companies say, ‘Do this, or we won’t do that.’

“All these ideas being proposed by private developers are good ones, but they shouldn’t be gambling with taxpayers’ money,” Hartmann said. “It’s a worrisome trend.”

Jones, who lives on Dunning Street near the mall, said he supports the center’s expansion and the city’s rebate plan.

“There’s been a great deal of growth around the Oxnard area the last few years and not so much in Ventura,” he said. “With growth in business you do have additional sales tax and revenue coming in.”