ELECTIONS / VENTURA : Residents Seek Answers to Crime During Candidates Forum

Candidates for three open City Council seats suffered the slings of a disenchanted community Thursday night when a crowd of frustrated west Ventura residents demanded solutions to ongoing problems with crime and homelessness in their neighborhood.

During the two-hour forum sponsored by the Westside Community Council, residents in the Ventura Avenue area of the city quizzed the 11 candidates on what steps they would take to deter crime and revitalize the now-blighted community.

“These are issues we have been focusing on in the past year,” said Lauri Flack of the Westside Community Council and moderator of Thursday’s forum. “Everyone feels very neglected.”

A young but extremely active community organization, the Westside council has pushed residents and city leaders to help curb crime, gang activity and blight.

Thursday’s forum was the first sponsored by the council and part of a drive to encourage voter turnout on Nov. 7. The Avenue area traditionally has had the lowest voter registration and participation in the city.

During a short question-and-answer period, some of the 89 residents who attended the forum posed questions to candidates that ranged from whether they support building a municipal swimming pool in the city’s west end to whether they would fund sidewalk and street improvements.

During a break in the forum, Ramona Street resident Lou Sickels warned of neighborhood streets in serious disrepair. “Be careful how you drive because the pot holes will swallow small cars.”

Candidate Keith Burns, a writer, fielded a question on Ventura Avenue sidewalk and business improvements, to which he suggested that the city buy paint and involve residents in a massive cleanup and paint-over effort along the neighborhood’s central thoroughfare.

“The Avenue is code word for Skid Row in parts of town, and you don’t deserve that,” he told the crowd.

Restaurant owner Charles E. (Buster) Davis summoned loud applause when he sermonized on the issue of homelessness, saying that Ventura Avenue residents and city leaders alike need to show more empathy for the city’s homeless. “We are our brother’s keeper,” he bellowed.

John S. Jones, a software technician, told the crowd he would support constructing a community pool in the west end--a proposal that has been suggested for three alternate sites, all in the city’s east end, including Buena High School.

Attorney Donna De Paola-Peterson championed the funneling of more money into the Saticoy and Ventura Avenue libraries--an emotional issue for residents because their neighborhood libraries have narrowly escaped budget cutbacks in the past and would likely be closed if a $35 parcel tax on the ballot is not approved.

“We need to increase the Saticoy library and the Avenue library,” she said. “That is where our at-risk kids are.”

But some in the audience at the Avenue Adult Center seemed generally unimpressed with the candidates.

One man hissed at property manager Craig Huntington when he began campaigning against two restrictive land-use measures on the ballot.

Another audience member questioned under her breath whether the candidates were simply saying what they thought people wanted to hear. Still another shook his head skeptically at what was perceived as candidate double-speak.

“It is sad that there is so much of it,” said Sickels as the forum drew to a close. “It tells me a lot of them haven’t done a lot of their homework on the area.”

Asked whether he found three candidates to support next month, Sickels said with a sigh: “Sometimes you have to vote for the best of the worst.”