Mayor Sees Ventura as ‘Island of Opportunity’ for Businesses, Visitors

Mayor Jack Tingstrom painted a vibrant portrait Tuesday in his first State of the City address, telling more than 150 people gathered at the Holiday Inn that Ventura is brimming with business and cultural opportunities.

“We need only to look out these windows,” he told the crowd dining in the hotel’s rooftop restaurant, “to answer how many--or how few--other cities have amenities like this. . . . This is an island of opportunity.”

During his upbeat address, Tingstrom talked about the need to recruit more businesses and to boost the city’s sales tax base through proposals such as a $15-million sports complex known as Centerplex and the $50-million expansion of the Buenaventura Mall.

And a fair portion of the mayor’s 30-minute speech--an annual event before members of the Greater Ventura Chamber of Commerce--focused on the need to increase tourism.

Tingstrom reported that revenue from hotel bed taxes increased by nearly 8% last year, a sign that tourist-targeted projects such as the redevelopment of downtown are paying off, he said.

“This is the largest increase in over six years,” Tingstrom said. “Something we are doing is right.”

The city reported collecting $1,855,482 in bed taxes last year, up from $1,721,856 the year before.

Given the upturn in hotel sales, Ventura Visitors and Convention Bureau Director Bill Clawson said he was encouraged by the mayor’s desire to bring in even more visitors.

“I think that tourism is the best form of economic development,” he said. “I think it is great that Jack is supportive.”

While the thrust of Tingstrom’s speech was positive, the mayor did acknowledge a list of troubling issues confronting the city, such as a lack of library funding and overcrowded schools.

But Tingstrom did not linger on those issues, although at least one council member has said library funding should be the city’s top priority.

“I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but we have a situation begging for attention and that is the libraries,” said Councilman Jim Friedman, who attended the noontime speech.

Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures also said that the county’s library funding crisis has forced the issue to the forefront of the city’s agenda, but added that it shares space with other important issues as well.

“It is difficult to distinguish that one is more important than another,” she said. “We have so many important issues they shouldn’t compete with each other.”

Tingstrom started his address Tuesday by praising city staff members and then launched into a detailed account of goals accomplished in 1995--an 18% drop in crime, $3.6 million in downtown improvements and the approved expansion of the Buenaventura Mall.

A top goal this year, Tingstrom said, is construction of a multiscreen movie theater on the 500 block of Main Street, which would further fuel the revitalization of downtown.

“Envision this,” the mayor eagerly told his audience, “a theater, nine screens, wrapped with retail around it.”

The mayor’s other goals for 1996 included creating a cultural corridor on Ash Street, building a concert stadium above City Hall and restoring the Ventura Pier, which lost 420 feet of wood decking to high surf last year.

In listing his goals, Tingstrom identified a proposed baseball stadium and sports complex as the most positive project waiting in the wings.

“Centerplex,” he said, “a baseball stadium that will have concerts, a swimming facility, a golf facility, a stadium that will handle football and soccer . . . it is the single most positive project in our city at this time.”

But while praising the mayor’s speech and his vision for the city, Friedman was reluctant to embrace the Centerplex plan without careful study.

“Jack has a vision with regard to some sort of sports complex out at the east end toward the auto center,” Friedman said.

“I would like to remain positive about a project like this,” he said. “But I would also hasten to say that . . . I will definitely not commit until I see all the deal points.”

The City Council voted last summer to support the Centerplex project in concept, but balked at the idea of spending millions of city dollars to help pay for it. A revised proposal is expected to come back to the council this spring.