Westside Story : Gritty Community Council Renews Spirit of The Avenue

For three nights automatic gunfire shattered The Avenue night.

Bullets whizzed through the air, breaking glass and ricocheting off the adobe walls of Lee’s Grocery Store. Casings littered the residential intersection at Olive and Harrison.

It was the last straw.

After decades of perceived neglect by the city and police, set against the grim backdrop of economic decline and increasing gang violence--westside residents had had enough.

So they went to the city and asked for help.

Less than a week later, on May 12, 1994, edgy residents crammed into the cafeteria of Sheridan Way School for their first “town hall” meeting. Professional facilitator and westside resident Laurie Flack was on hand to keep neighborhood tensions from exploding, former Mayor Tom Buford stood by to soothe frazzled residents’ nerves. And 300 residents showed up to vent.

With the smells of school lunches still in the air, grandmothers, gang members and homeowners folded themselves into metal chairs--and let loose.

“People were screaming ‘No mas!’ ” said 80-year-old Tony Garcia, a sixth-generation Venturan who attended that first meeting. “They were saying, ‘We are going to stand here, and we are going to be heard.’ ”

That was three years ago, but some of the colorful cast of characters crowded into the Sheridan Way cafeteria that night were to become the founding members of the Westside Community Council.

Since then, city officials say, the Westside Community Council has evolved into a sophisticated neighborhood organization plugged in at the grass roots. It has captured money from city coffers, time from city staffers, and the attention of City Council members. And it also has become a local model for neighborhood activism--inspiring other areas of the city to start up community councils of their own.

The momentum continues to build. As Ventura heads into its election year, at least one council member and many westsiders say look out: They may field their own council candidate.

Referred to simply as “The Avenue” by locals, the west side of Ventura is like a tiny kingdom, with its own geographical boundaries and distinct local culture, derived from the human diversity--and density--of The Avenue.

“All different ways of life are living there together,” said Buford. “You find people that bring a vitality . . . that you just can’t get when everyone is from the same background.”

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Ventura Avenue runs like a spine down the center, holding the unlikely pieces together. Yards full of junk, tractors, pieces of old motorcycles are piled high behind wire fences. Squeezed between liquor stores and auto body shops, tiny gardens thrive.

The clanging of a steel rebar plant echoes through the residential neighborhood. Along the main drag, the smell of enchiladas mixes with diesel exhaust.

Grasshopper oil wells dot the hills and valley floor. And the Quonset-style huts and tiny cottages that once housed oil workers now overflow with Latino families.

Set back off The Avenue, Westview Village, Ventura’s biggest and oldest housing project, cowers under giant floodlights. Less than a mile away are lemon orchards and suburban subdivisions.

Up above it all, pink Mediterranean villas are stacked on the hillside, offering some of the most spectacular views of the city from their own microclimate.

The Avenue is a place where families living on tree-lined streets still hang out on their stoops and talk over back fences. People ride their bikes to the grocery store and walk to church on Sunday.

At night prostitutes ply their trade in the industrial shadows, police say they occasionally nab small-time drug dealers at the Derrick Room, and gang members roam the sidewalks.

From Boom to Blight

The Avenue was once the center of Ventura. The Chumash lived there, the Spanish missionaries taught the Native Americans to grow grapes there, and the first wealthy settlers built their homes there to catch the cool breezes blowing up from the sea.

In the early 1900s Ventura became a booming oil town. Decades later, when the oil industry began to pull out, it left The Avenue mired in a recession some say still continues. The departure of Texaco at the end of the 1980s was a low point.

“In 1989 it went bust,” said Roger Case, a local Realtor who is a member of the Westside Community Council and heads up the Westside Business Assn. “There was a big depression right here on The Avenue. . . . We’re starting to come out, but it could take 12 to 15 years.”

Over time, The Avenue became home to more of the city’s social services, old-timers say. The Avenue name became symbolic of blight, the place a picture of neglect.

“Look at the funding and infrastructure here,” said Trudy Tuttle Arriaga, the principal of Sheridan Way School. “Two miles away, things look very different.” She pointed out the number of liquor stores and social service agencies.

“I support social services 100%, but when you put everything in one area you’ve created your own segregation.”

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James E. Koslow, executive director for the city Housing Authority, says the social services agencies are there because the people who need them are there.

Thirty five percent of the city’s public housing is on The Avenue. Compared to other parts of Ventura, the number of owner-occupied homes is low. According to 1990 census figures, almost two-thirds of Avenue residents are renters. In one typical section of east Ventura, only 15% of residents are renters.

Though only about 7% of citywide calls to the police over the last 14 months came from The Avenue, according to Public Information Officer Carl Handy of the Venture Police Department, there is a perception that crime runs rampant there.

And until recently there was a perception on The Avenue that the police did not care. “Police were considered the people who didn’t come when you called,” said Sharon Troll, a community council member who works on public safety issues.

But that first town hall meeting in 1994 began to reverse the process.

The Westside Community Council was born, members were added, committees developed. Today there are seven committees: Public Safety, Soul, Revitalization, Westside Business Assn., Youth Recreation Activities, Voter Education and Registration, Communications, and Membership. The council meets the first Thursday of every month. The committees meet separately. The council even puts out a newsletter--Westside Stories.

“It’s incredible,” said Case. “They are an extremely well-organized, Teflon-greased machine.”

Many characters make this machine crank--Mike Del Dosso, a bright-eyed, bearded former chairman, Tony Antinarelli, an outspoken house painter who served as the first chair, and Troll, the chief volunteer at the Westside Police Storefront, to name a few.

But Laurie Flack, the current chair, sits at the center of it all. Back when Jimmy Carter was in the White House she started working on youth and social justice issues for several nonprofits. She has canvassed for Nader and Associates, and worked on Skid Row in Los Angeles.

“Laurie has passion,” Arriaga said. “She’s a skilled facilitator. Very bright, articulate, intelligent. But she’s also a very warm, caring person.”

Tapping City Hall to Foster Change

The key to the Westside Community Council’s success, say city officials, is that the council’s members have presented themselves as activists rather than victims.

“They are not just a bunch of complaining people,” said Councilman Jim Friedman. “They are people who are working to solve problems.”

Over time, westsiders learned how to tap into the people at City Hall who can implement change.

Today, city officials speak to representatives of the westside council often, and city staff members regularly attend westside meetings.

“I think Laurie Flack knows as many people in the city as anyone,” said Everett Millais, director of community services. “More than coming to talk to us, they invited a whole lot of people to come and talk to them. . . . Just about every component of city operations has been out there--maintenance, parks, city, redevelopment, planning.”

On a recent Thursday night, the meeting room at the Avenue Adult Center was packed. Under the bingo board on the wall sat about 30 residents--more than you typically see at a City Council meeting.

Tom Figg, the city planning and redevelopment manager, sat at one end of the table. Flack sat at the other. Representatives from a social service agency were there to ask for support; the new owner of Casa de Anza, a large vacant apartment building, was there to answer questions, and residents were there to speak out.

“Is that a question? Let’s try to move it along,” Flack said to one resident who had started to ramble. “One more comment, then we’re going to entertain a motion,” she said to another.

Under Flack’s direction, the meetings move efficiently through a lengthy agenda. Goals are set. People are dispatched to City Hall to show support for important issues.

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Their hard work is beginning to yield results.

This fall, after 20 years, an ordinance that effectively discouraged merchants on The Avenue from redoing their storefronts was repealed. Since then Clark’s Printing has totally redone its Art Deco facade; others are following suit.

The westside now is poised to receive federal funding to refurbish Casa de Anza--the gutted brick building that dominates The Avenue.

The city also has formed an underground-utility district on the westside and made it a priority that the power poles and electric wires that march down The Avenue will be out of sight in five years.

And it has put aside $250,000 in capital improvement money to install curbs and sidewalks on The Avenue.

On top of that, the community council received $25,000 from the city to do a three-part “Take Part” workshop that would lay out a vision for what The Avenue wants to be five, 10, or 20 years from now.

The final results of those workshops, which involved the participation of 94 residents over three Saturdays, will be presented to the City Council on Monday.

They are being taken seriously. Figg, the city planning and redevelopment manager, says the westside ultimately could be made into a redevelopment district--as a way to fund city money into the area long term.

But many of the council victories are smaller and more local.

A priority is on making The Avenue look better. Working with the Westside Police Storefront and city code enforcement officers, the council successfully lobbied for adoption of a nuisance abatement ordinance used in Camarillo to try to clean up the area.

They have even taken to the streets to personally reinforce city decisions.

Efforts Start to Show Results

When a new business paints its building, Laurie Flack stops in to say she noticed, thanks.

On some weekend nights Troll and Del Dosso, of the Public Safety Committee, hop into an old beat-up pickup and patrol the streets--talking via walkie-talkie to Westside Police Storefront Officer John Castellanos.

These efforts, too, are starting to pay off.

Take a drive down The Avenue, and between the seedy joints, uneven sidewalks, there is some green, fresh paint.

Pop into Plaza Park. Maxine Culp, Betty Molina and artist Len Evans of the Westside Soul Committee focus on projects that will celebrate The Avenue. Under the direction of Evans they took a tiny weed-choked trash heap of bottles and syringes and cleaned it up.

Today California poppies burst out of enclosures constructed with castoff pieces of the downtown sidewalk in the plaza.

Down The Avenue, artists Michelle Chapin and Tom Porter have taken over an old auto body shop and converted it into a studio. They cleared away 3 1/2 tons of junk in a 20-foot rollaway dumpster and eight truckloads of scrap metal.

Now it is replanted with flowers.

Word of their success has traveled through Ventura. Neighborhoods from midtown and east Ventura have sent emissaries to watch how it works. The East Side Community Council used the Westside Community Council’s bylaws as a model.

But residents and city officials say the actual accomplishments to date may be less important than the psychological boost the experience has given the community.

“I think they’ve accomplished a lot,” Millais said. “And yet to point to a physical accomplishment is beside the point. . . . They have successfully called attention to themselves and their needs and done it in a cooperative fashion.”

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That is virtually unprecedented in Ventura, he said.

Roger Case says the resulting attitude change on the westside has been dramatic.

He spoke of the group’s euphoria the night the public safety committee got the Camarillo nuisance abatement ordinance adopted.

“These people were going, ‘Wow, do I have power! “‘ he said.

But despite its successes, the community council has failed to attract many members from The Avenue’s large Latino community.

According to the 1990 census figures, the latest available, about 40% of westside residents are of Hispanic origin. Principal Arriaga says 86% of her students at Sheridan Way this year are Latino--up 5% just from last year.

Take a stroll down The Avenue and you hear more Spanish than English. Membership forms are printed in both English and Spanish, and an interpreter is available at important meetings, but less than a handful of the council’s regular members are Latino.

Arriaga thinks things will change. She sends meeting notices home with students and says she thinks some parents involved in evening English classes at Sheridan Way may soon take the plunge. But it takes time to overcome linguistic barriers.

Others, like Father Joseph Pina of the San Buenaventura Mission, praised the council, but said it does not address the most pressing concerns of Latino residents.

“They are basically English-speaking, basically homeowners,” said Pina. “Beautification issues are important. But what are the burning issues? There are drugs being sold in our area. Is that an issue? Are absentee landlords going to be dealt with?”

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Pina, a Spanish-speaking street pastor who wears sandals and banters with gang members, says about half his parish is from “The Avenida.” About three-quarters of those are Latino. He said language, culture and long work hours prevent Latinos from being active.

“Historically it’s been very difficult for Latinos to get involved in community organizations for a simple reason: There may be a lot of undocumented people,” he said. “They tend to keep to themselves, out of fear.”

He said legal residents often still face a language barrier, and a lot of people work 12, 13, 14 hours a day.

The community council has also failed to draw any members from the hillside enclave of pink villas.

Pam Wolny, who has lived in the hillside area since it was built in 1988, said she has never heard of the Westside Community Council. And she said she feels little connection to The Avenue lying below her.

“It frightens me,” she said. “I don’t go down after dark. And it’s kind of scary even in the daytime.”

She is turned off by the grit.

“It’s all kind of scuzzy,” she said, petting her two golden retrievers. “Once we were at an intersection and this half-naked woman started banging on the door.”

Her two daughters attend Mound, a magnet school in east Ventura, and many other neighborhood children attend private school in Ventura, or Santa Barbara, she said.

Still, despite omissions of significant parts of the community, the successes of the council have been so marked that Councilman Friedman has predicted the westside will field its own City Council candidate this fall.

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Many on the westside agree.

“This is a great place to spawn and incubate a candidate,” said Case. “It’s like a nice, warm, fuzzy womb. People emerging out of this are people who haven’t been involved before. But now they have a sense of power.’

But will they be able to parlay that into votes?

Old-time westsiders say they cannot remember the last time The Avenue fielded its own candidate.

“In the past there may have been folks from The Avenue who ran,” Millais said. “But they weren’t running with that as their constituency.”

Ventura does not have district voting, which means any successful council candidate must draw votes throughout the city. For any potential westside candidate, the low voter registration and turnout in the area are problems.

According to Bruce Bradley, the county’s elections chief, there are 5,366 voters registered on The Avenue. That is less than half the population living in the area--as counted by the 1990 federal census.

Voter turnout on The Avenue has consistently fallen below the county average, or other precincts in Ventura. In last year’s presidential election, the four Avenue precincts averaged a 36.9% voter turnout--only slightly more than half the county average of 66.4%.

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Historically, Millais said, neighborhood organizations have played a role in local politics in Oxnard and Los Angeles. Not so in Ventura. But he sees them as potentially playing a bigger role here if things on The Avenue go well.

“They’re moving into a new phase. The community-based political organization will be a new dynamic in Ventura,” he predicted.

In the meantime, Avenue residents celebrate their successes, and push forward with their agenda.

“I look at the results,” said Case. “The City Council is responding. The bureaucrats are responding. It’s like this is the place to be.”

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Voices and Reactions

Most community officials are enthusiastic over grass-roots changes on The Avenue:

“People were screaming ‘No mas!’ They were saying, ‘We are going to stand here, and we are going to be heard.’ ”

--Tony Garcia, 80, a sixth-generation Venturan

*

“Is that a question? Let’s try to move it along. . . . One more comment, then we’re going to entertain a motion.”

--Laurie Flack, managing a meeting

*

“All different ways of life are living there together. You find people that bring a vitality . . . that you just can’t get when everyone is from the same background.”

--Former Ventura Mayor Tom Buford

*

“Look at the funding and infrastructure here. Two miles away, things look very different.”

--Trudy Tuttle Arriaga, the principal of Sheridan Way School

*

“They are not just a bunch of complaining people. They are people who are working to solve problems.”

--Ventura Councilman Jim Friedman