Civil Service Was Always on His Route

Getting a job as a city bus driver is perhaps not something most people would view as a career break, but it changed John Zaragoza forever.

Steering busloads of working-class citizens through the streets of Oxnard in the 1960s, he heard plenty of complaints about city service. But behind the wheel of that bus, the future city councilman learned to absorb criticism without losing his cool.

That ability served him well as he climbed the ranks in City Hall, moving into middle management and eventually becoming a department chief.

Now, a year after being elected to the City Council, he is still listening to residents complain. And what he says he hears is that residents want to return to the way things used to be.

A sweeping program of restructuring and layoffs at Oxnard City Hall in recent years has not worked, Zaragoza maintains. When residents call city offices, he says, they cannot get answers and are transferred from one person to another.

The lack of accountability results from the downsizing, Zaragoza says. Without job security for the first time, and with important management positions eliminated, employee morale has plummeted--as has city service.

So, Zaragoza has spent much of his first year in office seeking to restore employee confidence by fighting for the job security of the city’s 1,000 employees. He says he has a simple reason for pushing a pro-government agenda: experience.

“Look at all the investment the city of Oxnard has made in me,” he said last week, soon after giving a talk on careers in government to Hueneme High School students. “I’m an example of what we had.”

At a time when government at all levels--federal, state and local--is under siege as wasteful and inefficient, Zaragoza launched his political career by championing civil service.

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Soon after Zaragoza’s election, council members voted to fire City Manager Tom Frutchey. Frutchey’s corporate-style overhaul of Oxnard’s bureaucracy included numerous layoffs and an abolition of the city’s department head system.

With Frutchey’s replacement expected to be chosen soon, Zaragoza’s aim is to reverse the streamlining and reinstitute department head positions.

The 56-year-old Oxnard native, who grew up in the city’s poor La Colonia neighborhood, did not always have such clear goals.

After graduating from Oxnard High School in 1960, he drifted through a string of manual jobs: plumber’s apprentice, strawberry farm worker, bricklayer.

As a bus driver, he earned a reputation as hard-working and responsible, and eventually was named assistant manager in the city’s now-defunct transit department. At nights, he studied business administration at Ventura College and went on to receive his bachelor’s degree from the University of La Verne.

During Zaragoza’s 15 years as the city’s solid-waste chief, he listened patiently to infuriated residents fume about trash service, said Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez, a close political ally.

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“He had to handle complaints, and he was very good at it,” Lopez said. “It’s a real positive.”

Zaragoza explains his low-key temperament this way:

“That’s just me. You can get me angry, but it takes a lot. I’m not going to wave my fist at you.

“I’ve worked with the public everywhere, as a bus driver on up. It kind of helps to be levelheaded. The old saying is, if you talk too much, you talk yourself out of a job.”

Zaragoza retired from city service in 1993 and lost his first bid for a council seat in 1994.

But when he ousted Councilman Andres Herrera in his second bid last November, Zaragoza made it possible for the council to reconsider the downsizing of recent years, forming a council majority with Lopez and Councilman Bedford Pinkard.

Zaragoza contends the restructuring of the city’s 1,000-employee work force has failed because governments, fundamentally, are different from corporations.

Because they cannot pay as well as private companies, governments must motivate most employees by giving them job security and praising them for good work, Zaragoza reasons.

After Frutchey’s firing, the new councilman took a couple of days to visit old colleagues. Many expressed their relief with hugs.

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“We have invested many, many dollars in city employees,” Zaragoza said. “You train them to become professionals, and you need to protect them. It’s a morale issue. A lot of people felt, ‘I gave my soul to the city of Oxnard, and now I’m put out to pasture.’ ”

When Zaragoza upset Herrera, Councilmen Dean Maulhardt and Tom Holden--two strong proponents of the government restructuring--found themselves in the minority on the issue.

Maulhardt and Holden believe the changes in Oxnard’s bureaucracy have been effective, making city employees realize that they have no excuse for slacking off when drawing a check from taxpayers. They point to numerous accomplishments: better upkeep of city parks, expanded community policing, a successful anti-graffiti program.

As a former city employee, Maulhardt said, Zaragoza simply cannot see that governments can be run like corporations.

“I have no problems debating John on any issue,” Maulhardt said. “An ever-expanding role of government is not where our city--or country--wants to go. I think a city has to be responsible, just like a business.

“The downsizing and streamlining of middle management is happening everywhere,” Maulhardt added. “We’re not out on the fringe. This is the way of the future. Times have changed.”

Maulhardt said Zaragoza’s election surely has changed the direction of the Oxnard council, but “it’s not the first shift the city has gone through, and it won’t be the last.”

Holden is even more critical of his newest colleague.

Earlier this year, an auditor’s report pointed to sloppy record-keeping and financial mismanagement at the city’s Performing Arts Center. The center has lost about $1.7 million in the last two years, and Holden is a strong backer of a city plan to eliminate the general manager’s position and appoint a new head of the facility.

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But at a recent hearing on the center’s troubles, Zaragoza stepped in to defend General Manager Jack Lavin, saying that the center is struggling not because of poor management, but because key accounting positions were eliminated in recent years.

Holden calls Zaragoza’s defense of the center inexcusable.

“I think Councilman Zaragoza stands for protecting the bureaucracy of the city--regardless of the expense to taxpayers,” he said. “There’s a fine line between protecting employee rights, and the good old boy form of government. As a city employee, Councilman Zaragoza brings that philosophy with him. Job performance is not a criterion.”

Despite such opposition to his agenda, Zaragoza was able to follow through on a campaign pledge to expand a key government body, the Planning Commission. Council members will expand the commission from five to seven members later this year.

Zaragoza contends that a commission with fresh faces will take a closer look at proposed subdivisions and shopping malls. He said the current panel has not scrutinized many developments closely, including much of the commercial development that has been allowed near Oxnard Airport.

In addition, the city will abolish the hearing officer post. That post was set up for speedy decisions on routine items such as liquor licenses.

But Zaragoza says the arrival of a new bar or liquor store can be a big neighborhood issue, and that the Planning Commission needs to debate such issues.

Still, during his first year in office, Zaragoza has been slow to take a position on some major developments.

When a city proposal to annex 815 acres of farmland for a 3,165-home development and agriculture theme park was unveiled, he remained quiet, even though the community outcry was great.

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The councilman explains that local school officials wanted the project to make it through the environmental report stage, because that would allow them to build new campuses on the site without having to launch an expensive environmental study of their own. Zaragoza said he felt tempted to denounce the project--as Councilman Holden did repeatedly--but did not want to cross school administrators.

In fact, Zaragoza admits he suffers from a problem that plagues many politicians: He wants to please everyone.

“I guess what I hate is that you have to say no to people,” he said. “You want to satisfy people, but you have to go with the majority.

“The Suns are a good example,” Zaragoza added, referring to his decision to support a plan to allow the minor league baseball team, the Pacific Suns, to play at Oxnard College, despite angry opposition from some residents near the campus.

On other issues, Zaragoza has been more forceful.

A month after taking his seat on the council, he revealed a policy that let council members play for free at the city-owned River Ridge Golf Course. An avid player, Zaragoza insisted on paying his green fees--then scored points with the public by bringing the issue to light.

Council members recently abolished the perk by unanimous vote.

“People say ‘Thank you for being honest,’ ” Zaragoza said.

Holden, who acknowledged taking advantage of the free golf perk, said Zaragoza exploited the issue.

“I find it interesting Mr. Zaragoza would use issues for political gain, issues with minimal impact, when he turns away from the Performing Arts Center, which is a million dollars a year,” Holden said.

Despite such conflicts on the council, Zaragoza has shored up his political base in La Colonia, his boyhood home, by helping activists get the city to tear down the local handball courts. Neighborhood leaders complained that the courts had been taken over by drug dealers.

“We didn’t get a lot of lip service,” from Zaragoza, said Vicky Gonzales, the La Colonia neighborhood council chairwoman. “He’s dependable.”

When he is not busy with city issues, Zaragoza has his hands full with a career as a real estate broker and income tax preparer. While still a city employee, he launched those two side businesses.

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Now, both are flourishing. Last year, he sold 28 homes and saw his list of tax clients swell to 500.

His political and business careers leave precious little time to relax at his home in northwest Oxnard, where he lives with his wife of 35 years, Mary Ellen.

He is the father of two grown children, John Jr., 28, a supervisor at Procter & Gamble in Oxnard, and Lynda, 30, who works for the Federal Aviation Administration in Dallas.

His oldest child, Debbie, was a budget analyst at Port Hueneme Navy Base. She died from pneumonia several years ago. Zaragoza has four grandchildren.

At his office on Gonzales Road last week, the councilman opened his appointment book, which revealed a typical day:

* Morning board meeting at regional sanitation district headquarters.

* Lunch with a real estate client at Oxnard’s Tower Club.

* Afternoon meeting at City Hall on a redevelopment project.

Zaragoza relishes the workload. Aside from his secretary, he is the only employee at his real estate and tax office.

“I’m very successful for a broker--for just one person,” he said. “I supervised people for many, many years, and I don’t want to continue supervising. I want to be a policymaker.”