Outgoing Council Member Remains a Force for Nature

VENTURA —  Steve Bennett’s detractors cheered when the high-energy, sometimes-combative environmentalist decided to step down from the City Council dais.

But now, only two months later, they are chagrined to find that he may prove just as powerful--and just as meddlesome--as a grass-roots political organizer. Already, Bennett has thrown himself into two council campaigns, and is pushing a ballot initiative to protect farmland from development across the county. He has also vowed to launch a ballot initiative for November 1998 to prohibit all organized groups from giving money to candidates.

“When he said he wasn’t running, they were cheering,” said Joy Kobayashi, political action chairwoman of the Los Padres Chapter of the Sierra Club. “And I thought, ‘They don’t know what they are in for.’ He’s free now. They should be more scared than ever.”

Sitting on his porch on a recent Saturday morning--dressed in flip-flops and a Nordhoff High polo shirt--Bennett is relaxed.

But when talk turns to voter initiatives, elections and the issue that got him into politics in the first place--development--the man becomes animated.

His arms begin to wave in bigger circles. His gaze becomes intense. His ideas flow thick and fast.

Bennett sees himself as “a voice for the unorganized majority.”

As a Nordhoff High School history teacher, he draws his political heroes from the past. He admires Harry Truman for his tenaciousness, and William Jennings Bryan for his grass-roots idealism.

He draws parallels between the presidential election of 1896--when William McKinley ran against Bryan--and his own political battles in Ventura.

“McKinley sat on his porch in Ohio and let his money talk, while Bryan rode from one end of the country to the other barnstorming,” Bennett said, revisiting a theme he has pounded home in his battle for campaign finance reform in Ventura.

“It’s just like the SOAR [farmland preservation] campaign,” he said. “They just sat there. But we were out there . . . on the phones.”

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A difference, however, was that Bryan lost, while Bennett’s SOAR campaign did not.

Bennett leaped into local politics in 1989 by working to slow development that had exploded on the east end of the city in the 1980s. In conjunction with Ventura outdoor-clothing manufacturer Patagonia Inc., Bennett and other environmentalists helped elect three of their own to the City Council.

In 1991, Bennett himself ran as a last-minute write-in candidate and received 5,000 votes--a remarkable result since he was not even on the ballot.

Since Bennett was elected to the council in 1993, he has spearheaded a successful city initiative to preserve farmland and masterminded a successful ballot measure to limit campaign contributions--putting Ventura ahead of the curve statewide in terms of campaign finance reform.

Bennett believes that even though he is often stuck on the losing end of a 5-2 council vote, he is more effective politically as a council member than as an organizer. He is leaving the council because of a pledge four years ago to serve only one term.

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“I don’t mean this egotistically,” Bennett said, “but I think I was able to have more impact than I thought I would on the council.”

But fellow council members point out that he was unable to parlay his position on the council into a council majority.

“If he was that good with the unorganized majority, the council would be 5 to 2 the other way,” Mayor Jack Tingstrom said.

Bill Fulton, an author and urban planner familiar with politics around California, made a similar observation.

“I’m surprised he didn’t work harder to get four votes on his side,” Fulton said. “That’s what the political game is all about.”

Which is why some rivals regret that Bennett is plunging back into what he may be best at--grass-roots activism.

Kobayashi, of the Sierra Club, said local environmentalists really wanted Bennett to stay on the council, but she concedes Bennett’s real genius may lie in organizing others.

“In terms of running a grass-roots organization, he is the best,” Kobayashi said. “If it was not for Steve Bennett there would be no grass-roots environmental movement in Ventura.”

What Bennett brings, say those who work with him, is a political savvy previously missing from environmental activism in Ventura.

“The special-interest side had all got the system down,” Bennett said. But environmentalists used outdated county voting records to make phone calls. “They didn’t know anything about walk sheets, phone sheets.”

Today, Bennett’s modest, wood-paneled home office serves as a power center for local environmentalists.

His Macintosh computer holds an ever-growing database listing 2,100 supporters throughout the county--each name marked with a symbol denoting whether that person would be willing to volunteer, donate or just vote yes on a given issue.

Boxes stacked in the corner overflow with rolled-up precinct maps. A large pad stashed behind a filing cabinet lists some of the steps to running a successful campaign.

Kobayashi said Bennett taught her the role of mailings and absentee ballots and the importance of timing in news releases to maximize play in the media during a campaign.

Brian Brennan, one of two candidates Bennett is helping in this fall’s City Council race, says Bennett functions as a political educator within the environmental community.

“I’m not casting aspersions on the way he has performed as a council member, but he is probably more effective as a grass-roots organizer,” said Brennan. He said he considers Bennett one of the most effective organizers in Ventura in the last 10 years.

“Grass-roots candidates have passion about certain topics, but he shows us how to get there,” Brennan said. “He knows how the political process works. He can tell us this is how the endorsement process works. He’s a political teacher.”

Both Brennan and county planner Carl Morehouse, who is also running for Ventura City Council, say Bennett has offered them access to his database for their mailings, as well as practical advice on running a campaign.

Ken Schmitz, chairman of the Chamber of Commerce Political Action Committee, says the “grass-roots” label--with its connotation of inexperience--is not even appropriate for someone as politically sophisticated as Bennett.

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“When I think of grass-roots,” Schmitz said, “I think of a neighborhood candidate running on a particular issue with friends--not a lot of political savvy--but a conscience, and a cause he is marching to.”

In contrast, he said, Bennett is “probably one of the most well-organized, well-connected politicians in Ventura.”

Bennett insists that his goal--for now--is simply to channel his considerable energies into political organization, not his own political career.

“Organizing people is time-intensive,” he said. “It’s very tricky to make this whole grass-roots thing work.”

But as his opponents warily watch him scurry from one political project to another, they speculate that his current organizational efforts are a calculated strategy to spread his sphere of influence.

“He’s got his own agenda beyond the council,” Tingstrom said. “He’s running for another office. He’s got the countywide SOAR initiative, and then campaigning for it. The June after that is the primary for the county supervisor race.”

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Bennett says he is not thinking that far ahead. He just needs a break.

But then, he does not deny the predictions, either.

“I will probably run for some political office in the future,” he said with a cryptic smile.

“It could be council, it could be a county supervisor seat, it could be the state Assembly. I just don’t know.”