Supervisors Upbeat as They Face Major Decisions in ’99

Ventura County supervisors will tackle several major issues in 1999 that will map out the county’s course into the next century on everything from the homeless to juvenile justice.

Some of the hot-button topics that were acted upon in 1998 will come to fruition this year.

For example, supervisors must turn the voter-approved Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources initiative into a land-use policy. The measure prevents politicians from rezoning farmland and open space without voter approval through 2020. Although the measure won 62.6% of the vote, the vigorous debate on that issue--and several others facing the county this year--is far from over.

As it stands, supervisors are split over who should oversee the measure’s implementation.

Supervisor Kathy Long has argued that the Ventura Council of Governments--made up of city and county representatives--was the appropriate panel to handle the job. Supervisor John Flynn, who at a recent board meeting said the governments council is ineffective and called it a “dud,” wants to lead the effort with Supervisor Frank Schillo.

Whichever group is at the helm still must resolve whether to establish an open space conservation district, which would seek public and private funds to buy and preserve open space and farmland.

Group members also may adopt by ordinance the six existing and five proposed greenbelts, described in the county’s General Plan, as boundaries that would permanently separate cities and stop urban sprawl.

“The devil’s in the details,” Schillo said, referring to setting the new boundaries. Although voters in most cities showed strong support for municipal SOAR measures preventing their communities from expanding beyond a set of designated borders without a public vote, in Santa Paula the SOAR measure failed.

“We’ve still got a problem with Santa Paula,” Schillo said. “What this means for unincorporated areas outside Santa Paula hasn’t been decided or figured out yet.”

The new year will also see supervisors continuing to grapple over their controversial decision last April to merge the county’s Public Services Agency with the Behavioral Health Department.

Last month, the governing panel was forced to dismantle the 10-month-old Human Services Agency or face losing as much as $15 million a year in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. The action came after federal officials warned that the 1,400-employee superagency was illegal under their organizational requirements.

But Chairwoman Judy Mikels said she wants to hammer out the legality issues and move forward with a teamwork approach to treating the mentally ill.

“There’s some very good things that came out of the merger,” said Mikels, who voted against the merger last spring in large part because she feared losing federal funding. “We’re beginning to see cooperation and communication between doctors and social workers that we never saw before.”

Also this year, Flynn said he would call for a report on the effectiveness of the county’s welfare reform effort. Like all California counties, Ventura County at the start of last year implemented CalWORKS, the welfare-to-work program that replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children.

In response to the 1996 federal Welfare Reform Act, the law places a five-year limit on most people who receive cash assistance and imposes strict work requirements.

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With the program moving into its second year, Flynn said he wants proof of its success.

“We need to show in numbers that the CalWORKS effort is working,” Flynn said. “Let’s crank them out. Here’s the CalWORKS program and here’s what it’s done--1999 will prove whether it’s working or not working.”

Also this year, Flynn and other supervisors said they would try to turn Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard into a destination point. For the past several years, harbor merchants have asked supervisors to do something to address their worsening plight.

Flynn and others said they want to implement the Channel Islands Harbor master plan--aimed at transforming the harbor into a lively place to shop and eat--this year. One idea would be to beautify the entrance to the harbor, in part by planting palm trees, Flynn said.

“Right now, you could fire a cannon at that harbor and it would hit no one,” Flynn said. “The Channel Islands Harbor needs to be turned around in 1999. We need a short-term plan. We need to hire a marketing person who knows how to market the harbor.”

Meanwhile, Long is expected to step up efforts to tackle homelessness as a countywide problem. Long is chairing a new committee of city and county representatives that will seek solutions.

The committee was created after homeless people in Ventura were left without a cold-weather shelter this winter. After the county announced early last year that it would no longer provide a countywide winter shelter, the city of Ventura decided against allocating funds to open an emergency shelter within the city.

Mikels, whose district represents Simi Valley, Moorpark, Somis and Santa Rosa Valley, agreed with critics that elected officials in the east county need to join the committee.

“My office will be involved,” Mikels said. “And it won’t do just having another supervisor on the committee. We need elected city officials too. This is a regional issue.”

Another top priority for officials this year will be to secure funding for a new juvenile justice center. In late December, supervisors appointed a steering committee to oversee site selection and fund-raising for the proposed center.

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The committee must scramble to meet a March 17 application deadline for state and federal funds that could cover most of the $60-million cost of the center. By that date, the committee must identify a 30-acre site and a source for the county’s share of the bill.

The center would bring together all branches of the scattered juvenile justice system in one central complex of courtrooms, detention halls and offices for all agencies related to juvenile courts, including the probation agency, the district attorney and the public defender.

“Getting the grant money for the juvenile justice system and getting the center completed is, I believe, the biggest issue facing the county,” said Mikels, adding that the entire complex will most likely be completed within three years.

Unlike most years, the one issue that county officials won’t have to worry about this year is a projected budget deficit. Supervisors--who oversee about a $900-million annual budget--don’t expect any serious financial cutbacks this year.

“I hope that the public feels that our county is very fortunate,” said Mikels, who will turn her chairwoman title over to Supervisor Susan Lacey on Tuesday.

“We’re not in a position of danger, or of going bankrupt,” Mikels said. “We’re not facing the new year with an ‘Oh my God’ attitude. There’s no feeling of doom and demise. We’ve got some really tough issues to deal with and now we just have to focus.”