Voters Reject Measure to Revitalize Midtown

In the lowest turnout in two decades for a citywide election, voters Tuesday rejected a plan to establish a redevelopment district in the aging midtown commercial area.

Final returns showed Measure A, the Midtown Corridor Redevelopment Project, failed by a 57% to 43% margin with 7,540 votes against and 5,658 yes votes.

“The voters have said they want to preserve Ventura’s unique character,” said Allen St. James, a member of Ventura Citizens Against Redevelopment Excess (CARE).

Of the city’s 55,820 voters, only 24% went to the polls, said Bruce Bradley, Ventura County assistant registrar of voters.

“Whatever the reason, they’ve made a choice not to vote,” said Bradley. “You can lead them to water, but you can’t make them drink.”

In November, the Ventura City Council approved a $72-million face lift for the midtown business corridor bounded by East Main Street and East Thompson Avenue from Ash Street to Mills Road. The commercial heart of the area is the Pacific View Mall.

The district was designed to generate more than $70 million over 45 years. Under state law, cities can designate areas as physically or economically “blighted” and establish redevelopment districts.

The advantage of a redevelopment district is that it allows all property taxes collected within the project boundaries to be used to improve homes and businesses in that local area. Normally, those taxes are sent to Sacramento, which keeps most of the money.

On Tuesday afternoon, some people exiting a midtown polling place said they voted no because they feared redevelopment would cause property taxes to increase. They said intense real estate speculation would squeeze out mom-and-pop businesses, as the creation of a similar district downtown did to some longtime merchants there.

Eventually, the only businesses that would be able to afford to rent a midtown storefront would be big, established companies, they said.

“I don’t trust the city,” said Ethan Locey, 28, a third-generation midtown resident, after leaving a polling place on Pacific Avenue.

“If this was a redevelopment district, the business corridors midtown would be filled with nothing but Starbucks and Taco Bells. Who needs it? I can go to Santa Barbara to see all that.”

Other voters said they feared the city would use the power of eminent domain to acquire blighted properties. Although the plan states that eminent domain could not be used, the skeptical voters said there were loopholes.

“If the city decides to build or expand a freeway, they can condemn my property just like that,” said June Robinson, who has owned two homes in midtown for 35 years. “My brother owns a liquor store on Thompson [Avenue] and they could do the same thing to him.”

Jack Tonner, 81, a retired dentist who has owned a home in midtown for two decades, said his vote against the measure had nothing to do with fears of having his property seized by the city.

Tonner’s no vote boiled down to the probability of increased property taxes.

“Eventually we taxpayers will have to pay for all the improvements,” Tonner said. “The money’s not going to drop out of the sky.”

But voters who favored the measure said the area needs cleaning up. They also liked the idea of keeping property taxes in Ventura.

“I can understand why people think the area has a lot of charm, but it could certainly be upgraded,” said John Vanhouten, 35, who bought a home in midtown three years ago. He voted yes on the measure.

“The merchants have had years to [make improvements] independently without a referendum and they haven’t done it,” he said.

As crucial as the measure was to midtown’s future, few people seemed to take notice. Bradley said this was the lowest turnout for a citywide election in the 20 years he’s worked in Ventura County. The Measure A election cost taxpayers $75,000, which includes money spent printing and mailing sample ballots to registered voters.

“In my 10 years of volunteering, I have never seen it this slow,” said Jay Shoemaker, who was working a polling place at a church on Pacific Avenue. Shoemaker said about 10% of voters from that precinct--or 217 people--had cast a ballot by late afternoon.

“Every now and then, someone drops in,” Shoemaker said. “There’s just no interest. There’s only one item to vote on and most people don’t care one way or another.”

But St. James, of CARE, who led a hard-fought campaign against the district, said people in midtown did vote in significant numbers.

With or without the city, the merchants are moving ahead, he said, with their own plans to revitalize the area.

“We are the heart and the soul and the backbone of the midtown corridor,” said St. James, who owns Tiki Trader’s Hawaiian Shop on Main Street. “We have our own fix-up plan. We want to allow natural market growth to develop the town, rather than have a government agency force us into it.”

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Times Community News reporters Massie Ritsch and Holly Wolcott contributed to this story.