Grade-Schoolers Give Mayor Advice

Fourth- and fifth-graders have become a lot more sophisticated over the years, as evidenced Wednesday when Ventura Mayor Jim Friedman paid a visit to Pierpont Elementary School.

“Knowing that the City Council and the mayor run everything, I want you to pretend now that you’re the mayor of the city,” Friedman told Donna Miller’s fourth-grade class.

“This will be your opportunity to let me know what you think is good about the city, and what you think isn’t so good,” he continued, a chance he also gave Bob Streeton’s fourth-graders and Julie Leary’s and Paula Francis’ fifth-grade classes. “If we never hear from you, we won’t know what you want.”

All four classrooms soon were bursting with ideas to make Ventura a better place to live.

The clear favorite: a skateboard park at Marina Park. Every class mentioned it, usually more than once.

But the students weren’t focused only on what the city could give them. A short list of other suggestions: fixing potholes, building an aquarium at the harbor, fixing Surfers Point, fighting drugs and gangs, and adding trash cans to the city and the beaches.

And there were some tougher issues tossed the mayor’s way, such as 11-year-old Cameron Calabrese’s suggestion to provide more shelters for the homeless, especially homeless women and children.

Baily Wagoner wanted to know why the city allowed housing to go up where open space and orchards once were.

It’s a matter of balancing housing needs, including perhaps hers one day, against wanting to keep Ventura the way it is, Friedman explained, asking her which she would choose.

“That’s a hard decision to make,” Baily admitted after thinking about it a few seconds.