Three for Ventura

Ventura is riding toward its Nov. 2 City Council election on a wave of civic progress and high spirits--nearly all of it positive.

Aggressive outreach efforts have gotten thousands involved in the Seize the Future visioning process. A new cinema and parking garage are sparking a real estate gold rush in the quaint old Downtown, and a major redo of the Buenaventura Mall--including a ritzy new name, Pacific View--promises to pump new life into Midtown. Enthusiasm is growing for a regional sports park in East Ventura and a West Side revival is beginning to blossom with street improvements and the restoration of the historic Casa de Anza.

Channeling this momentum (and cash flow) to build a thriving, increasingly livable city calls for energetic, forward-looking leadership. Of the 12 candidates vying for three council seats, The Times endorses Jim Friedman, Doug Halter and Carl Morehouse. These candidates seem to have the best grasp of what it will take to restore the city’s leadership role as seat of a county that suffers from too much intercity competition and too little regional cooperation.

Incumbent Friedman, currently taking his turn as mayor, was instrumental in negotiating a truce with neighboring Oxnard to end 15 years of costly lawsuits over the cities’ dueling shopping malls. And as chair of the Ventura County Library Commission, Friedman is part of the county’s greatest success story to date in bridging the rift between county government and the 10 cities.

Those are two examples of the sort of regional teamwork it is going to take to overcome the destructive competition for sales-tax dollars. Like Halter and Morehouse, Friedman supports a regional sports park in East Ventura, improved mass transit and turning the big dreams expressed in the Seize the Future campaign into a blueprint for tomorrow’s Ventura. He also stands behind City Manager Donna Landeros in her efforts to improve efficiency and morale at City Hall. To accomplish this, Landeros needs clearer direction and closer monitoring from the council.

Following Friedman’s initial election to the council in 1995, he followed his conscience and voted against the controversial Centerplex plan that would have sunk $18 million in public money into a sports complex primarily benefiting private interests. He also has bargained hard to improve cable television contracts throughout the city. These positions may have cost him this year’s endorsement from the Ventura Chamber of Commerce--of which he is a past president. We give him credit for putting the community’s interests ahead of politics on these issues.

Doug Halter embodies the passion and “do it” spirit that is driving the Downtown renaissance. He is president of the Downtown Community Council and a member of 16 other community boards or commissions. While others were talking about restoring Ventura’s faded luster, Halter acted. He converted an old church into the charming Laurel Theatre and commissioned a classy rehab for his Villa Tasca home and garden shop, both on Main Street. We believe he deserves an opportunity to share some of this energy and creativity with the rest of the city.

Halter laments the miscommunication that he believes scuttled the Midtown redevelopment plan, believing that its passionate supporters and adamant foes all want essentially the same thing for their neighborhood and for the city.

As a professional planner, Carl Morehouse has the right skills and perspective for the new era of land use decision-making. On Nov. 2, Ventura will hold its first election under its 1995 Save Our Agricultural Resources (SOAR) ordinance, prototype for a similar countywide measure passed three years later. Voters will be asked whether zoning should be changed to allow a local church to build a new sanctuary and recreational facilities. A SOAR vote to determine the fate of the proposed East End sports park is expected a year later. Friedman, Halter and Morehouse recognize that the law’s intent was for voters to have full details of any project before they are asked to approve rezoning farmland or open space to accommodate those projects.

Morehouse also believes the Ventura Council of Governments and the American Planning Assn. are resources that could be used to find cooperative alternatives to the sales-tax wars.

Ventura needs leaders eager and able to make the most of the city’s momentum by healing internal rifts, thinking regionally and looking ahead. Jim Friedman, Doug Halter and Carl Morehouse are such leaders.