Another Chance to Be Heard

A nine-month blitz of brainstorming, surveys, community forums, workshops and plain old bull sessions has produced a rough draft of Ventura Vision, the product of the city’s intensive effort to shape its future.

Several thousand Ventura residents participated. Those who didn’t have only themselves to blame--and another few weeks to be heard.

That’s because instead of declaring the job complete, the Ventura Seize the Future committee has distributed a summary to everyone in the city and invited all to a community open house on Saturday to fine-tune the report.

“This [draft] contains everything people have told us,” said Bill Fulton, who chaired the Citizens Outreach Committee. “For the next month we want to ask, ‘Is this what you meant? Did we hear you right?’ ”

The draft contains 100 pages of inspiring ideas and aspirations. It proposes a future in which the environmental savvy of city government serves as a model for the private sector--and the whole city serves as a model for other areas. It envisions “a community that retains its character as an attractive coastal town by growing slowly and sustainably and by emphasizing its history, diversity and natural environment.” It calls for “a community in which residents collaborate with each other and with city government in an informed, active and constructive manner to assess and resolve common issues.”

The history of Ventura County--like the history of the human race--is a hodgepodge of independent decisions and actions, often made without considering the cumulative effect. Individual steps are taken without sufficient thought about whether they are taking us where we really want to go.

Like similar efforts in other Ventura County cities, the Ventura Seize the Future campaign is an attempt to involve the full range of local residents and interests in looking at the bigger picture. We support that sort of thoughtful approach to public policymaking and we encourage elected officials and other community leaders, present and future, to do all they can to turn this shared vision into reality.

We commend the thousands of Ventura residents who have already participated in this effort, and the dozens of committee members who are working hard to make sure that all voices are heard. We urge everyone to read the rough draft and offer further suggestions by calling 677-3955 or visiting the Web site www.seizethefuture.com. Then attend the next step of the process, FutureFest . . . the Sequel on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Arroyo Verde Park.

There’s a word to describe the sort of people who get involved in an effort like this: leaders. There’s also a word for the sort of people who let others do the work and then gripe about the results: losers.