Stuck Inside Davis’ Logic, With Stockton Blues Again

“It’s Chinatown, Jake.”

That’s one of the most famous closing lines in all filmdom. It’s an expression of futility, of human frailty, of our helplessness before the brute force of fate.

But not here, and not now

In Ventura County these days, it’s not Chinatown, Jake.

It’s . . . Stockton.

For reasons unknown and unknowable, we have been cosmically yoked to Stockton, home of--gee, Mom, I just can’t eat another bite--asparagus shortcake.

Three months ago, Ventura County stole David Baker, the chief administrative officer of San Joaquin County, from his headquarters in Stockton. After four days on the job here, Baker jumped ship, unable to perceive any glory in piloting the Titanic. Now he’s safely back at his old job in . . . Stockton.

Even as Baker’s dire predictions for Ventura County hung in the air like sulfurous fumes from spent fireworks, Stockton reared its head again.

Puzzling educators who are no strangers to puzzling pronouncements, Gov. Gray Davis yanked an anticipated $10 million from Cal State Channel Islands. The university-to-be needs the money for such pointless luxuries as faculty salaries, but the governor chopped it from his preliminary budget.

His reason: Plans for a full-bore four-year university have been steaming along in Ventura County. However, plans for a certain Cal State satellite campus elsewhere aren’t going so well. The faltering campus is in . . . yes, Stockton.

Stockton! Somehow we’re soul mates, yet we don’t quite fit. Ventura County and Stockton: They go together like love and carriage, like horse and marriage, like an ice-cold beer and a heaping bowl of asparagus.

The event of the year in the city to which we have been manacled is the Asparagus Festival.

“The people who started it were looking for something that wasn’t already taken by another community,” explained Loralee McGaughey, a Stockton tourism official who is something of a spear carrier for the April jubilee. “They fix asparagus pasta, asparagus bisque, asparagus ice cream, asparagus burritos, asparagus shortcake . . . “

I bet it’s a fun time. I bet there are a lot of trees and good restaurants and nice people in Stockton, just as McGaughey says. But should the fate of our university be tied to a place where even the children are forced to celebrate asparagus?

At first glance, the governor’s tactic seems to beggar logic. After all, Ventura County’s Cal State success and Stockton’s Cal State struggle don’t have much to do with each other, right?

Not to Davis, who insists that both be on track before either receives more funds.

When you think about it, maybe it’s not so crazy.

Perhaps the Gray Davis approach will work on your kid:

You: OK, you can watch MTV until 11--but only if your sister flosses her teeth.

Kid: That’s not fair!

You: It’s Stockton, Jake.

Kid: Hey, I’m Jason!

You: Whatever. And get that asparagus out of your nose.

Under the Davis theory of Management by Ludicrous Linkage, bosses can give employees the raises they richly deserve--but only if the lost princess Anastasia shows up at the company picnic.

Why, oh why, the puzzled employees ask.

It’s Stockton, Jake.

And who knows how other government officials will play off Davis’ lead?

Will the freeway bridge between Ventura and Oxnard finally be widened--when Jersey City opens another senior center?

Will an elementary school in Santa Paula get new crayons--when NASA finally gets some nice snapshots from the Mars Polar Lander?

Cal State officials say the governor’s move is almost certainly temporary. When he submits his final budget in May, Stockton will have solved its problems and Cal State Channel Islands will have the $10 million it needs for a grand opening in 2002, they say.

Let’s hope so.

Truly, that will be the dawning of the Age of Asparagus.

Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or by e-mail at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.