Bitter Campaign Expected in 3-Way Supervisorial Race

The gloves came off early in the debate among the candidates vying for the seat held by retiring Supervisor Susan Lacey, now open for the first time in 20 years.

Throwing the first punch, Jim Monahan brandished a photograph of county union boss Barry Hammitt and accused Steve Bennett of being in Hammitt’s pocket. Bennett jabbed back, nailing Monahan and the third challenger, Rosa Lee Measures, for opposing the popular SOAR growth-control laws when they were Ventura City Council members.

Not to be outdone, Measures portrayed Bennett as an obsessed environmentalist and Monahan as a do-nothing politician.

That debate earlier this month was just the first round of what very likely will be the most bitterly contested local race of the March primary election. The candidates will spend the next five weeks attacking each other’s records and personalities and explaining why they are best qualified to represent voters in Ventura and parts of the Ojai Valley.

Voters will have distinct choices in the nonpartisan race when they go to the polls March 7. Democrat Bennett, an intense, 49-year-old economics teacher and environmentalist riding the momentum of his successful SOAR initiatives, has a skill for grabbing hold of issues with broad popular appeal.

Republican Measures, 62, a former bank executive who is the favorite of county government’s conservative establishment, is a polished businesswoman who can win over crowds with her megawatt personal style.

And Republican Monahan, 65, Ventura’s most veteran councilman, has deep roots in Ventura politics and represents the city’s old guard. For 40 years he has run the welding shop his father founded in 1928.

District 1 is made up of 80,000 voters with Democrats slightly outnumbering Republicans, 41% to 39%. It is an environmental and labor stronghold that has elected liberal Democrat Lacey since 1980.

That augers well for Bennett, said Carolyn Leavens, a county Republican strategist who took on Lacey 12 years ago and lost.

“Philosophically, Bennett matches the district pretty well,” Leavens said. “It is strongly no-growth and long on teachers and union people. It will be an uphill battle for either of the Republicans.”

Measures and Monahan, however, will most likely capture enough of the primary vote to force Bennett into a November runoff with one of them, said Leavens, who is not making an endorsement in the primary.

“I’m not sure it will help, though,” said Leavens, who spent $75,000 trying to defeat Lacey, then a two-term incumbent. “It just prolongs the agony and spends bucks.”

Bennett’s supporters say he would make a good supervisor because he puts the interests of residents over entrenched special interests. He is focused, prepared and willing to take on the traditional centers of political power--such as the development community, they say.

Bennett’s Backers and Critics

Bennett is a principal architect of the SOAR farmland preservation initiatives--the county’s premier political movement of the 1990s--that won wide support in six cities and the county’s unincorporated areas. He also was the author of a campaign finance reform initiative that was approved by 81% of Ventura’s voters.

Backers cite Bennett’s involvement with schools and emergency services as additional proof that he is ready for a political office with more sweeping range.

“He’s got a lot of guts,” said Ventura schools chief Joseph Spirito, who is backing Bennett. “He does what is right and he’s not a talker. He’s a doer.”

But Bennett’s detractors say he is beholden to another force--labor groups. Endorsements by groups representing the county’s prosecutors, sheriff’s deputies, firefighters and its largest employee union prove that, they say.

And Bennett’s focus on environmental issues makes him ill-prepared to handle the breadth of issues--health care, welfare and public safety--that county supervisors deal with every day, opponents say. He also has little patience for those who disagree with him on issues, former colleagues say.

“County government is very much more than SOAR and land-use issues,” said Ray DiGuilio, who served with Bennett on the City Council and is supporting Measures. “It is dealing with a multitude of issues that are going to need tough solutions and collaboration.”

Bennett faces two well-known candidates with differing styles and supporters.

Measures, over the past three decades, has been a tireless advocate for numerous civic and government organizations benefiting the arts, children and the homeless, supporters say.

During her four years on the City Council, she was part of the majority that approved spending $15 million to refurbish the city’s downtown corridor and update its aging mall. She also helped revive Ventura’s E.P. Foster Library and played a role in bringing an upscale restaurant to draw tourists to the city’s historic wooden pier.

After a slow start raising money to finance her campaign, Measures is quickly gaining ground. She took in $17,700 in the past month, contrasted with $4,200 for Bennett over the same period. Bennett, however, still holds a substantial lead in overall fund-raising, $66,300 to Measures’ $40,400.

Measures’ blend of conservative politics and attention to business has won crucial endorsements from Sheriff Bob Brooks, Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury, Tax Collector Hal Pittman and the Ventura Chamber of Commerce.

“Being a businesswoman herself, Measures knows what business needs and she can analyze those needs better than the other candidates,” said Clark Owens, chairman of the chamber’s political arm.

But Measures’ detractors say she became marginalized on the council because her impatience with bureaucracy alienated other council members. Measures also gained a reputation for interfering with city staff members on the tiniest details of government, opponents say.

“She’s a nice lady, but she creates chaos by meddling,” said Gary Tuttle, a former councilman and close ally of Bennett.

“She gives policy direction and then tries to implement it as well. The pier’s fish house was slowed down because she tried to design everything herself. I remember getting phone calls from the owners saying ‘Get her off our back,’ ” Tuttle said.

Measures ‘Doing My Research’

Measures said she is proud of her efforts in bringing Eric Ericcson’s restaurant to anchor the newly restored pier. She denied she micro-managed city staff members, insisting she was simply “doing my research.”

“If gathering information to be prepared for City Council decisions is called meddling, then I did my fair share. I believe in doing the very best job you can do,” Measures said.

Monahan, first elected to the council in 1978, has been returned five times on a platform of whatever is good for business is good for Ventura. He was part of a pro-business majority that oversaw rapid growth in the city during the 1980s, but then fell to minority status as a slow-growth council, backed by environmentally minded sportswear manufacturer Patagonia, swept into power in the early 1990s.

He began to reassert himself with the resurgence of business votes on the council, but fell into disfavor again for refusing to support midtown redevelopment. In a recent debate, Measures scolded Monahan for that, saying the redevelopment district’s failure is costing the city $1 million a year in lost taxes.

Detractors, several of them former council colleagues, say Monahan is noted for being unprepared for meetings and being inconsistent with his votes.

“Jim Monahan puts his finger up to see how the political winds are blowing before he does anything,” Tuttle said.

But Monahan has always had a loyal core of supporters and they are expected to turn out for him in March as they do every election.

Monahan’s supporters say they admire him because he pays attention to business and has dedicated himself to numerous civic causes, including sponsoring a St. Patrick’s parade down Main Street each year.

“He grew up in Ventura and is a local business person,” said Edward W. Jue, whose family is a longtime Ventura grocer. “He has the best interests of Ventura at heart.”

Monahan, who lost a bid to unseat Lacey four years ago, has raised $38,000 so far and cites Oxnard Mayor Manny Lopez as his primary endorsement.

All three political veterans sound similar themes on the issues facing county government. All three say they will run a tighter government ship by beefing up the power of the chief administrative officer.

The weakness of that position--the top executive overseeing county government’s $1-billion budget and 7,500-employee work force--was laid bare in a scalding six-page resignation letter from former chief administrative officer David L. Baker, who quit after four days on the job.

Different Ways to Meet Challenges

All say they have experience dealing with budgets and are best qualified to assist the county as it recovers from the aftershocks of a botched merger and a Medicare lawsuit that have cost taxpayers $11 million so far. And all insist they will keep the budget on track while also providing quality health and social services for the poor, the uninsured, the elderly and foster children.

But differences are revealed in their approaches to how government should go about meeting the challenges for the next several years.

Bennett promises to address the county’s hotly contested policy of providing public safety departments with generous inflationary budget increases each year. Baker warned the practice, if not not altered, would eventually drain other departments of funding.

The problem, Bennett says, is that the current definition of inflation allows for increases of 7% or more--even if the county’s general fund has increased only 3%. And that doesn’t make sense, the candidate said.

“If we have the wrong definition of inflation and we have a better one, such as the percent of the county’s revenue growth or the consumer price index, then I would support changing that,” Bennett said.

But Bennett is alone in challenging a formula sacred to Brooks and Bradbury, county government’s two most powerful politicians. Monahan and Measures say they are not willing to alter the current formula, but would consider urging Brooks and Bradbury to expand the number of programs that receive public safety’s sales tax dollars.

Says Measures: “The citizens have clearly stated that public safety is their No. 1 issue and they clearly do not want that funding touched.”

The candidates also differ on how to increase the power of the chief administrative officer. Measures and Monahan believe the Board of Supervisors must hire a strong executive and then publicly stand behind him or her on budgetary and administrative matters.

Bennett, however, advocates going further and trimming the number of elective offices in county government.

The county now has six elected positions in addition to the five elected members of the Board of Supervisors. Reducing the number of elected department heads would increase the CAO’s power by bringing those managers directly under the chief administrator’s control, he said.

“If the auditor’s office was directly under the CAO, it would naturally increase the CAO’s ability to call the shots and centralize budget-making decisions,” Bennett said. “It doesn’t make sense to have an assessor, auditor, clerk and recorder who are elected. People are not paying that much attention to those positions.”

Monahan and Measures both disagree with Bennett.

“People like to select those people,” Monahan said. “They like to know these are people they can recall.”

The defining issue, however, is how to deal with Ventura County’s inevitable growth. Bennett says SOAR, which requires a public vote before cropland can be developed, is the way to save the county from becoming the next Orange County. The wide margin by which the initiatives were approved show that the county’s voters agree with him, Bennett says.

But Monahan said SOAR puts excessive demands on business, whether it is a developer trying to build 2,000 homes or a church trying to build a new sanctuary. St. Joseph’s Health & Retirement Center in Ojai will have to spend thousands of dollars getting approval to expand its assisted-living residential center on three acres it owns, Monahan said.

“Is that fair? I don’t think so,” Monahan said. “There are some things about SOAR that are very good. And there are some things that are very unfair. We should do land-use planning by elected officials, not through the ballot box.”

Measures, while acknowledging she favored an alternative approach to contain growth, said the county must find other ways to maximize limited land resources now that SOAR is the law of the land.

She supports expanding the countywide Economic Development Collaborative to market Ventura County’s semirural suburbs as a high-quality place for businesses in the biotechnology and communication fields.

“I have no intention of trying to overturn SOAR,” Measures said. “My inclination is that we need to find alternative solutions to work within the constraints that it has presented us.”

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District 1 Supervisorial Candidates

The district is made up of 80,000 registered voters in Ventura and the Ojai Valley with Democrats slightly outnumbering Republicans, 41% to 39%.

Steve Bennett

Age: 49

Residence: Ventura resident 23 years.

Education: Honors degree in economics, Brown University, 1972. Master’s in education, Butler University, 1976.

Background: Economics teacher at Nordhoff High School, 1980 to present. Ventura City Council, 1993-97. He was a coauthor and led successful campaigns to pass SOAR growth-control laws in six cities and the county’s unincorporated areas. Led successful drive to pass Ventura law limiting campaign donations.

Issues: He wants to revisit a county policy of giving public safety departments generous inflationary increases on top of special sales tax funding. He wants to decrease the influence of money in county elections and has voluntarily limited individual donations to $500 per election. He wants county firefighters to also serve as paramedics. He wants to centralize county budgets in the CAO’s office. He wants to protect water and air quality and preserve open spaces.

Personal: Married 23 years to Leslie Ogden, a Spanish teacher at Nordhoff High School.

Rosa Lee Measures

Age: 62

Residence: Ventura resident 33 years.

Education: Received a banking certificate from the Institute of Financial Education.

Background: Banking manager for Imperial Savings, 1967-1989; manages a family trust. Numerous civic activities, including helping to found Ventura Chamber Music Festival and Buenaventura Foundation for the Arts. Served on Ventura City Council, 1993-97. Experience with Police Activities League, Ventura County Air Pollution Control District, Ojai Land Conservancy, Council of Economic Vitality and Beach Erosion Authority.

Issues: She wants to market the county as a high-quality place for businesses in the biotechnology and communication fields. She wants to bring greater fiscal accountability to county budgets by increasing the power of the chief administrative officer. She wants to centralize budget-making decisions with a chief financial officer working hand-in-hand with chief executive. She wants to protect public safety budgets.

Personal: Married to Albert G. Harris, a retired banker, for 17 years. Parents of five adult children.

Jim Monahan

Age: 65

Residence: Lifelong Ventura resident.

Education: Graduated from Ventura College, 1960.

Background: Civic involvement includes Jaycees, American Legion and 1984 Olympics Community Coordinating Committee. County governmental committees include Local Agency Formation Commission, South Coast Area Transit, Ventura County Animal Control and Agricultural Policy Working Group. Veteran of Korean War; owner of Ventura welding company; member of the Ventura City Council since 1978; mayor 1987-88. Ran unsuccessfully for supervisor in 1996.

Issues: He wants to beef up chief administrator’s role with greater budgetary control. He wants to explore the possibility of merging the county hospital with Community Memorial Hospital to save on administrative expenses. He wants to beef up flood-control efforts around the Ventura River and San Antonio Creek. He supports protecting public safety budgets from cuts.

Personal: Father of four adult children.