Schillo Is Right’s Might

When Frank Schillo retires from politics next year, the veteran Ventura County supervisor may be ending a conservative era in county government.

For the past seven years, the blunt and burly retirement advisor plodded methodically toward traditional Republican goals, paying close attention to business, law enforcement and balancing the county’s $1-billion budget.

Triple coronary bypass surgery in March seems to have mellowed the 67-year-old a bit. But after 17 years in office, he is known as a reliable conservative vote--and a man with a strong philanthropic streak.

“You know that term ‘compassionate conservative?’ It’s not talk with him. It’s real,” said Alex Fiore, Schillo’s closest ally while both served as Thousand Oaks City Council members. “He’s a very compassionate, church-going man. But he’s also an effective politician.”

Together with Simi Valley Supervisor Judy Mikels, another conservative, and the occasional crossover vote of maverick Supervisor John Flynn of Oxnard, Schillo has had a number of successes.

One of his first tasks as supervisor was to help fix a $38-million imbalance in the county’s budget, in part by freezing county jobs. Schillo for years has underlined his credentials as a fiscal guardian.

His instincts were right in opposing a disastrous merger of mental health and social service departments, and he has been the sheriff’s strongest defender on the Board of Supervisors.

He used his clout as a city councilman, and later as a supervisor, to help save the county’s two military bases when they were threatened with closure. He created a countywide business booster organization that has succeeded in drawing some high-paying, high-tech employers.

But Schillo’s recent announcement that he will step down next year probably opens the door to the liberal environmental candidacy of Thousand Oaks City Councilwoman Linda Parks. Parks, 43, teamed last fall with celebrity lawyer Ed Masry in sweeping the most expensive City Council campaign in county history.

Also mentioned as a potential candidate is Parks’ rival on the City Council, retired sheriff’s deputy Dennis Gillette. Many see Gillette as a conservative counterpoint to Parks, setting up what could be an ideologically divisive--and costly--campaign.

“It will be a crucial race that will really determine the composition of the board for years,” said Herb Gooch, political science professor at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. “Judy Mikels could become a minority of one.”

What’s interesting about Schillo, Gooch said, is his success in crafting a reputation as a penny-pincher while acting with a strong sense of social obligation.

As supervisor, Schillo held firm against a rival Ventura hospital’s attempts to put the nearby public hospital out of business. He toiled more than two years on a plan to rescue a county library system teetering on bankruptcy when no one else wanted to touch it.

Before he entered politics, Schillo helped found Manna, now the largest food bank in Thousand Oaks, and Many Mansions, a nonprofit group that provides low-income housing.

And in recent years, he launched a car-buying program for welfare mothers trying to find a reliable way to work. That project is now run as a nonprofit offshoot of Many Mansions.

“He’s a miser who’s done one heck of a lot for Tiny Tim,” Gooch said.

Over the years, Schillo has had his share of critics. He infuriated some Thousand Oaks residents by backing construction of a performing arts center, a $64-million project that opponents said would drain the city’s treasury. The Civic Arts Plaza is now a popular, and financially successful, regional attraction for concerts, plays and community gatherings.

On the Board of Supervisors, Schillo unflinchingly backed a local law that guarantees a $49-million annual funding windfall for the Sheriff’s Department and three other law enforcement agencies--an arrangement that advisors warn could eventually spend the county into debt.

Critics say the county’s generous funding for the four public safety departments, which is supplemented by annual cost-of-living hikes--has created a widening budget gap between public safety and all other county departments.

Support for Deputies’ Pay Draws Criticism

Even now, as other supervisors worry about the hit to the budget, Schillo supports a proposal that would give sheriff’s deputies 75% of their pay in retirement after 25 years of service--a benefit far more generous than offered to the rest of the county’s work force.

This has opened the door to criticism that Schillo talks a tough fiscal game not supported by his votes.

“To have a knee-jerk reaction to always provide more for law enforcement is not fiscally sound,” said John Relle, a retired IBM marketing executive and Thousand Oaks resident. “Any department, as long as you keep pouring money in, they will take it. We depend on our supervisors to hold the line.”

Schillo is unapologetic.

“I voted for [the ordinance] because the public wanted that tax to go only to public safety,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to go broke over it.”

Schillo and his wife, Marion, moved their four children from Dayton, Ohio, to Thousand Oaks in 1971. Schillo opened a small firm that administers pension and profit-sharing plans, but soon he was volunteering on nonprofit boards.

He made the jump to the City Council in 1984, Schillo said, after the council turned down an affordable-housing project he had lobbied for as a member of a citizens committee.

“I knew I had to be a decision-maker,” he said. “I needed a vote.”

He was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1994 when environmental crusader Maria VanderKolk stepped down after one term. He beat attorney Trudi Loh in what was then the most costly supervisors’ campaign in county history, a combined $254,000.

Schillo easily won reelection against Vince J. Curtis, a political novice and proponent of a sweeping movement to preserve open space by passing laws that restrict building.

That campaign illustrated Schillo’s savvy in reaching across ideological lines when it benefited him. He and Flynn, the board’s most liberal member, aligned to support the SOAR growth-control laws three months before the election.

To make it palatable to his conservative constituents, Schillo insisted that the county find a way to repay landowners for lost development rights. He and Flynn have so far been unsuccessful in making good on that promise.

Schillo estimates he has served on hundreds of committees over the past two decades. As a supervisor, he sits on 26.

A Catholic who attends Mass twice a week and gives 10% of his income to charity, Schillo said he is guided by a belief that people should give freely of their talents.

And sometimes, it helps to make a leap of faith.

That’s what Schillo calls his strategy of setting a goal--however lofty--and then putting in long hours to achieve it.

“If you want something bad enough, start planning for it and it will happen,” he said.

While on the City Council, he sat through seven years of meetings to see through construction of the Civic Arts Plaza. The project moved forward despite vicious attacks by opponents and an unsuccessful recall effort.

“The fight over the Civic Arts Plaza was so incredibly bitter and rancorous,” said Frances Prince, a former Thousand Oaks mayor. “It took a lot of courage to stand up to the constant pounding.”

Supervisor Says Fight for Bases Not Over

Schillo showed the same tenacity at the county level.

He was chairman of a commission that labored nearly three years to restructure the library system when its $11-million budget was cut in half. The deal Schillo helped broker led to some layoffs but allowed the 15 branches to remain open longer and offer more material.

He lobbied each of the county’s 10 cities to become part of a group that pushes for regional economic development. The group was started with the help of a federal grant but now is operating without government subsidies, Schillo said.

And he and Flynn traveled to Washington, D.C., several times in 1995 to meet with legislators and Pentagon officials in the successful effort to keep local naval bases open.

The citizens committee they headed, Regional Defense Partnership, is still active. In recent years, the county’s two bases have attracted new programs and combined their administrative functions to make Naval Base Ventura County less vulnerable to closure.

At a meeting of the group’s steering committee last week, Schillo and other leaders discussed ways to position the base to fend off another round of closures set to begin next year.

“You have to be vigilant and involved,” Schillo said. “That’s how you get things done.”

Schillo says his proudest achievements are founding the Civic Arts Plaza and helping to launch an after-school program for Port Hueneme schoolchildren.

Over the next 17 months, he will focus on his latest project: building a mental health and social services complex near Camarillo. His goal is to turn it into reality by tapping a complicated jigsaw of federal grants, nonprofit money and county dollars.

Schillo faced a setback last week when the board decided to disband the subcommittee planning the 29-acre complex. He and Flynn chaired the committee, and Schillo said they were making progress in figuring out how to house at least 125 mentally ill patients and offer shelter for homeless veterans and displaced families.

But board members said the massive project is a complicated regional issue that should be tackled by all five county supervisors. Schillo said he hopes to make a progress report to the full board next month.

Its success would be a satisfying way to end his years as a supervisor, Schillo said. But he knows it will take more than his cooperation.

“Shame on the board if they don’t approve this,” he said. “This is a project that everyone wants and needs. I can’t tell how people will vote--it doesn’t matter to me. But I’m going flat-out to get it accomplished.”