THIS IS WHERE YOU WILL FIND STORIES , COMMENTS, OPINIONS AND MUSINGS BY SOME OF THE CITIZENS OF OUR "COWTOWN" CITY.

1/29/2012

Suz Montgomery

Elected city councils are supposed to make the policy decisions and professional staff carries out the policies. That's how the textbooks say it should work. But sometimes the staff doesn't want to follow the rules and that leads us to a sad tale about parks on Ventura's Westside.

The Westside community doesn't have enough parks to meet city standards. Ventura's general plan sets clear standards: two acres of neighborhood parks, three acres of community parks plus five acres of citywide parks for every 1,000 people. The Westside has just over 20 acres of parks for 13,700 people, when it should have 137 acres.

When you count a percentage of citywide parks the numbers look better, about 68 of the 137 needed acres, or 50 percent — half — of what should be available.

Westpark, the main park for the Westside, is sadly deficient and in disrepair compared to Ventura's other parks.

After spending more than half a million dollars studying the Westside, the city now says it can't pay one penny for new parks. Sorry, residents.

City Manager Rick Cole and his Planning Department didn't put any new parks in the Westside plan because they decided it would cost too much.

City policies, general plan standards and specific direction from the City Council don't matter, city staff decided on its own the residents can't have the parks they deserve.

Is the city experimenting with a new theory to support the new urban city planning philosophy? Instead of building a park, it wants an agreement to use school land in off hours and call it a park. The planners also want to count little concrete plazas by calling them parks.

But no traditional parks, not even in the middle of neighborhoods filled with small, single-family homes. And no new parks for the 3,750 new residents who will live in the apartments and condos the plan says should be built along Ventura Avenue.

After an outpouring of community support for more parks and playgrounds, the City Council ordered staff to study three possible park locations. Every one of the three is designated for high-density residential in the proposed plan with an "overlay" that says a park will be studied. That gets a study, not a new park.

How can city staff decide it no longer has to follow the park standards in the general plan?

I'm angry and will loudly protest this calculated abandonment and disregard of what makes neighborhoods livable, healthy and safe.

I'm angry the city manager has been able to convince everyone that Ventura needs urban density everywhere. This plan tears apart the 90-year-old industrial areas that have employed our community for generations, just because they aren't urban enough. This is our community — and this is just plain crazy.

This spring, the Westside plan and code will be discussed by the appointed city committees and commissions. Around June, the City Council will vote on a final plan for the Westside.

I will fight to get this process changed. There needs to be a firm commitment to provide parks for the residents to the standards set forth in the general plan.

Something sneaky is going on and I don't like it. My neighbors deserve better, and we as a city deserve a whole lot better.

Our elected City Council has established park standards. The city staff needs to implement the adopted standards and stop experimenting with big-city ideas. New urbanism development codes aren't working here in Ventura.

Why isn't the Westside Plan following the city's very own rules, and are city planners scheming to cheat residents out of the parks they have been promised?

So, who do you think runs the city of Ventura?

Suz Montgomery lives in Ventura.

Suz also has a show on local cable channel #15 called Smoozing with Suz.

Suz in one of the most civic minded citizens in Ventura, she has championed many worthwhile projects.

 2/3/2012

Helen Yunker

Feb. 3 marks 12 years since the massive landslide on city-owned lot No. 7 that endangered both my home and safety. It began the most difficult, unhappy and distressful era of my life, which resulted from the city’s refusal to address its problem at the outset, mainly because the city feared that any attempt to repair its property would acknowledge its responsibility to stabilize the lot and save my home.

Slipping slope saga

In 2005, after seven years of neglect and evidential abandonment, the city sold the lot as “surplus property.”

Another four years passed, with the buyer in complete default of the sales contract. To avoid repossession by the city, the buyer, in 2009, petitioned the city for an extension to allow him time to resell the lot to a third party, which he did.

An escrow closed Dec 31, 2009. This allowed him to recoup costs from his failed project and removed him from all future liability. He subsequently relocated to Colorado. And who was the biggest winner of all? The city, which also enjoyed removal from all future liability and the necessity of reclaiming and rehabilitating its lot.

And what did I get?

The glorious opportunity of dealing with yet another buyer and the possibility of another failure.

Over the years, Ventura Councilman Carl Morehouse has metaphorically used his cache of coins to clarify a point.

I have no coins but herewith is my metaphor: 12 months times 12 years equals 144 months; 144 is a gross.

And what is a gross? It is the number of my futilely spent hours and 12 precious years stolen from my life, not to forget extensive, irrecoverable financial damages and loss of robust health.

(At this point in my presentation, Mayor Fulton, failing to give me the courtesy of a “wrap-it-up” warning customarily given to speakers, exploded into a tirade of abuse and shouting, preventing me from completing my short closing remarks, which were as follows:)

I know that this council truly believes that it has done a great job in trying to end this tragic 12-year debacle.

But, it has definitely not ended for me until the stabilization of the slope is a reality. I leave you with this thought: “I forgive you and the last five councils for the unspeakable wrong to which I was unfairly and needlessly subjected. I sincerely thank you for your kind and respectful patience in listening.”