The budget for this massive (not) metropolis is $259,103,094 which never seems to be quite enough to keep the infrastructure in good shape. Of course the fact that 185 employees of Ventura are paid over $100,000 per yr which equates to $18,500,000/yr might have something to do with our money woes.

The top Bacon Earners in the City of Ventura are: City Attorney: $205,276/yr; City Manager: $191,940;  Police Chief: $189,184;  Fire Chief: $182,807;  Parks and Rec Director: $182,692;  Asst City Manager: $181,798;  Chief Financial Officer: $176,122;  Fire Battalion Chief: $173,679;  Community Development Director: $171,107;  Assistant Fire Chief: $170,748; the total salary for these 10 employees amounts to $1,517,653/yr, these salary figures do not include benifits which add upwards of 20% more to each one.  That benifit number would be $303,530 bringing the total for the top 10 Bacon earners to $1,821,836/yr.

Consider that the average wage for citizens in the city of Ventura is $52,000, that means that the top 10 Bacon earners that work for the citizens of Ventura are earning 3 to 4 times more than the average person in Ventura.

Now you know why our City Manager and City Councils primary concern is to be constantly on the lookout for ways to increase the taxes on the 110,000 folks that live here. Which means that at this time each of the 110,000 people that live here are indebted each year for $2356.00.

That’s man, women and children. Of course the city does have some revenue income, but that has been, in these times, extremely sketchy.

A City of Ventura Sales Tax Increase, Measure A ballot proposition was on the November 3, 2009 ballot in Ventura County for voters in the City of Ventura, where it was defeated.

The tax measure would have increased the city's sales tax by a half-cent, from 8.25% to 8.75%.

It is estimated that if Measure A had passed, about $8-$10 million a year would have been raised for the City of Ventura in additional sales tax income.  

 Note: just think the tax increase wouldn't have even paid the salaries of the top 185 employees.

Now the latest switch and bait ploy they are looking at is to raise the fee they charge the Edison company to do business in Ventura by $1,000,000.  Of course Edison wasn't about to shoulder the burden of the extra million dollars so they told the Gang in the Ivory Tower that they would have to increase the amount of the electric bill we pay each month to compensate.  The Gang in the Ivory Tower were extremely dismayed, but said well it's the Electric company adding the fee after all, not us.  Plus if it gets overturned in the courts and we have to make refunds we can probably keep a couple of million dollars anyway.

Ventura has had many chances to become an extremely wealthy city.  There was the Open 80 plan whereby the owners of the property above and behind the city wanted to develope and build individual homes in the hills and canyons that they owned.  None of these homes would have been observed from the Ventura city area.

This project which was designed to take upwards of 20 years to complete would have put thousands of people to work in the construction industry, plus thousands more would have found work installing landscape, patios, and many more would have found jobs maintaining the propertys after they were built.

It would have increased the tax base of Ventura more than likely by double, plus the owners/developers offered to sign over 3000 acres of the property to the city of Ventura to use as an open space park. They also were willing to install all trails, benches, drinking fountains and establish a park maintenance trust fund in perpetuity so that the citizens would have no cost in maintaining the park. It would have been one of the largest city owned public parks in California.

The massive brain trust we call the Ventura City Council, instead of processing the proposed development in house as is done with all other developments, and being afraid to offend the environmentalist, decided to allow the NIMBY'S and BANANA'S to put the idea on the next ballot.  Of course as described previously, the election was in an "Off Year", not with the General election, so only a few voters bothered to vote and of course those voters were NIMBY'S and BANANA'S ergo, the project was shot down.

 University??? We don't need no stinking University.

Another project that was proposed was to install a California State University on the Taylor Ranch Property which lies just across the Ventura River from Ventura on a huge bluff overlooking the Ocean.

This would have been one of the finest Universities in the World.  It would have converted the Ventura Avenue area into a beautiful space filled with Condos, Apartments, Stores, Restuarants, Entertainment Venues, and everthing else connected with University life.

Obviously this would have put San Buenaventura on the map as one of the most livable cities in the United States.  The city would have prospered well into the future with this University. However the NIMBYS and BANANAS, led by the owner of Patagonia, a local store that sells climbing gear and clothing, struck again and were able to convince the brain trust we call the City Council to put it to a "Off Year" vote and it was also "shot down".   The University was finally established in Camarillo, CA a decidedly forward thinking community who were only too happy to embrace the building of a University in their city.  It is now known as a world class University with students from around the world.

Instead of embracing all or some of these projects to enhance the city of Ventura, the Gang in the Ivory Tower instead goes into debt by building a project for indigent artists called the Wave, this project cost many millions of dollars and at this time the city is losing millions per year because the plan failed to procuce the expected results.  (This was one of the so called redevelopment projects)

Ventura the new "Art City".  Or so we been told by the Gang in the Ivory Tower.

Under the gize of "Public Art" the city jumped into a contract to build one of the poorest examples of "Art" seen anywhere.  It is called Bus/Home, it is a bus stop located in the rear of the Pacific View Mall.  The cost to build the "edifice" was approx $2,000,000 and within a very few years had begun to peel paint and start to look like a deserted factory.  It cost anothe $1,000,000 dollars of our tax money to fix this mess because the Gang in the Ivory Tower when signing the contract to build it failed to put in a minimum time before it was allowed to fall apart. 

In a media conducted contest the Bus/Home came in SECOND in the entire country as the ugliest "ART PROJECT EVER BUILT".

Another fine thought out project also classified under the "Public Art" banner was the proposed $900,000 art at the sewer plant project.  A couple of hundred thousand dollars were spent in hiring a "Artist" from San Francisco, (as if we don't have our own artists), to design the "Sewer Plant Art" project.  Before they could really get stated the economy went South and the project never got off the ground. 

The Gang in the Ivory Tower did however succeed in spending about $200,000 on an "Art" gate at the Ventura Avenue water plant.  It is usually viewed by folks zipping by on the 33 frwy at 65 MPH.

Top 5 bizarre public art displays

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and one could say the same about art. Check out these top 5 bizarre public art displays and you decide what's art and what's ... not.

5) Broadway Dance Steps, Seattle, Wash.: If you've ever felt the urge to break out into dance while walking down the street, you'll right at home at the Broadway Dance Steps. Located in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, amateurs can learn how to dance the tango, foxtrot or rumba on bronze shoe prints on the sidewalk. The foot prints are numbered and arranged like dance steps, so even if you have two left feet, you'll look like Gene Kelly.

4) SunFlowers, Austin, Texas: Like flowers but don't have a green thumb? What about an electric one instead? SunFlowers is a public art display/"Electric Garden" in Austin, Texas. It features a "crop" of 18 to 24-foot high photovoltaic sculptures that soak up the sun during the day and use that energy to glow brightly at night.

3) Blue Mustang, Denver, Colorado: Critics have choice words for the sculpture at Denver International Airport: heinous, uninviting, creepy, evil. But even they can't deny that the giant rearing mustang is eye-catching. The 32-foot-high "Blue Mustang" is made out of polished blue steel, with fiery eyes and is, ahem, anatomically correct.

2) Bus Home, Ventura, Calif.: If you've ever wondered where old buses go to die, well, they don't end up at Bus Home. This 36-foot-high sculpture looks more like bus purgatory: The twisty, turny, soaring piece of art was created in 2002 by artist Dennis Oppenheim. It depicts a bus evolving into a home -- or is it the other way around?

1) Crown Fountain, Chicago, Ill.: Forget about looking at art; at Chicago's Crown Fountain, you can BE the art. The interactive video sculpture features LED screens that display 50-foot photos of Chicago locals; actual water flows out of the screens, making it look like water is flowing out of their mouths. Art or not, it's certainly nothing you'll ever see in a museum.

This is something that makes grown Councilmembers and City Managers break down and cry...

Faced with a record state budget shortfall in 2009, the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger approved a two-year shift of more than $2 billion from redevelopment agencies to school districts in their areas.

Such shifts help to balance the state budget because schools must be funded at a constitutionally guaranteed level, but the funding can come from a mix of local property taxes and allocations from the state general fund. By increasing the property tax portion of school funding, legislators can reduce the portion that comes from the same fund that also must be used to pay for other state programs, such as running universities and prisons.

Local government officials contend the shift of redevelopment taxes was unconstitutional, but they lost a trial court ruling on that question earlier this year. Not only did they lose the trial, but they cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars on court cost.  Local government officials think that their pet redevelopment projects are far more important than childrens education.

Faced with a massive budget shortfall, Governor Jerry Brown signed two bills into law last year. The first dissolved all redevelopment agencies and required them to turn over their property tax revenues to the state. The second allowed agencies to continue operation if they paid the state a portion of their property tax revenues each year. The California Redevelopment Association and other entities challenged both bills. On December 29, the California Supreme Court upheld the first but struck down the second as unconstitutional. By February 1, agencies must turn over their assets to successor agencies that will wind down projects with enforceable obligations for commitments already made.

Here is another unthought out mussing by Mr Rick Cole, Ventura's city manager:

California Supreme Court throw out redevelopment: What’s next?

by Rick Cole on December 30, 2011

The political hurdles are obvious — cities are virtually united in their outrage at this latest blow from the State — and bewildered that their number one economic development tool would be dismantled when it has never been more needed. On the other hand, having taken their case to the Supreme Court and lost, cities have put themselves in a poor bargaining position with the Governor and his legislative allies. With so many other interests unhappy with the budget choices, cities will get little sympathy — and redevelopment abuses, while largely curtailed in recent years, still make redevelopment vulnerable to the budget vultures.

The even bigger question is: how do cities finance economic development at a time of high unemployment, stretched budgets and strong public demand to “do something” to put people back to work and balance budgets without raising taxes? The Governor and Legislature have devoted exactly zero thought to this challenge, beyond some murky early talk about making it easier for cities to go to their voters to go into debt for infrastructure investment (and good luck with that idea.)

This e-mail was to the entire Ventura City Council, asking them to protect the citizens of the United States by making a Ventura city resolution to tell the Supreme Court that the citizens of Ventura do not agree with the ridiculeous statement that Corporations are People.

1/13/2012

City Council

City of San Buenaventura

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to support a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment that would assert that corporations are not entitled to constitutional rights, and that money is not the same as free speech.

City Council Passes Resolution Declaring that Corporations Are Not People

NEW YORK, NY — The Progressive Caucus of the City Council commends today’s passage of a resolution opposing the United States Supreme Court Citizens United decision, which gave corporations the same First Amendment rights as people. Progressive Caucus Members Brad Lander, Melissa Mark-Viverito and Steve Levin sponsored this resolution, with the entirety of the Progressive Caucus as co-sponsors. We thank Speaker Christine Quinn for her leadership on this important issue.

I do suppose that most of you have read or heard of the Resolutions passed by New York and Los Angeles supporting a constitutional amendment that would assert that corporations are not People which mean that they are not entitled to constitutional rights and that MONEY is not the same as free speech.

This same thing will be happening across the United States of America in large and small cities by groups that believe that this constitutional amendment should be enacted.

This would be a great time for our city of San Buenaventura to join this resolution movement and declare that the city of San Buenaventura firmly believes that indeed Corporations are not People and that definitely Money is not “Free Speech.”

If you truly believe that our Political process has been “hi-jacked” by big money you will not hesitate to install our own Resolution on this matter.

Rellis Smith

Rellis39@sbcglobal.net

Of course once again the entire Ventura City Council decided not to answer.