June 15, 2007
Cheese with your Whine?
The Mayor of Ventura, Mr Carl Morehouse, (no relation to the mustard), went on the attack in his column in the Star on Friday, 6-15-2007. He says that "many of his fellow citizens are uninformed about the Mayor's role in their local government." Then he goes on to say that he is greatly disturbed by the "misinformation" from folks I would hope would know better. What is it Carl? The citizens are uninformed, but you expect them to be informed, but their not, but you wish they would be? Ya know what? - Perhaps my idea about changing the cities charter to allow for a "real Full Time council" and an "Elected Mayor" isn't such a bad idea, in other words, get rid of the Amatures and hire Professionals.
His biggest gripe is that Ventura has a handful of individuals with personal motives for blasting city hall every chance they get. These individuals are always negative, expounding at council meetings, writing in the newspapers, and circulating angry e-mails. Does he mean because the council paid a departing city manager a few hundred thousand dollars so she wouldn't sue them? Just after they spent $500,000 at her request to remodel the basement gym? or because they gave a departing city attorney a 13% raise so he could siphon off more money from the PERS retirement system? Or because they spend millions of dollars each year on "Consultants" to do the job that the city employees are paid to do? Or maybe it's because the city paid $2 million dollars for a Home/Bus sculpture that doesn't shelter riders from the elements and is now nothing but a rusting hulk? Or it could be the $80,000 spitting whale sculpture that used to be on the end of the Ventura pier until a big ol' nasty wave washed it away? We could go on with this kind of stuff indefinitely but my printer might run out of ink.
He says that you almost never read about things going well, but you hear lots about things going badly. Do you mean like your column Carl? It seems what Carl is saying is that it wouldn't be such a bad job being Mayor of Ventura if only there weren't so damn many citizens around. I think what is really bugging Mr Morehouse is the fact that he is a "Planning Expert" for the county of Ventura. He has been a staunch proponent of what they call "Smart Growth". What "Smart Growth" is all about is to place as many people in as small as an area as possible, then cram more people in. What has been happening recently is that Planners across the country have begun to realize that "Smart Growth" is maybe not so "Smart" after all. In the areas they have been cramming folks into they see that traffic is horrendous, prices of property and rentals has skyrocketed, people are becoming more hostile towards each other and pollution is rampant. So I can understand Mr Morehouse's feelings, after all he has been championing "Smart Growth" for a number of years and now it seems he has been riding a dead horse.
He says the one gripe he hears most is the one about the Home/Bus bus stop at the Pacific view mall. He says it didn't cost $2 million dollars, but forgot to tell us how much it did cost, he also said that the bus stop was not supposed to shelter riders from the elements, it's after all a sculpture whose whole depiction is of home and a bus which do shelter us from the elements. In any case Carl wether you call it a shelter or sculpture at the present time it is a rusting, paint peeling, graffiti painted, mess of steel pipe. As far as the cities policy about the 2% of "Public capital improvement projects" going to art, since when does a private mall come under the heading of "Public capital improvement"? One more item however that I just discovered is that the city plans on spending a big ol' chunk of our limited tax money to possibly place a roof over part of the Home/Bus bus stop to shelter the folks from the elements. Like they say hindsight is a whole lot better than foresight.
Mr Morehouse states that Ventura leads the pack in generating sales tax, why then did the Gang in the Ivory Tower (Ventura city Hall), try to raise the sales tax another 1/4%? I guess that Carl and the rest of the Gang failed to read the UCSB report on the economy, it seems that the City of Ventura is dead last in building houses, generating jobs, and increasing the economy in all the cities in Ventura County. Now they want to raise the water and sewer "TAX" another 9%.
(Writers Note), I hope everybody is sending in their opposition to the water/sewer increase, must be in before July 16. Send or take it to the City Clerk at Ventura City Hall 501 Poli street Ventura, CA 93001
I'm sure that all the many citizens that spew forth their "misstatements" certainly didn't want to hurt the Mayor's feelers and are probably very sorry they caused him to feel it necessary to want to Whine so loudly. However if there are as many misinformed citizens as the Mayor claims I need to ask, Are the Gang in the Ivory Tower doing a good job? It would appear not, if the rank and file citizens are so un-informed. I was speaking to one of the cities premier developers on Main street the other day and he told me that the biggest problem with doing anything in this town is that it is almost impossible to get (4) council people to agree on any one subject, now I don't know much about the situation but I does believe the fellow was right on.
So as I said at the beginning of this misstated tirade, Mr Carl Morehouse, Mayor of Ventura, do you want a little cheese with that whine?
Rellis Smith
res@venturastuff.com