Tax, Education Issues Dominate Local Races

While the nation focuses on who will run the White House and Congress, other pressing matters face Ventura County voters in the upcoming November election:

Will the county Board of Supervisors make a historic shift in political alliances, or remain a Democratically controlled panel?

Will voters in Thousand Oaks agree to hike fees for developers to help with the purchase of open space?

Will voters in Camarillo, Oxnard and Port Hueneme agree to raise their taxes for projects ranging from beefing up police patrols in the area’s most crime-riddled city to building a new high school that would ease classroom crowding?

Will conservative Christians continue to dominate the Ventura County Board of Education, or will their detractors break their majority on the board that oversees school issues for the county’s most troubled children?

The fall campaign season officially opens Monday, when local Democrats hold their traditional Labor Day picnic at College Park in Oxnard. Republicans weigh in with their own event later this month.

Drawn to the polls by the presidential contest, about 300,000 Ventura County residents are expected to vote in the Nov. 5 election. Yet voters face a myriad of other choices that could affect their pocketbooks, the policies of their children’s schools or what gets built on the corner lot.

Voters in nine of Ventura County’s 10 cities will fill openings on city councils, and many of them will face decisions on who sits on the local school board.

All county residents will have a chance to vote for who they want to represent them in Congress and the state Assembly, and most county voters will make their choice for state Senate.

“There are a lot of different races and a lot of statewide ballot measures,” said county elections chief Bruce Bradley. “Some people are going to have a very busy ballot.”

Of all the local races, three stand out as political contests that will be particularly hard fought.

One of them is a congressional race to replace Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), who is retiring after two decades in the House of Representatives.

Voters in Thousand Oaks can expect to be peppered with political mail in the contest that pits Republican Rich Sybert, a former aide to Gov. Pete Wilson, against Democrat Brad Sherman, a member of the state Board of Equalization.

So far, the candidates have drummed up about an equal measure of support from voters: 24% for Sherman and 22% for Sybert, according to Sherman’s latest poll.

But half of the electorate remains undecided in the district that stretches to Malibu into the San Fernando Valley. Both the Republican and Democratic national parties have promised to pour money into the race, because their strategists see it as important in the national struggle over which party will control Congress.

A second hot contest will determine who succeeds retiring county Supervisor Maggie Kildee, who has spent 16 years representing Camarillo, Ojai, Santa Paula, Fillmore and parts of Thousand Oaks on the Board of Supervisors.

Camarillo Councilman Mike Morgan will face Kathy Long, a top aide to Kildee, in a race that could mark a major political change on the board.

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If Morgan is successful, it would be the first time in 20 years that the five-member governing panel would have a Republican majority.

Now, the board has two conservative Republicans, Judy Mikels of Simi Valley and Frank Schillo of Thousand Oaks. And it has two Democrats, Kildee of Camarillo and Susan Lacey of Ventura, who frequently disagree with their colleagues from the east end of the county.

Supervisor John Flynn of Oxnard is also a Democrat, but in recent years has sometimes joined the Republicans as their swing vote.

Morgan, a Republican, and Long, a Democrat, try to downplay how the race could spell a potential shift on the Board of Supervisors. Both call themselves “moderates,” emphasizing that the race is nonpartisan.

Morgan boasts that his 16 years of experience as a councilman qualifies him for the job of supervisor. Long contends that her position as Kildee’s top aide has provided her with a broader perspective on the demands of the job and the needs of constituents.

The third contentious race will be a battle over the future direction of the Ventura County Board of Education, as four candidates compete for two seats on the panel now dominated by a conservative Christian majority.

Janet Lindgren, a Camarillo resident who served as an Oxnard Union High School board member for 22 years, will try to oust conservative Wendy Larner from her seat.

Larner is philosophically allied with board President Marty Bates and board member Angela Miller who all voted last year to exclude AIDS Care and Planned Parenthood from teacher-training workshops. The three have also proposed revising policies that could restrict Supt. Charles Weis’ authority, further straining relations between Weis and the board majority.

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“I would like to see some restoration of cooperation between the board and the superintendent,” Lindgren said.

Larner was targeted last year by a failed recall attempt after her vote to ban certain groups from the teacher-training sessions. She said she will focus on several themes including finding ways to increase parental oversight in education.

Two candidates are running for a seat being vacated by board member John McGarry.

Paul Chatman, a 51-year-old Oxnard businessman, said he opposes many of the views of the board’s conservative majority, saying “they are directing all their attention on the superintendent and the focus should be on providing quality education for the youth they serve.”

Chatman’s opponent is Ronald Matthews, also an Oxnard businessman, and sympathetic to the goals of the board’s conservative Christian majority. Matthews could not be reached for comment.

The November ballot will be chock full of hot-button statewide initiatives, such as a measure that would ban affirmative-action programs for women and minorities, one that would put a spending limit on campaign donations, another that would make it legal to grow and smoke marijuana with a doctor’s prescription.

Of all the statewide ballot measures, Proposition 218 is poised to have the biggest impact on local government. Sponsored by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., the measure would require property owners’ approval for all new, and some existing property assessments.

If approved, it would scuttle Ventura County’s efforts to help pay for public libraries through a special assessment district approved by county officials in July. They have hoped to levy a $33 annual tax on homeowners to bail out the ailing libraries.

Although the full impact has yet to be calculated, Proposition 218 also could cost schools and local governments big money by forcing them to pay their share of any special property assessment. As of now, public property is exempt from such assessments.

“It’s frightening,” said Penny Bohannon, a county deputy chief administrative officer. “I have some data, but we have yet to assess its full impact.”

County voters also face 10 ballot measures that will affect local government operations.

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In Thousand Oaks, voters will decide on Measure E, which would require a public vote on any residential or commercial development that exceeds standards for density. For example, a developer who wanted to build apartments in an area reserved for single-family homes would have to first get permission from a majority of city voters.

Although it is billed as a growth-management measure, critics say it could actually promote urban sprawl by encouraging “developers to build sprawling residential tracts on the outskirts of our city where land is cheaper,” Councilwoman Elois Zeanah wrote.

Thousand Oaks voters will also decide the fate of Measure D, which would quadruple the city’s “bedroom tax” on new residential construction, and spend the money on acquiring open space or improving parkland. It requires a two-thirds vote to pass.

Voters in Oxnard, Camarillo and Port Hueneme will decide whether to approve Measure Y, a $57-million bond initiative to finance the construction of a new high school, upgrade school libraries and rehabilitate dilapidated buildings in the Oxnard Union High School District. School officials say the measure is needed to reduce crowded classrooms, with residents having to repay the bond from increased property taxes over the next 40 years.

Oxnard voters are also being asked to determine the fate of Measure Z, which would establish a $5.7-million utility tax on city residents to beef up police and fire protection. The measure would add $5 to $10 a month to Oxnard residents’ utility bills.

And in Port Hueneme, voters face two measures intended to confirm the legality of the city’s utility tax used to subsidize the city’s Police Department. Without the tax, city officials said, they would have to shut down the municipal police force and contract with Oxnard or the county.

The passage of Measure B in Port Hueneme would adopt a 4% utility tax, even though the city has collected the money since the City Council approved the tax in 1994. Measure C reconfirms the tax from the time it was originally adopted to avoid the possibility of the city having to pay money back to taxpayers.

Also on the ballot in Port Hueneme is Measure A, which would change the municipality from a general law to a charter city. Officials say the change would provide greater autonomy from the state.

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In neighboring Fillmore and Santa Paula, voters will decide whether to elect or continue appointing their respective city clerks and treasurers.

Most Ventura County voters will see familiar names on the ballot for congressional, legislative and other local races.

Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) is running for another term to represent a district that covers nearly all of Ventura County, except for most of Thousand Oaks. This year, he has fielded an opponent from Ojai. Robert R. Unruhe, a Democrat and retired teacher, is mounting a low-budget campaign against the veteran congressman.

Assemblyman Nao Takasugi (R-Oxnard) is going for his third and final term in the state Assembly, representing a district that stretches from Oxnard to Thousand Oaks. Voter-imposed term limits will bounce him from office in 1998, should he win reelection. His Democratic challenger is also well-known in the community: Jess Herrera, a longshoreman and Oxnard harbor commissioner.

Assemblyman Brooks Firestone (R-Los Olivos), perhaps best known for his Santa Ynez winery and family tire company, is also running for reelection in a Santa Barbara-based district that includes Ventura, Santa Paula and Ojai.

Making a bid for a second term, Firestone has attracted only a meagerly financed Democratic opponent, UC Santa Barbara student Aneesh Lele.

On the other side of the county, former Assemblyman Tom McClintock is mounting a comeback to take over the seat being vacated by Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills). His Democratic opponent is Jon Lauritzen, a math teacher from Chatsworth. The district reaches from the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys to Simi Valley and Fillmore.

State Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) is running for a last term. She faces Democrat John Birke.

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The ballot will have some new names and a new party too. The Natural Law Party, which has sprung from the Transcendental Meditation movement, has fielded four candidates for November: Stephen Hospodar of Carpinteria to challenge Gallegly; Miriam Hospodar of Carpinteria to challenge Firestone; Ron Lawrence of Agoura to bid for Beilenson’s soon-to-be-empty seat in Congress; and Virginia F. Neuman of Fillmore, to run for Boland’s vacated Assembly seat.

The ballot will also have more than a dozen school board contests. And every city in Ventura County--except for Ventura--will hold city council elections.

In Thousand Oaks, 10 candidates are vying for two council seats in an election where slow-growth activists are hoping to wrest a majority from the city’s business-friendly council for the first time in several years.

Incumbent Mike Markey, who won a seat last year following a special election, is hoping to win his first full term on the council. The other seat was vacated last month by former Councilwoman Jaime Zukowski, who stepped down to move to Boulder, Colo., with her family.

In nearby Simi Valley, Mayor Greg Stratton faces no opponent, but six candidates are competing for two seats on the City Council, including incumbents Bill Davis and Barbara Williamson.

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In Moorpark, four candidates are vying for the seat being vacated by retiring Mayor Paul Lawrason, the city’s first elected mayor. The contestants are City Councilmen Pat Hunter and Bernardo Perez, rancher Edward “Pete” Peters and former Planning Commissioner Michael Wesner. Five candidates are competing for three seats on the Moorpark City Council, and the campaign’s premier issue will continue to be the pace of the city’s growth.

In Oxnard, incumbent Mayor Manuel Lopez will be challenged by educational consultant Robert Randy Taylor, retired businessman Oscar Karrin and television producer Anthony de la Cerda.

Incumbent Councilmen Andres Herrera and Bedford Pinkard also face three challengers, and City Clerk Daniel Martinez is being challenged by Jackie Rodgers, a secretary, and Angie Pina Varela, a management-training consultant.

Santa Paula incumbent City Council members Al Urias and Robin Sullivan face two challengers.

Camarillo has 10 candidates competing for two open City Council seats. Port Hueneme has six candidates, including incumbent Toni Young, running for two seats. Ojai has six candidates competing for two open seats. Fillmore has five candidates, including incumbents Roger Campbell and Scott Lee, vying for three seats.

Eleven Ventura County Superior Court and Municipal judges were supposed to stand election this fall, but no one challenged them. Thus, on election day, all of them will be declared elected to additional six-year terms, without their names appearing on the ballot.

A number of other races also dropped off the ballot, for lack of sufficient candidates to generate a contested election.

Allan W. Jacobs will be automatically elected to another four-year term on the Ventura County Community College District Board of Trustees.

“It sure makes it a heck of a lot easier,” Jacobs said. “The only bad part, is that if there are issues that need to be brought out, it won’t come up in the election.”

The Fillmore Unified School District had two candidates sign up for two openings on the school board. So they’re off the ballot too.

So are the Hueneme School District, the Briggs School District, the Mupu School District, the Santa Clara School District, the Santa Paula School District, the Somis Union School District and a smattering of water boards, parks and recreation districts and community services districts.

The lack of contestants has brought a quick conclusion to the campaign of Ventura County’s first celebrity candidate. Comedian Shelley Berman is one of three candidates who will fill three openings on the Bell Canyon Community Services District, in the tiny community in eastern Ventura County.

“When my wife told me that nobody else was running, I was really disappointed,” the 71-year-old stand-up comic said. “I was going to send out a mailing. I was looking forward to being asked about my plans. I wanted to see my name on that ballot.”

Times staff writers Miguel Bustillo and Lorenza Munoz and Times correspondents David Baker, Nick Green and Eric Wahlgren contributed to this report.