The Race for the Third Supervisorial District

James Shinn

At 73, Jim Shinn has done many things in his life but this is his first attempt at elective office.

The stepfather of a mentally ill man who was formerly a patient at Camarillo State Hospital, Shinn decided to challenge Kathy Long largely because of her vote to move the county’s mental health bureaucracy from the medical agency to the social-services agency.

Shinn describes himself as a semi-retired financial consultant. His most dramatic campaign proposal is his desire to abolish the 3rd District supervisorial seat that he is trying to win.

Question: What would you bring to the Board of Supervisors that is not currently being represented?

Answer: I’ve been in Camarillo for more than 25 years. The last thing I ever expected to do was anything political. I’ve always been an independent. The first person I voted for was Harry Truman, because he saved my life. I was ready to go over to Japan in a submarine when he ended the war.

I’ve learned a lot in the past two or three months and I believe that if you’re going to save money you have to start at the top. The supervisors need to be reorganized [into four districts rather than five]. Instead of having a $650,000 budget each, they should each cut one of their employees.

Number two, there should be term limits because as long as you don’t have them the incumbent is going to win every time, unless they really goof up. It seems to me that Kathy Long has every endorsement from every mayor, every person around, so it doesn’t really matter. They just want to keep things status quo, the way they are now. So for a person to come in, especially if you’re not a Democrat or Republican, you’re going to have one hell of a battle.

Q: What is it that brought you off the bench to enter this race?

A: Number one, I didn’t have a business and I had the time to do something and I didn’t want to retire. I don’t play golf or tennis. I read in the paper all about the situation that had happened with Kathy Long and that nobody was going to run against her. I have a friend who is very wealthy, [retired attorney and Oxnard resident] Leo O’Hearn, he has a mentally ill son like I do out at Las Posadas, and he said, “Somebody has to run against her.” He wanted me to back Mike Morgan. But I don’t even know Mike Morgan. So I said, “Well, if nobody’s going to run against her, I will.”

Leo gave me two grand, I put a couple hundred up myself, and started to go for it. The next thing I know, Morgan is into the act because Leo gave him two grand! I said, “What do you expect me to do--drop out? I’m not a quitter.”

So I’m going to do the best I can. I’m doing OK in some of the forums. I don’t know whether I have a chance or not. I know I’d make a good supervisor.

Q: You’re proposing to reduce the number of districts from five to four. And the one you want to eliminate is . . . yours?

A: The 3rd District would be a perfect one to get rid of. Downtown Ojai [in the 3rd District] should be with the surrounding Ojai area, in the 1st District. Port Hueneme should be with Oxnard [in the 5th]; it shouldn’t be with Frank Schillo [of Thousand Oaks]. So geographically, after the census is made, they could get by very well in Ventura County with four supervisors.

Q: So you’d like to win the 3rd District seat and then abolish it?

A: Yes. Sacrifice it, abolish it. That’s mainly what I want to do.

I’m 73 years old, in good physical health even though I’m 50 pounds overweight. I have common sense; I have a very strong belief in being fair to people. I have too much empathy for my own good--sometimes the best way to help people is to not help them, make them do things on their own.

I don’t think we have a very serious [county financial] crisis. We’re not Orange County; we’re not going broke. I’m not out to hang all these people if they made mistakes. Kathy Long made a mistake; I’ve made mistakes; everybody makes mistakes.

Q: As the father of a mentally ill person, what do you think of the county’s handling of mental health care over the past two years?

A: My stepson was in Camarillo State Hospital. It’s discouraging to think that they would close something that was so good, so successful, they did a wonderful job. The problem was, when they had 8,000 people out there maybe one staffer took care of four or five people. When my stepson was out there, it was down to 500 patients and they still had 800 employees--getting $80 million a year in salaries. The $125,000 a year it cost to keep [each patient] out there was exorbitant.

The unions out there were real strong, they worked overtime--they still do--and this is a problem we’re going to have with changing Ventura County. We have to go to the employees and let them know that they have to be more productive.

Q: What’s your view of Pierre Durand and David Gudeman and their efforts to straighten things out?

A: I don’t know, the jury’s still out on Pierre Durand. He does have a thousand-dollar suit, which is nice. And quite frankly, I know my friends will be very upset with me, but Dr. Gudeman doesn’t appear to me to be any dynamic person. I don’t really have a strong opinion of either one of them. They’re not the solution. The solution is the 7,500 that we have working there, not the management. They have to understand the new productivity that we’re moving into. We have to really motivate them to want to help make the county fiscally responsible.

Q: Should county auditor-controller be an elective position?

A: I think it should be appointed. That’s a very important position, they should do a search for a highly qualified person, like a business would do. I don’t see it being an elected position.

Q: How should the county use the money it is getting from the settlement with the tobacco companies?

A: Quite frankly, a good percentage of it should go to the mentally ill. I’ll tell you why. My stepson never smoked. But after he went to the hospital he started. It seemed like 95% of the people out there smoked. Cigarettes are used for barter. If you have cigarettes you can get whatever you want. His whole life is built on that.

I’ve tried to convince the management at Las Posadas to make these people quit smoking. I really think they deserve some of that money because they’re the ones that are spending a lot of money on cigarettes.

Q: What should be the future of the Oxnard and Camarillo airports? And do you support commercial traffic at Point Mugu?

A: Absolutely. I am a very strong believer that Mugu should share. We need an airport in Ventura County. Going down to the L.A. airport is sheer torture. Mugu is ideal--it’s there already and it’s far enough away from everybody that it’s not bothering too many people.