Democratic candidate for Ventura County Board of Education, Rachel Ulrich, will speak about the race at the upcoming club meeting this week. We will discuss the extension of unemployment benefits, the VCDCC office in Camarillo, upcoming volunteer opportunities and general club business.

Democratic Club of Ventura meetings are held on the 4th Thursday of each month in the Topping Room of Foster Library at 651 Main Street in downtown Ventura. Doors open at 6:00 pm for snacks and socializing and the meetings start at 6:30 pm. Meetings are free. Guests are welcome.

To contact the club call 805-641-2400 or email SKinsler@VenturaCountyDemocrats.com.

Ventura, California – The Democratic Club of Ventura will host a debate between the two Democratic candidates for the 35^th Congressional District, Tim Allison and Marie Panec. The debate is open to the general public and is the third program the club has held for the public during this election cycle.

The debate will be held on Thursday, April 22, 2010 in the Topping Room of Foster Library, 651 Main Street, Ventura, California, 93001, and taped by CAPS for future broadcast. The doors will open at 6:00 p.m. and the meeting will start at 6:30. A small amount of Club business will be conducted at the beginning, and then we will move into the 75-minute debate. Snacks will be served. This meeting is free of charge, as usual, however we request donations to cover expenses. We hope all members of the community will fell welcome to attend and benefit from this informative event.

The debate will be moderated by David Maron. Questions will be taken from Democratic Club of Ventura members and the guest audience. Forward debate questions to BLeshon@VenturaCountyDemocrats.com.

Tim Allison – “I am running for Congress because I have a passion for making our community a better place by jumpstarting our economy, creating jobs, and improving our schools. Our district deserves better representation. As a successful businessman and community advocate, I have compiled an extensive record of service and leadership in non-profits and community groups. I am proud to be endorsed by the CA Democratic Party, CA Teacher’s Assn and Congresswoman Lois Capps.”

Visit TimAllison.com for more information.

Marie Panec – “There are issues that I am passionate about, such as education and the environment, and that I am knowledgeable on and have expertise in. I’m a two-term elected member of a School Board, a college biology professor, and a 23-year resident who raised a family here. The current representative does not represent these issues as I would like to see them addressed on a national level.  I decided that this needed to be changed.”

Visit panec4congress.com for more information.

David Maron – Is a frequent moderator for the League of Women Voters and other organizations, previously hosted the Adelphia Cable Impact TV show and is a past chair of the Ventura County Civic Alliance. He is a business owner and professional campaign consultant to local candidates.

Ventura, CA – Thursday night, 3/25/2010 The Democratic Club of Ventura and Ventura County Democratic Party presented “2010 Democratic Candidate Town Hall” at the Topping Room, E.P Foster Library, 651 Main Street, Downtown.

Forty-five people attended the town hall meeting hosted by Helen Conly, Vice President and event coordinator. The program opened with political consultant and local software business creator David Maron, who was emcee.

Sheriff hopeful, Geoff Dean assured the audience that “political persuasion or party won’t be the catalyst behind him giving out future arrests. Criminality is not parceled out by whether or not you are a republican”, said the avowed Republican candidate.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=crazycatherder#p/u/7/WP6OwoNQC48
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=crazycatherder#p/u/6/zUI51j9XJWc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1n_XoQmOTY

Written questions from the audience were also asked by Maron.

Next was Ferial Masry with a fifteen-minute presentation. Masry expressed the need for California, the 6th largest economy in the world, to strive to become the state where business owners create products and services that can be used globally, to educate and prepare our students to be the 21st century work force instead of going to foreign countries and to reconsider green initiatives that supplement sustainable energy resources and careers.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=crazycatherder#p/u/4/JWXGarXgSE0
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=crazycatherder#p/u/3/ILojAzgjTdA
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=crazycatherder#p/u/2/GG15ZBYUQDM

The 37th Assembly District includes the following cities: Acton, Agua Dulce, Camarillo, Canoga Park, Castaic, Chatsworth, Fillmore, Los Angeles, Moorpark, Newbury Park, Oak View, Ojai, Piru, Santa Paula, Simi Valley, Somis, Thousand Oaks, Val Verde, West Hills, and Westlake Village.

As opposed to prior advertising, the program wasn’t televised although some of the content was captured by Todd Hoover a videographer from the Santa Clarita area.

Other participants were Ed Summers and Peggy O’Reilly, both running for Treasurer; Jim Dantona, running for County Clerk. For more information regarding the 2-1/2 hour town hall see: http://www.youtube.com/user/crazycatherder#p/u

The Democratic Club of Ventura will hold its annual holiday Party on Friday evening 12/18/09. Members and non-member friends are invited for our cocktail and light supper party. RSVP must be given by 12/1/6/09 and sent to SKinsler @ VenturaCountyDemocrats.com.

[This is a copy of the blog containing the acceptance speech of the City of Ventura's new Mayor, Bill Fulton. Mayor Fulton maintains a blog at fulton4ventura.blogspot.com.]

Last night, our new City Council was seated. Congratulations to Mike Tracy, who was seated as a new councilmember and selected as Deputy Mayor. Thanks to Christy Weir, who stepped down as mayor, and Ed Summers, who stepped off the council after four years of excellent service!

The council selected me as mayor for the next two years. I am very grateful for their support. Here’s what I said at the meeting:

It’s long-standing custom to make this moment about the new mayor, who spends a lot of time thanking people and talk all about themselves. Don’t worry. I’ll get to that in a minute.

But I just want to take a second to step back to acknowledge what this moment is really about. What we have just witnessed is something that, in most parts of the world, would be considered nothing less than a miracle. The people seated up here will be responsible for governing this city for the next two years, and they were selected by you, the voters. And the Deputy Mayor and I are sitting in these chairs because, as our city charter calls for, the seven members of the city council have selected us.

In most parts of the world, you don’t elect the people who govern your community — and even if there is an election, there’s no guarantee that the people elected will survive to serve.

I know it may be kind of silly to point all this out. After all, we’re at zero risk for a coup d’etat. But it really is kind of a miracle. So the first thing we should be thankful for is that … in our nation and in our community … the democratic process and the rule of law prevail.

As voters, you may not always agree with what we do. But at least you know how we got here. You know where to find us. And you know that we are ultimately accountable to you.

The first thing I’d like to do is thank my six fellow councilmembers for selecting me as mayor for the next two years.

Being the mayor in Ventura is a tricky job. You have to be simultaneously a leader and a servant of the council; and, of course, a leader and a servant of the community as well. This is a job that has to be approached with a lot of humility. We’re a bunch of independent thinkers. But in these tough times, we will all have to pull together. I will do my best to herd the cats and still be responsive to the cats as well.

I’d especially like to thank Mayor Weir for her leadership over the last two years. Christy, I don’t think you knew what you were getting into when you took this gavel in December of 2007. You have had to deal with far more difficulty and financial hardship than anyone would have expected. And you’ve managed to face with two remarkable traits that don’t usually go together: You’ve stayed upbeat and positive about the future of our community; and at the same time you’ve been steadfast and held your ground when you needed to. Anybody sitting in this chair would do well to emulate your approach to this job.

There are so many people I would like to thank, including those who are here tonight and those who are elsewhere, but I will single out only a few.

I miss my mother, Fran, every day. Many of you remember her. Although she lived to see me first elected in 2003, I still wish she were here today to both inspire me and pester me. I miss my father too. Dad’s been gone for many years, but he was my mentor on political and civic affairs almost from the time we could hold a conversation. I know he’d be proud. He was a stubborn guy – back in our hometown, he ran as a renegade school board candidate in 1947 and almost won, but redeemed himself in 1948 by running again and getting creamed.

I’d especially like to thank my daughter Sara, who came down from college in Northern California to be here today. Sara kind of grew up here at city Hall during her middle and high school years and everybody around this building misses her. Sara inspires me every day. Just by the way she lives her life, she reminds me that the most important thing you can do every single day is wake up determined to make a difference in the world. Sara, I hope my service as mayor helps make your world a better place decades from now.

There are so many other people who have inspired and helped me here, but in the interest of getting on with it I think I will have to thank them individually.

Over the next few weeks the council will work out our agenda for the next two years. This won’t be an easy task. As a community, Ventura has taken a lot of blows in the last year or two. And I hate saying it, but I expect we’ll take a few more before the hard times are done. It is not a time to nurture resentment and assign blame. It is a time to pull together for the good of our community.

I can’t predict what direction the council will likely take, or how we will decide to get there. But I do know two things. First, we’re going to have to reinvent the way we do a lot of things – both here at City Hall and in the community at large. And second, we’re going to have to work together as a community more aggressively than we ever have before.

Ventura is a terrific place to live – so much so that sometimes we become a little complacent and often take it for granted that somehow or other things will work out fine in the end. But in this time of financial crisis, we can’t take anything for granted. We must devote ourselves to reshaping the way we do things in order to lay the foundation for a future that is both prosperous and sustainable.

We must be prosperous as a community , because without prosperity we cannot achieve anything else we want. But our prosperity must be enduring, based on achieving long-term economic goals, not short-term profits. Ventura has reinvented its economy many times on the past, and we are well-positioned to reinvent our economy again in order to ensure generations of prosperity.

We must be financially sustainable as a city government, because unless we are financial sustainable we will not be able to provide our constituents with the things they want and need. This will require not just increasing revenues, but reinventing how we do things, sharing community resources and helping each other, so that we will never again be faced with the difficult choices we are confronting right now.

And finally we must also be an ecologically sustainable community as well. As the Copenhagen conference begins today, climate change to most people in the world is an abstraction. To us it is not. The sea level will rise. It will rise in this city. It will rise in this neighborhood. And it will rise in our lifetimes. You can’t prosper when you are drowning.

If we make progress on all these things – enduring prosperity, a financially sustainable city government, and an ecologically sustainable community – then we will go a long way toward achieving our most important goal, which is to maintain and improve the quality of life of the people who live in Ventura, both today and in the future.

These are big challenges. But I look forward to working with the council and the community to lay the foundation for a better future. For the next two years I will do my best to be a leader and a servant to my colleagues on the council and the community at large.

The Democratic Club of Ventura (DCV) is a political organization for registered Democrats. The Club meets monthly and every meeting includes discussion of political issues, elections, candidates, and subjects of importance to the Democratic, Progressive and Independent community. The meetings also provide social and business networking opportunities. The Club also hosts seminars, lectures and training programs on a variety of topics. Information on our programs is available on this website under the Calendar.

The DCV meets at 6:30 pm on the fourth Thursday of most months. The club’s normal meeting location is the Topping Room in E.P. Foster Library. The library is located in downtown Ventura at 651 E. Main Street, on the north side of the street, between Chestnut and Fir. There is parking on the street in front of the library and public parking lots surround the library as well. Parking is free.

There is a pre-meeting social that starts at 6:00 pm in the same location and a post-meeting social that usually takes place at Winchester’s, the bar and restaurant across the street from the library, starting around 9:00 pm.

Meetings are held from January through October on the fourth Thursday of the month. The November meeting falls on Thanksgiving and is generally rescheduled for a different date. In December the regular meeting is replaced with a holiday party held on a weekend.

2009/2010 Officers:

President: Sandra Kinsler – SKinsler @ VenturaCountyDemocrats.com
Vice-President: Helen Conly – ConlyHelen @ yahoo.com
Secretary: Sherry Cash
Treasurer: Sanford Bothman
Publicity: Brian Leshon – BLeshon @ VenturaCountyDemocrats.com
Hospitality: Anthea Adams
Phone Tree: Tom Jones

Phone: 805-641-2400
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 6492, Ventura CA 93006-6492

Dues: $20 per year donation for an individual
$35 per year donation for a family
Meetings are always free.

Paid for by the Democratic Club of Ventura.
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee.

CALIFORNIA STATE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONVENTION

Really really crowded here in Sacramento today. A lot of people and a lot of excitement. The Progressive Caucus is starting right now and it is the largest caucus. I’ll post updates and news on this article below the fold throughout the convention.

Info on all the resolutions will be uploaded later.

DAY 3

Update 6:

Home again in Ojai. Yea! Though now I hear about a gang violence incident and I’m saddened and angered. My niece knew the victim.

I’m going to update all that happened at the end of the convention. -

First, after the propositions that I’ve already covered, we went into the resolutions phase. The final bit of business before we all go home. The way it works is that every odd year there are resolutions that are submitted by the various central committees throughout the state. These can be about anything, all the way up to and including national issues. As the largest state, in terms of population, and the largest economy in the country this is not surprising. Anyway, on even years the convention sets the platform in the same fashion. This being an odd year, it’s resolutions.

This year there were 15 resolutions. Four that dealt with party business, eight that dealt with statewide issues, two that dealt with Federal and State issues and one that dealt with International/Foreign Policy issues. The latter was the resolution that calls for an investigation Judge(now) Jay Bybee and Others for their role in allowing torture as part of “enhanced interrogation”. After having witnessed the process of democracy for the propositions, I was leery of dealing with 15 new items. However, as luck would have it, the process is as follows. First, the issues as a whole are presented for people to “pull” the ones that they wish to debate on the floor. Then the ones that were not “pulled” are voted on together, as one yes or no with no debate. In this way 13 of the 15 resolutions passes, including the one about torture.

That left two. The fun and games began when now former Regional Director of our own 10th District, Bob Handy pulled Resolution SAC 09.18A “A Call for Hearings & Reaffirmation of the Party’s support of a Moratorium on the Death Penalty”.

Bob Handy pulling the resolution.

Now, before you start getting all pissy at Bob, he was pulling the resolution because he wanted to insert different language that actually made it stronger. Bob was for calling for an Abolition of the Death Penalty here in California. Unfortunately, procedures were not followed during the resolution committee meeting earlier in the weekend that the seekers of complete abolition needed to follow in order to change the resolution. As a result, people had a conniption when he brought it up on the floor. The upshot is that there is something called a friendly vs an unfriendly amendment. A friendly amendment is like changing a single word, etc. An unfriendly amendment is when someone tries to fundamentally change the issue at hand. The issue at hand is the word moratorium vs the word abolition. Apparently, and please correct any and all errors I make in this blog, a moratorium would cease the death penalty in California while leaving those currently on death row at risk of death dependent on the Governor, while an abolition means that the death penalty is gone, totally.

Now realize that there is a LARGE invisible clock ticking, not just the one represented by everybody’s wish to go home. As these things come down to the wire and as people become heated, there is the ever increasing possibility that someone, anyone, will call for a quorum vote. As this is all going on, people have either not shown up on a Sunday or they have had to catch a plane or they have simply assumed that it will all work out and they left. This means that there is an ever dwindling number of people and we become vulnerable to a quorum call to see if there are even enough people to hold a vote. If this happens and there isn’t a quorum, the convention ends and the remaining resolutions are finished and not passed.

To make matters worse, at least as far as this delegate is concerned, the lady running the show up in the podium has a very confusing manner of dealing with things.

She was very commanding and competent, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I wasn’t alone. Anyway, it became apparent that we were now in jeopardy of not finishing the business with regard to the death penalty and the other resolution I will go into later. Someone did call for a quorum, but when it was explained to him that the final resolution that I will go into in a minute would likely be tabled also, he took his quorum call back. Well, the abolition folks came up and said that while they would prefer a complete abolition and then they told us all about the “money pit” that our death penalty represents, they said that they did not want this resolution to go down to defeat and said they would support it as is. More confusion emanated from the podium but the convention was having none of it. We basically demanded an up or down vote and exactly two people voted against the resolution. Fun.

Now on to the last resolution: And this one is exciting too. Oil Severance. Therefore be it resolved, that the California Democratic Party believes the State should levy an extraction tax on oil and natural gas to directly fund all three segments of public higher education in California and provide educational opportunities to qualified students, and be it further resolved, that copies of this resolution be sent to all Democratic state legislators asking them to urgently work toward these goals.

Kick Ass! Right!

Well this man didn’t think so and he pulled the resolution. To be honest, I couldn’t really follow his argument. Even Texas has an extraction tax and the tuition to attend the University of Texas is $2,000.00 a year according to one of the delegates who got up in favor of the resolution. Again, pleases feel free to correct me. Anyway, the clock was ticking. Then the dreaded happened. A quorum call…

from this lady. Well, at this point all those remaining in the hall, probably not a quorum were really upset. This picture was taken as Ventura County’s own David Atkins and KK Holland, along with the not insubstantial goading of the whole convention and now former Chair Art Torres, convinced her to rescind her quorum call. The resolution passed by a gargantuan margin.

Homeward Bound

This was my view as I drove home through Taft on the 33. Some people see oil extraction, but now I see less expensive college tuition for our children. Hell, I might even be willing to talk slant drilling.

OVER AND OUT

Update 1:

Woke up refreshed today, possibly because I didn’t drink a whole lot of red wine last night. Kept it tame despite the free dinner at the Red to Blue Grassroots dinner last night. Today is the big day, at least to me. Of course, this is also the short day. Strange. We’ll be voting on the resolutions for the Party today as well as the official position of the party on the resolutions on the ballot on May 19th. This is kind of the real work of the convention whereas the rest is largely networking and power brokering.

First up is the resolutions. In the vote were we all held up our cards, 58 percent were for a Yes position on 1A. I am extremely ambivalent to this prop. The rules state that 60 percent is required for the Party to have a position. The party will now take no stance with regard to 1A. The party appears to reflect my ambivalence.

Update 2:

Prop 1B will be supported by the party.

Sadly, Prop 1C will be will also be supported by the party. 1C is the prop that will allow future earnings of the Lottery to be securitized so the state can issue bonds and fill the 40+ billion dollar budget hole. It is astonishing to me that after the collapse of the financial sector that we’ve been witnessing; a collapse that happened because of securitized instruments like CDOs and CDSs and our bubble, casino capitalism. It’s strange that the idea to fix the budget shortfall that is a direct result of the misdeeds of Wall St. and our bubble economy will itself cause another bubble and more white collar crime on the part of the financial sector. Really really dumb.

Voting on 1C.

Update 3:

1D Children’s Services did not reach the required 60 percent so the Party will remain neutral on the prop. 1E Mental Health Services Funding is being discussed now.

Update 4:

1E did not get anywhere near 60 percent. The Party position on 1E is now neutral. Prop 1F Elected Officials’ Salaries is being discussed now. As with all the other props, there will be three speakers for and three speakers for then a visual vote and possibly a count if the visual vote looks close.

Update 5:

Here’s my station as I’m blogging all this here on the floor of the convention, literally.

By the way, Prop 1F will be a recommended Yes by the Party. So for those of you looking for an easy reference for the Propositions and the position of the CDP here they are:

Prop 1A State Budget Change = Neutral
Prop 1B Education Funding = Yes
Prop 1C Lottery Modernization(Read License to Steal) = Yes
Prop 1D Children’s Services = Neutral
Prop 1E Mental Health Services Funding = Neutral

………………………………………
DAY 2

Update 1:

Taking the Sacramento Rapid Transit light rail and my bicycle to the convention today from Fair Oaks where I’m staying. I’l need to get a bike lock on the way, I never lock the bike up in Ojai so I don’t have a lock. The agenda has a lot of speakers, John Garamendi, Bill Lockyer, Jerry Brown, Antonio Villaraigosa, Gavin Newsom, etc. All the heavies are speaking, I better get going.

Update 2:

Boxer was just up. She’s my favorite Senator. The crowd loved her and they really cheered when she said she was NEVER afraid of Dick Cheney.

Update 3:

Jerry Brown ladies and gents. The next governor of the great state of California.

Jerry pointed out that when he went to college here in California, prisons were 3 percent of the budget. Now, as he begins his campaign for Governor, prisons are the same percentage of the budget as the colleges. He also pointed out that when he was governor and passed laws to conserve energy here in California, he was given the derisive nickname “Moonbeam”. Well, in the last 26 years since he was governor our per capita energy usage has remained a flat line. It has not gone up while all the other states have skyrocketed. Jerry for Governor again!

Update 4:

Posting in comments as comp is down. The election for Region 10 Director is happening now. Ojai’s own Sue Broidy is up against Julie Lopez Dad. There’s currently a fight going on about re-opening credentials for voting. This was brought by one Jim Hensley. That will name will have meaning for those that are familiar with the Ventura county dems. Suffice to say he is against Sue. Very contentious.

Sue speaking to the Region 10 Caucus

SUE WINS! 88 to 33

The new Region 10 Director

Update 5:

Nancy Pelosi just finished speaking. She spoke about all the great Democrats from California that are playing a role in the Obama Administration and the Congress. She said that Universal quality health care would be a reality this year. She did not utter the words “single payer”. At one point during her speech, someone shouted “Prosecute Bush”. Unfortunately the call was not compounded, but Pelosi heard it and she faltered ever so slightly. My impression is that the forces for real progressive change are building. Professional politicians like Nancy Pelosi are extremely sensitive to shifts in power. It is their number one defining sense. The first female Speaker of the House and the first Californian Speaker of the House has the power of peoples House, the Senate and the Executive behind her. The Democrats hold the majority. All she needs is some gentle pressure from us.

Update 6:

The big election for the Chair, Vice Chair, and Controller. Since I’m writing this after the fact, I can tell you that John Burton won for chair, Alex Rooker for vice chair and Hilary Crosby for controller of the party. No real surprise on the first two, but the controller is a bit of a change up in the progressive direction.

My vote accomplished. The new chair John Burton is an accomplished political operator and an asset to the state party despite his recalcitrance toward technology. I’m going out on a limb here as I’ve been told that he has a bit of a reputation for being vindictive, but I was not all the impressed with the way he used the young democrats on the stage when he was being officially nominated for the Chair. The young dems were all up on the stage and they were all enthusiastic holding his sign and cheering and he didn’t really acknowledge then. I heard a prominent Ventura Democrat say that it looked to him/her like John was just using the young dems as a prop. All that said, I still support John Burton for the good of the party. I voted in what seemed to me a more progressive direction more to send a message than to actually get a different result. He is an exceptionally good operator and the only thing we need to ensure is that we seriously cultivate the grassroots and that will take copious amounts of technology. In short, please buy a computer John. The young Dems can help you with the setup/install, etc.

Update 7:

After the voting and that line, we need a break. Our trip to the old Governor’s mansion and subsequent tour put on by Jerry Brown for Governor was a lot of fun.

Check that TV.

Gotta love claw foot tubs.

Update 7:
.
Sandra Kinsler and Howard Dean

I was lucky enough to get to go to the Red to Blue Grassroots dinner because Brian and Sandra had an extra ticket. Even better, the ticket they had was for a vegetarian which I happen to be. During this convention it has continually struck me that the vast majority of the energy in the state party is on the progressive side. This dinner essentially confirmed this impression. This dinner had all of the people who are working to turn red areas of our state blue. The real movers and shakers, yuck I hate that phrase, were at this dinner including Howard Dean who was the keynote speaker.

Sue Broidy, the new Region 10 Director and prominent progressive mover and shaker, there I go again, speaking at the dinner.

………………………………………………...

Day 1

Update 1:

The Progressive Caucus is changing its bylaws and there is a lot of talk about the new changes. The most controversial change is the proposed change in the Chair. Currently there are North and a South Co-Chairs. The new bylaws are trying to make just one Chairperson so that there are no longer any geological divisions in the caucus so it can better throw its weight around. Considering that this is the largest caucus in the state party, it makes sense. They are about to vote on an amendment about the combining of Sec/Tres to further streamline the AT LARGE board members. An amendment has been made to keep the the Sec and Tres as two different board positions.

Update 2:

The amendment has passes so there will be one chair and two vice chairs a Sec AND a Treas. The new bylaws are now going to the floor for a vote. They are counting the vote on the new bylaws with the amendment now.

Update 3:

The bylaws have passed with the amendment. Now the meeting can start, but we only have 26 min.left.

Update 4:

AG Jerry Brown put in an appearance, walking through. Is he our next Governor? A lot of good things were placed into the overall party’s platform. Let me hear single payer.

Update

5: This is a really good caucus and the best part of the Democratic

Party, by far. They are flexing their muscles and starting to seriously

effect legislation in our state. I’m signing up to be a liaison for the

caucus in our Assembly District. Battery dying, PEACE OUT.

cross posted from Making Waves Blog, Ventura County Star, March 2, 2009

WHAT’S THE BEST REASON to not cut our state education funding? In the future we’ll need sharp minds to get us out of these budget messes.

I’ve been hunkered down for the past few days looking over documents and trying to make some sense of the budget package the governor just signed and how it will affect the bottom line of our schools. It’s a precarious hodgepodge of $8.4 billion in cuts offset by reforms and accounting tricks. And all of this hinges on a package of ballot measures up in May, some designed to reshuffle prior ballot measures.

This labyrinthine budget reduces Prop. 98 guaranteed school funding from now through 2010 and then adds in another ballot measure to help to help restore the lost funds in 2011. Yet another tinkers with Prop. 98 formulas because the state now needs to borrow from future lottery earnings that would’ve gone to our schools.

Several of the seven ballot measures coming up on May 19 are so complicated that one could safely predict most voters probably won’t do anything but vote no in protest, if they bother to cast a ballot at all.

AND THERE’S MORE: Categorical funding for many important programs is being slashed 20 percent between now and 2010. Included in this are programs for gifted students, college preparation, middle and high school counseling, deferred maintenance, technology, English language acquisition, summer school, ROP programs, and, of course, arts and music. In return, school districts are being given the “flexibility” to move these pots of funding around, but it’s sort of like figuring out which child doesn’t get dinner that night.

Upcoming federal money, which would help reduce state taxes, would have no effect on K-12 classroom funding this budget year, according to the California Department of Education. In the longer term, “these resources will have a minimal impact on reducing the size and magnitude of the state reductions in education funding,” according to the California Association of School Business Officials.

AS YOU CAN SURMISE, budgeting for the next school year is like playing pin the tail on the weasel. It’s a moving target which the dedicated folks who can actually figure this stuff out HAVE to wrestle with because the deadline for letting teachers know whether or not they will have jobs next year is March 13. Yet, they won’t have any answers until June. Maybe.

Here in Ventura, school officials are looking at a mighty big gap. “… It will not look like business as usual here,” said Superintendent Trudy Arriaga. “We should not be celebrating a state budget that is cutting $10 million out of a little budget like the Ventura Unified School District has.

“We should be outraged.”

Most people just pay attention to all this by how it affects them personally. If you have a child in the public schools in California, expect bigger class sizes, no new textbooks, fewer supplies and technology, less remedial help, reduced maintenance and less emphasis on programs such as arts, music and physical education. Some familiar faces in teaching, staff and administration will be gone.

“About the only thing schools won’t have less of is testing,” said Ventura Unified Educators Association President Steve Blum. “The more-and-more testing crowd made sure state testing will be untouched.

“All this together is not good. This generation’s shortsighted approach to preparing the next generation for the future is sad.”

The Santa Barbara based Alliance for Sustainable and Equitable Regional Transportation (ASERT) convened a panel discussion at the Santa Barbara Central Public Library on Saturday January 24th, 2009. The event celebrated the Nov 2008 passage of Measure A, which funds county transportation projects through a dedicated sales tax, while anticipating future challenges and opportunities in light of both economic conditions and the funding priorities of the Obama administration.

As a resident of Ventura County, I found the discussion particularly relevant for two reasons:

1) Transportation issues are regional by nature and are not constrained by county lines.
2) Measure A passed by 80%, one of the largest margins since the implementation of the 2/3rds rule in the early 1990s, presenting a case study for similar campaigns.

Since Ventura County is currently the largest county in the State of California without a dedicated portion of its sales tax to fund transportation, the campaign to get measure A passed provides particularly relevant lessons. At a time when the state budget crisis is impacting the state monies many counties and cities rely on to fund local needs, a lack of dedicated funding for transportation issues can translate to a serious crisis. Not only are cities and counties that lack self-funding at the back of the line for state assistance, but they often lack the ability to fund even basic maintenance, let alone the types of infrastructure projects we need to move forward on issues of congestion, environmental health and economic development.

The wide-ranging discussion offered a wealth of information on current and future developments in transportation policy and practice in both Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. The panel included special guest former Massachusetts Governor and Presidential Candidate Michael Dukakis, who in addition to being a Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Northeastern University and UCLA is also the past Vice-Chair of Amtrak. The Honorable Supervisor Salud Carbajal moderated the event and additional panelists included Michael Chiacos, Energy Program Senior Associate of the Community Environmental Council; Gregg Hart, Public Information and Government Affairs Coordinator of Santa Barbara County Association of Governments; and Peter De Hann Programming Director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission. While Congresswoman Lois Capps was unable to attend, her district representative Jonathan Saur was on hand to read a statement reaffirming her commitment to issues of sustainable transportation.

As much as the public supports alternative transportation and currently favors large scale infrastructure development, the reality is these projects are often but a sliver of the transportation funding pie. Add in the current economic crisis, and funding for these critical projects is essentially nonexistent. Two major funding issues stood out against the backdrop of the state budget crisis and the economic downturn: first, that money is generally only available for capital improvements (such as the purchase of buses or trains), but not their operating costs; and two, that the current economic stimulus plan funds only those projects that can be shovel ready within 120 days, which will primarily translate to basic road repair. When it comes to transportation funding, we really need the time and the money to both cover operating expenses and pursue the alternative transportation and energy solutions the public intended these monies to fund.

Further highlighting the extent to which alternative transportation is losing out in funding, Dukakis pointed out that in an average year the federal government spends $33 billion on highways, $16 billion on airlines, and a paltry $1.5 billion on rail. As he put it, there is no form of transportation that is currently unsubsidized. So despite the public demand for alternative transportation, votes don’t always translate to funding priorities. And the time delays inherent to these large scale projects mean we often turn to quicker but less substantial solutions.

Santa Barbara County alone consumes 250 million gallons of liquid fuels per year, despite its boasting the 3rd highest per capita ownership of hybrid vehicles in the nation. With the passage of Measure A, however, funds will be available for more programs and projects to address these issues. Even before the passage of the measure, Santa Barbara County saw the addition of a new Lompoc-Vandenberg Air Force Base-Santa Maria bus service, “The Breeze,” which reached its projected 3-year ridership levels after only 6 months.

There is some good news on Ventura County efforts to get transportation alternatives up and running as well. The Coastal Express has been the star of the bus system with a ridership increase of 17% per year, and a proposal to accommodate morning commuters with more convenient train schedules is currently being pursued. But Ventura County is currently facing a potential $4 million shortfall in transportation funds: the funding gap is threatening Metrolink service to LA as officials scramble to come up with the missing money. And who wants to be driving down the 101 with all that train traffic back on the highway? Or worse still, riding the rails with train control upgrades pushed off because the money just isn’t there? Clearly, the gap between transportation needs and available funds must be addressed.

Sorry you missed the panel? You’re in luck because ASERT will be hosting its first Ventura County event on Saturday, January 31st from 8:30am-12noon at the Ventura College Cafeteria (4667 Telegraph Rd, Ventura, CA). While it will focus more on taking action to improve public transportation, the public will have an opportunity to meet advocates and leaders in transportation, share their transportation needs and create a strategy to improve public transportation. For more information about ASERT or to RSVP for “Moving the Central Coast Forward”, contact Carmen Ramirez at carmen@coastalalliance.com / (805) 658-0810 X. 213

For Brief Local News Coverage:

Title: Ventura Democratic Club
Location: Topping Room Foster Library 651 E. Main Street Downtown Ventura
Link out: Click here
Start Time: 19:00
Date: 2009-01-22
End Time: 21:00