ELECTIONS Ojai : Council Race Looking More Like a Stroll

Water, an issue everywhere, has not even surfaced as a topic in Ojai’s low-key race for three City Council seats, which voters will decide Tuesday.

The hottest topics in the contest, in which two challengers and three incumbents are competing, are traffic, parking, affordable housing, the budget and municipal recycling. One candidate has called on residents to take the homeless into their homes.

This year’s slow-paced campaign contrasts with that of two years ago, when 34.7% of registered voters cast ballots in a hotly contested race for two seats on the five-member council.

“It’s going to be a horrible turnout Tuesday,” Councilman Steve Olsen, a candidate for reelection, predicted last week at the most prominent event of the campaign, a debate hosted by the League of Women Voters that drew 30 people, counting league members, city staff and one photographer.

For Mayor Joseph DeVito, 57, running to retain his seat for a second term, this laid-back race is a sign of the confidence the city’s 3,976 registered voters have in their political leaders.

“The budget is sound. Revenues are better than expected, expenses have been held below budget and that says someone is doing a good job,” DeVito said.

DeVito’s proudest achievement is the completion of a $1.68-million project strengthening the downtown arcade last month to comply with earthquake safety codes. The project was completed four months behind schedule and $130,000 over contract, but both the city’s sales and bed tax revenues increased by 10% this fiscal year.

“Due to our strong economic climate, we’ve done very well,” said Olsen, who noted that the city’s “greatest cost-saving factor” is its army of retired volunteers who keep many social services functioning despite only meager public funding.

Olsen, 40, a junior high school vice principal, is campaigning to build bike and foot trail connections to the county’s Ojai Valley Trail. He estimated that he will spend about $1,200 by election day.

Challenger Lawrence Jensen, 40, is making his second bid for the council after narrowly losing to Mayor Pro Tem Nina Shelley by 81 votes in 1986. Jensen, an electrician, estimated his campaign spending at $1,500.

Many groups begging for funds would be better served, Jensen said, if the council killed a $38,000 study to turn Ojai’s main street, Ojai Avenue (California 150), into a one-way thoroughfare.

Jensen has also attacked what he said is the $13,200 in annual car allowances provided for city administrators and the $1.4-million reserve held in redevelopment funds. The money would be better spent on parking lots, said Jensen, who favors making room for one by tearing down the old fire station, a county landmark now housing the Ojai Valley Museum.

On management of the city’s $3.5-million budget, Jensen said, “there is always room for improvement.”

Challenger Margot Eiser, 45, said her candidacy is designed to give the people a choice. In her first try for political office, the bookstore manager and library assistant said she would represent a “neglected constituency” of renters and single parents.

“I don’t know too much about politics,” she said. “I’m also very honest and find it hard to keep secrets, so I might make a good government person.”

Including the $150 filing fee, Eiser said, she has spent less than $200. Her answer to the problems of the homeless is “radical,” she acknowledged at last week’s forum.

“We would invite them into our homes and get to know them,” Eiser said.

Eiser objected to a plan to spend more city money to develop an 80-space park and ride lot, saying that an existing 20-space lot is seldom used. She said youth programs deserve more support.

Shelley, 68, a retired fabric shop owner, is seeking her third term.

“The budget reflects the priorities of the people,” Shelley said. “There is no fat, no waste in Ojai’s use of funds. We are a city whose belt is always tight.”

A former teacher and artist, Shelley has also proposed more support for the arts. “We spend less on arts than we do on one day’s outing for the community on the Fourth of July.”

Shelley said the city provided a $3,700 subsidy for the Independence Day celebration, compared to $2,500 allotted to the Arts Advisory Committee for programs and grants to local artists.

Drawing agreement from all candidates is the need for the city to create a curbside recycling program. Shelley, who said she will spend about $1,400 on her campaign, called for public education forums on the issue.

DeVito, who expects to spend about $1,000 in the campaign, was not endorsed this year, as he was in 1986, by the influential 700-member Citizens to Preserve the Ojai. The environmental group endorsed only Shelley, citing her work to preserve the environment and her active opposition to a proposed landfill in Weldon Canyon.

The only other political group to endorse candidates, a subcommittee of the Ojai Valley Greens, has endorsed both Shelley and Eiser.

All candidates also agree that the best answer to traffic congestion is expanding Ojai’s mass transit service provided by a single trolley bus. They differ on how it should be done.

Olsen and DeVito have said the service should be provided seven days a week instead of six. DeVito also said the fare, now 75 cents, should be free. Shelley suggested trying free fares during peak traffic hours. Jensen said the trolley’s route needs to be expanded farther west, and Eiser said she favors providing free trolley transportation to visitors.

Ojai residents, like others in Ventura County, are facing higher water rates and the possibility of rationing as the state enters its fourth year of drought. The city has opposed pending water rate increases, saying they don’t do enough to encourage conservation.

The issue of water price and supply did not come up at the League of Women Voters’ debate last week.

The city’s three polling places are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday. They are Holy Cross Lutheran Church, 1212 Maricopa Highway; Ojai Unified School District auditorium, 414 E. Ojai Ave., and the First Baptist Church at 930 Grand Ave.

The three top vote-getters will join Councilmen Jim Loebl and Bob McKinney, whose terms expire in 1992.