VENTURA LIFE MAGAZINE
ARTICLE- 2008
MAYOR: CHRISTY WEIR
By Amy Jones, Photography
by Donna Granata, Rod McAtee
and additional photos provided by Mayor Weir
We met Mayor Christy Weir for a chat at her
office in Ventura’s City Hall where one of her early
stone sculptures is displayed. Laid back and cheerful, she met
us in all manner of California casualness dressed in sandals,
canvas-colored jeans and a green sweater. She would don a suit
later for a local business ribbon cutting. A relative new-comer
to the local political scene, Christy garnered attention and
favor when she helped purchase the Grant Park land where
crosses have stood over the city since the historic San
Buenaventura Spanish Mission erected the first cross in the
1700’s. An out-of-area attorney decided to challenge our
community on the separation of church and state issue and was
pushing to force the removal of the cross through a costly
legal process.
Christy grew up in Santa Barbara and has a
colorful past. She lived in a Christian commune in the
70’s where she embraced social service by caring for
people in need. Christy said, “I have always been and am
still chiefly interested in the common good.” She
worked with Gospel Light Publishing as a writer and editor, and
wrote a children’s book about the discovery of the Dead
Sea Scrolls. She has two grown children and three little
granddaughters.
Christy reflected, “I got involved
with a Christian group and dropped out of college. It was the
hippy days, and I lived with a bunch of people…We picked
up hitchhikers and fed them; we brought people into the house
and took care of them…
‘Later I went back to school and
became a kindergarten teacher. Then I moved to a farm in Oregon
to get back to nature and raise my own animals and farm organic
produce and have babies. I came back to Santa Barbara to help
my parents as they were getting older. The public service
part…I’ve always been interested in doing what you
can to make the world better at whatever place you are, using
whatever skills you have and reaching out…
‘As my kids went away to college, I
started thinking that I was going to be fifty soon, and that
you could actually do some cool stuff in politics; you could
make a difference especially in a town like Ventura. I saw what
the city was doing with the arts, and all the cool stuff that I
was fascinated by and supported, and I found myself noticing
potholes. My attention was turning to wanting the city to be a
better place. I thought well, there’s a time to do
everything …
‘Then the whole cross thing happened,
because of the law suit. And the city was thinking they needed
to sell [the Grant Park cross]. I was puzzled and
frustrated about it, because I didn’t see a positive
solution coming out of it, and it was turning out to be a
battle between the far right people and the far left people. I
asked, ‘Can’t we have a nice solution and keep it
local and honor what this town has come to think of as one of
our landmarks?’ No one seemed to be proposing healthy
solutions. So I formed a non-profit link, and in the course of
two months, we raised over a hundred thousand dollars, put a
bid in and got it. Then it was a matter of, ‘Oh my gosh
we own the cross! There’s no law suit!’ I got
twenty calls a day from people who got married at the [Grant
Park] cross, or who had memorials for loved ones there; it is
just a place with memories for many people, and it goes so far
back, that I realized how important it and all of our landmarks
are. We are about our links to the past.”
On Easter Sunday, 1782, Spanish missionary,
Father Junipero Serra, founded Mission San Buenaventura. There
was a commemoration day wooden cross and a wooden cross erected
as a road mark on Grant Park Hill. Since Christy’s
non-profit purchased the cross and the land, the name has been
changed to Serra Cross Conservancy.
AJ: “Mayor Weir, how is it to be a
woman in local politics? Do you find that you think differently
from the men around you in City Hall?”
MW:” I don’t usually see it as
a gender thing. I don’t think in terms of feminine or
masculine too much, because I know too many people that cross
over. I don’t categorize it that way, but I do have
some different skills and experiences. Parenting is a big part
of that, because you learn how to juggle a million things to
get to one result. I think dads can do that too. It’s
something that has helped me whether or not it’s
feminine, because it’s helped me to be a different kind
of politician, from what I’ve seen…
‘There’s something about being
interested in the whole community and not being a one-issue
kind of person that feels right for me. I’m not pushing
one agenda. I’m not a Republican, and I’m not a
Democrat; I am a decline to state. I don’t have a
point of view that I’m trying to push things towards
other than the fact that the city has got some great potential,
and there’s a way to realize it. Things I think are
important are history, aesthetics, and social issues we need to
work on like the homeless…
‘Right now we have a good variety of
people on our council, and I don’t consider them six men,
who think like six men, and then there’s me. All seven
[city council members] have different skills and experiences we
bring to this. I feel like I’ve been welcomed and
respected, and I wouldn’t be mayor if I wasn’t,
because [the other council
members] choose the
mayor.”
AJ: “On that topic, there’s
been some conversation about changing our system to one in
which we would elect a mayor…”
MW: “I don’t think it would
make a difference honestly… It would only make a
difference if the mayoral job description changed and the
elected mayor took the place of the city manager. You
can’t make decisions on your own as the [Ventura] Mayor,
but there’s influence. You have the ability to work with
staff on agendas and council meetings. You do a lot more
speaking and have sort of a pulpit to talk about your issues. I
think that sometimes when people talk about elected mayors,
they think they are going to get someone into city hall, and
that person is going to change everything, be accountable and
be the boss, and they
just aren’t.”
AJ: “One of the most interesting
things I’ve researched is the move by American Mayors to
address national and international issues in Mayor’s
conferences through unified proclamations and treaties. You
talked about making our own city political process friendlier
by inviting participation. Can I get your response to the
concept of bringing international dialogue into a community via
the Mayor’s office? What is your interest, as a
mayor, in embracing these programs?”
MW: “Honestly I’m more
interested in acting locally. I believe that those things are
worth while, and some people have high interest. I’m more
interested in what I can do today, to make a difference today,
right here, rather than spending whole lots of energy on that
stuff…I’m really glad there’s people
different than me, because we need all types to do all types of
things. I believe my job is to help to design neighborhoods
where people aren’t going to need cars. That’s how
I can act locally other than sign papers. I’m a big
believer in action, and I would rather see someone plant a tree
than spend weeks stressing about something that’s going
on in another country. I know we all have our interests,
and maybe it’s because I’m getting older, but I
like to see something happen, not just words. I like to see us
building bicycle paths, so people can ride their bikes, and I
like figuring out ways to do sidewalks, so people can walk. I
like to see us doing adaptive reuse…I believe in this
country, city and state that we could really do more if we
could cut through all of the rhetoric. I tell people,
‘Hang your clothes up out on the line instead of putting
them in the dryer.’ [Laughs] Simple things. I think there
are simple things we can all do, and I would like to do them.
We don’t have to make things quite so complicated. We can
all make a difference in our own way, and we don’t have
to convolute things in our brains. I know we’ve had
requests as city council to weigh in on national and
international issues, and most of the time we decline. We have
jurisdiction over the city, and take that very seriously.
Sometimes we don’t think it’s appropriate to take
stances on things we have nothing to say about…Last year
the Mayor’s Conference had a global warming statement
that they wanted all of the mayors, and thereby all the cities
to sign, and Carl [Former Ventura Mayor Carl Morehouse]
signed.”
The 2007 Mayors Climate Protection Summit
was hosted by the United States Conference of Mayors and the
City of Seattle. A statement from their web site discusses:
“Scientific evidence and consensus” about the
threat posed to the environmental and economic health of local
communities.
In 2005 the Kyoto Protocol, the
international agreement to address climate disruption, became
law for the countries that ratified it. It now covers more than
170 countries globally. As of December 2007, the U.S. and
Kazakhstan were the only signatory nations not to have ratified
the act. In response to the U.S. federal government’s
refusal to participate, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels launched an
initiative to advance the goals of the Kyoto Protocol through
leadership and action by American cities. Area cities whose
mayors signed the treaty include: Ventura, Moorpark, Thousand
Oaks, and Santa Barbara.
Another group, Mayors for Peace, is an
organization based in Japan, headed by the Mayor from Hiroshima
and the Mayor from Nagasaki that advocates for nuclear weapons
disarmament. Locally, Santa Paula’s Mayor participated in
the Prep Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at
the United Nations in New York City in 2004. In 2005,
Santa Paula was the only American city that sent an elected
official to the Nuclear Weapons Free Zones Conference in
Mexico. Hundreds of cities have declared themselves nuclear
free zones. And though they don’t have direct legislative
power to enforce reform in these areas, the mayors’
movement is seen as something that gives voice to the
populations they serve while helping to create political
sensitivity and international consensus.
AJ: “Christy, I agree that there is a
lot of convoluted thinking about national and international
issues, but there is also a lot of informed thinking and debate
vs. rhetoric happening. I think that the lines separating
local and global are being blurred. Through globalization, our
world is getting smaller…Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is a
global issue, for instance, that’s floating right up to
our beaches in Ventura. How is our little town going to
respond to multi-national, multi-billion dollar industries
seeking to establish a network of LNG facilities off our coast
lines supported by multi-million dollar marketing dollars to
woo support?”
MW: “We did vote not to endorse the
LNG proposal, not that we had any say over it, because the
pipes weren’t coming across our city; they were proposed
to come across Oxnard. We voted that we would not endorse one
of the proposals. They keep coming. What I’m going to do
with my two years, which is going to go real fast, is try and
help people understand that everyday actions make a difference
– like shopping locally…I’ve just spent four
years figuring out how to get the Downtown Ventura Organization
up and running so we can help unique businesses survive. We
don’t have to drive everywhere to get our products, and
we don’t have to get them from China or
wherever…You save gas when you don’t drive to
Costco; it makes a difference with smog and with keeping the
money here to make a difference here. It’s simple things
like that. And, the whole historical adaptive reuse thing; I
think we need to push more towards fixing up what we have and
not always move out and do something new. So I guess
people could accuse me of being super-practical, [Laughs] but I
think I am. Super practical.”
AJ: “So we’ve touched on your
strengths and the organic process that landed you in this
chair. What are some of your weaknesses?”
MW: “Just one? [Laughs] You know how
your weaknesses and your strengths are the same thing only a
different side of the coin? Being action oriented, I can be
impatient, wanting to get things done quickly. That can rub
people the wrong way. I can come across as being pushy - pushy
when you’re a woman. And, the inexperience
part…that can be good, because you come in with a fresh
view…But, it’s a disadvantage when you come upon
areas with which you’re a little unfamiliar. After four
years…I kinda know how our local government works.
Micro-managing; there’s a weakness I’m accused of
all the time. I’m trying not
to be, but coming from
publishing I’m curious…I like to fix things.”
AJ: “One of our problems in this town
is drug abuse, especially meth-amphetamines. People are
clustering in the prime areas of our community to peddle and
consume drugs…We’ve actually taken pictures of
people shooting up, or
smoking-out in plain view, in the
middle of the day, on Main Street. What is our city doing about
that? What are our challenges and limitations and goals?”
MW: “I don’t really know
specifically what our police do…The county has way more
money and ability to do special task forces for special
problems, and I know the county has a whole thing going on with
trying to help the children in those situations…Adults
make their own choices, but being a kid person and seeing
children put in harm’s way is totally sad to
me.…Where are they getting it?”
AJ: “Well you can sit in a downtown
parking lot, and sometimes a van drives up, and strung-out,
flipped-out looking people flock to it, and it’s clear,
even as a pedestrian just going out to dinner or something,
what’s happening. We’ve seen a group of 15 people
or so huddled on the ground right in the downtown Ventura
mini-park doing drugs together.”
MW: “Well this is our most recent
unpopular decision - the 911 Fee. The city is going to charge a
fee on everyone’s phone line to cover our 911 services,
and it’s for the purpose of hiring more police and
firefighters, because our police cannot handle that kind of
stuff…I walk along Figeroa Plaza almost everyday to check
out what’s going on, because that issue makes me crazy.
We need the capability in our police department to deal with
that more consistently. They can’t get there a lot
of times, because they’re doing domestic violence on the
east end or whatever, and so it was not fun to tell people
we’re going to put a fee on their phone, but it’s
$1.49 a month; it’s like half a cup of coffee.”
AJ: “Are they adding the forces to
deal specifically with the drug problem?”
MW: “They are going to hire six new
police officers and two new firefighters. The Downtown Ventura
Organization is asking for dedicated officers to be downtown,
which I believe makes such a difference, but the police are
saying, ‘We can’t do that right now, but we can
take three or four of the officers we hire, and there will be a
special force, and we can put them on problems.’
One of the U.S. Conference of Mayors’
resolutions has called for a “New Bottom Line in U.S.
Drug Policy,” emphasizing a need for a public health
approach to this problem. The conference points to the fact
that the “War on Drugs” has failed despite the fact
that the United States has the highest rate of incarceration in
the world. 55% of the current inmate population is being held
on drug related charges.
AJ: “Where do they deploy the
volunteer police force?”
MW: “My husband is in the Volunteer
Police VIP. They are trained not to have dangerous interaction.
Their presence is valuable, but they are not authorized to
become engaged in crimes in progress.”
AJ: “So who do you appeal more to in
order to make a change? The county who you say has more
resources or the city?”
MW: “No, it’s the city. The
county has more money for social services, but it’s a
city police problem. Its crime, and crime belongs to the city
police. First, the fee will help; it’s all about more
personnel to do the job, but it’s also about the
community. For instance we have an anti-panhandling campaign.
These people are getting money to do drugs from panhandling.
They are not using it to buy food; they get food at Catholic
Charities. I give these cards to them that list all the places
they can go to get help. I give the cards to panhandlers and
people who give money to panhandlers and say, ‘Look, your
dollar is not going to help these people. We have social
services, and that’s where they need to
go.’”
The City of Ventura has launched an
anti-panhandling poster and info-business card campaign. The
business cards read – “STOP GIVING TO PANHANDLERS.
DON’T FEEL GUILTY. HANDOUTS ARE NOT HELPING.” The
Image of an open hand is superimposed against a photo of
downtown, with the type on the hand reading – “YES
TO GIVING. NO TO PANHANDLING.”
MW: “The other solution we’re
looking at is security cameras so the police can see the drug
deals happening…On the back, of our panhandling card, it
lists the County’s Homeless One Stop Center, where every
Tuesday from 10am to 1pm, people can go get dental, medical,
housing, food, job referrals and all that stuff. So help is
available; it’s not one solution; we’re trying to
work from all angles.”
AJ: “Who are your heroes?”
MW: “Pearl Chase is my hero. She was
the woman from the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s in Santa
Barbara who helped shape the town in many regards [in terms of]
architecture, public health…She planted the palm trees
along the beach. She was the mother of modern Santa Barbara,
and she was a wonderful person. She did it all and was a role
model for me because of her talent and appreciation for history
and beauty.”
Editor’s Note: A special thanks to
Mayor Weir for her courage and willingness to talk about the
tough questions and challenges facing our community and most
communities in the country. All too often these issues are
glossed over for the sake of marketing or in the pursuit of the
fun part of city government - opening new parks or breaking
ground on new cultural spaces. Ventura is a beautiful place to
live and visit, and we are working together to make it the new
Art City. We need to take that same passion and creativity to
address those who would leave despair in our streets or who
would bring addiction to our citizens.
General Info: The Ventura City Council
meets at 7:00 pm each Monday for the first four Mondays of each
month. Meetings are held in Council Chambers on the
second floor of City Hall, 501 Poli Street. All meetings are
open to the public.
Ventura City Hall: www.ci.ventura.ca.us
U.S. Conference of Mayors:
www.usmayors.org/climateprotection/agreement.htm
www.worldcities.com
www.citymayors.com
