Santa Paula Blog

Street construction of the curb and gutter @ 566 W. Main Street, (the old
Chevron Station at the Vons Shopping Center), will begin on Monday,
October 3rd.

In order to provide a safe work area, traffic control will be set up to
restrict the two eastbound lanes to one lane. The lane restrictions will
begin at Laurie lane. All driveways will be open.

The lane restriction will take place during the normal working hours
between 7 am - 4 pm, and should last for one week.

Letter in today's Santa Paula Times regarding lack of places for kids to play at new Harvard Place apartments. Writer was correct in that there is no play area as part of project, but that was by design. Project will likely not have many families at all. The project consists of 32 one-bedroom and 8 two-bedroom apartments. All will be for individuals whose incomes do not exceed 50 percent of county average. Ten of the units are reserved for developmentally disabled who will be participating in services provided by the County across the street.

The City Council and the Santa Paula Union High School District Board will
have a special joint meeting Tuesday night to discuss the needs for and
specifics of construction of a new high school. Lots of issues here.
First, the High School District has no land for a new school. They have
indicated their desire to go on 40 acres of land that is proposed to be
made available by the Limoneira Company as part of their 500 plus acre
development of land on the east end of Santa Paula. Problem is that the
Community College District, Elementary District, the County and the Library
District have also expressed need for all or part of those 40 acres for
community services too. Second issue is how big should a new high school
be. High School District believes they need full 40 acres, while others in
the community think a new high school can be built on fewer acres and
therefore other options for location of the school become available.

Council and School Board will discuss all of this Tuesday night. City has
hired its own architecture firm to review the initial plans of the High
School District and provide comments at meeting Tuesday.

1. We will be plugging the Redevelopment Agency's new "Dinner and a
Movie" promotion. We are providing movie tickets to the Santa Paula
Wallace Theater's multiplex to Main Street restaurants to encourage Santa
Paulans to have go out for dinner and a movie right here in Santa Paula.

2. CSUCI Small Business Institute Director Rudy Estrada will be here to
report on our first year partnership where CSUCI business students have
been providing business assistance to local Santa Paula businesses and to
talk about some changes to the program for the new school year. Santa
Barbara Bank and Trust will be playing a bigger role in the program.

3. A plug for our Santa Paula Beautiful clean-up day on Saturday October
22, 2005.

4. Final approval of sublease agreement with Santa Paula Museum of Art
for former Union 76 gas station parcel next to Oil Museum. The Museum of
ASrt folks will construct a new building on the site. They will be at the
Council meeting to unveil the design of the new museum. City has leasehold
on property (along with Oil Museum) and is working with Unocal for donation
of land prior to close of their sale to Chevron.

5. Discussion on designs for renovation of Teague Park. Landscape
architecture firm hired by City will share current rendering for renovation
(centerpiece a artificial turf soccer field). Seeking more public input
before design is finalized by end of 2005. Hope to have funding in place
to start construction on renovation by late next year.

6. Land use approvals for new water recycling facility. Council will be
asked to amend the City's General Plan to redesignate a 48 acre site
Institutional and Civic from Mixed Use Commercial/Light Industrial,
Industrial and Open Space. The Council will also have to take action to
move the City's Urban Restriction Boundary (CURB) line to include this
property and request annexation of property into City from LAFCO.

More info from the International City/County Management Conference in Minneapolis.......I attended two interesting sessions today. One dealt with what communities with a large Latino population are doing to reach out to those residents in their cities. One part of that session was a Powerpoint presentation with a summary of a "Municipal Best Practices for the Hispanic Community" survey conducted by the University of North Texas. The survey really shows, I think, how little some communities do to reach out to their Latino population, yet they believe it is a whole lot. I struggle with what we do in Santa Paula, but clearly we are way ahead of the curve nationally. Some communities still approach all this from the "outside looking in" where in Santa Paula we reach out to our Latino community like we try to reach out to all of our residents.

The second session of interest was called "From the Pub to the Coffeehouse: Tapping Into Informal Networks" where people actually talked about doing community outreach activities in coffeehouses (where more and more people in a community gather) and, yes, in pubs. Now the presentation on outreach in pubs was from the Kettering Borough Council in the UK. They use rooms in pubs for community meetings, voting and public debates. Mayor Krause is already on to this with her monthly meetings at the Whistlestop. I can see us soon at the bar at the Mupu Grill now having a meeting on Fagan Canyon or East Area One. Or perhaps at least discussions at Limoneira Coffee Company or Santa Paula Coffee Company. I would love to develop some more ways to have a greater dialogue in these places.

The conference ends tomorrow with a talk from perhaps the most famous Minnesotan since Hubert Humphrey (or Jesse Ventura): humorist Garrison Keillor.

More from Minneapolis....this morning's keynote speaker was Robert Putnam. He wrote a book a few years ago called "Bowling Alone" which described the decline of people's involvement in their community. He also refers to this decline as the "loss of social capital." The findings from the book are interesting and are summarized on its website. Perhaps even more interesting is what to do about it. Alas, as what usually happens at these conferences, he didn't spend much time talking about how to address it. But of course, there is another book,"Better Together" which also has its own website. The website talks about how communities and individuals can increase social capital. All good stuff. Just wish Putnam had more time to discuss solutions at session this morning.

Thursday we will be holding interviews for Chief of Police. This process began a few months ago with the announced retirement of Chief Bob Gonzales. I hired an executive search firm to do the recruiting and they have identified a pool of candidates for the position. There will be three panels that will interview the candidates Thursday: a panel made up of area police chiefs and one Ventura County city manager; a panel of Police Department employees; and a panel of residents. Each panel will interview the candidates and then meet at the end of the day to rank their choices. I will then interview the top candidates and make my selection. Hope to have all this wrapped up in the next two to three weeks with the new Chief starting sometime in November.

I am attending the annual conference of the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) in Minneapolis. I went to a session today presented by a City Manager (Scott Neal of Eden Prairie, MN) who does a Blog which is a little more personal and informative than my blog. So I have been inspired to go a little more in his direction on blogging. We will see what happens.

Santa Paula Fire Department Captain Kevin Fildes with his search dog Taku
has been activated through the State OES system to proceed ASAP to LA Fire
Station 88 in Sherman Oaks for immediate deployment to the gulf coast as
part of a Southern California regional disaster team. FYI.

1. Received revised master plan for Fagan Canyon development from Centex
Homes. Developer has made several changes to the plan including reducing
overall unit count of project from 2,500 to 1,897.

2. Adopted revised Inclusionary Housing Ordinance which set method for
calculating fees for the creation of affordable housing to provide an
option to developers rather than constructing the required housing units.

3. Received update on new traffic enforcement program at Santa Paula
Police Department. Moving violation citations are expected to be double in
2005 than were issued in 2004.

4. Announced receipt of $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of
Justice Federal "Weed and Seed" program to provide enforcement and
education in the City's Las Piedras Park neighborhood.

The Santa Paula City Council has set a joint meeting with the Santa Paula Union High School District Board for Tuesday, October 4 to discuss issues regarding the site for a new high school.

Information on 2005 Ghost Walk can be found here.

Hearings will be joint with the Planning Commission except for final
actions as noted. Meetings will begin at 6:30 PM at the Community Center,
unless noted. I will start process of widely publicizing the schedule.

Monday, October 24
Wednesday, October 26
Tuesday, November 1
Wednesday, November 9

Monday, November 14 - Planning Commission Only Final Action, City Council
Chambers
Monday, November 21 - City Council First Reading, City Council Chambers
Monday, December 5 - City Council Second Reading and Adoption, City Council
Chambers

Meeting will be replayed a second time Sunday afternoon at 1:00 PM on
Channel 10.

The Chevron and Texaco Retirees held their annual fall barbecue
at the Museum today with about 25 in attendance. They toured the new
exhibits and the second story offices. The Western States Petroleum
Associates are the next group holding a BBQ luncheon at the Museum (on
September 23). The Museum appreciates the support of these oil industry
associations.

The Santa Paula Society of the Arts will hold an art
demonstration this Sunday at the Museum from 2 to 4 PM. Artist Chris
Martinez will be demonstrating his technique of drawing caricatures. He has
been active in the arts community of Ventura County for many years.
Everyone is invited to attend.

The Museum participated in Santa Paula's Labor Day Parade on
Saturday, September 3, with the 1922 Union Oil tanker truck. This restored
White Motor Company truck was #742 in the company's tanker truck fleet. It
has hard rubber tires, a hand-crank starter, and a 30-horsepower
four-cylinder engine.

Last week, a Museum & Murals tour group (42) visited from Culver
City. Museum Tour Docents Margaret Ely-Davidson, Jean Harris, and Paul
Smith conducted the tours. This week, a women's tour group is expected from
a Santa Paula church (15).

The attendance during the last week was 97; 89% of the Museum
visitors were from out-of-town and 10% were from outside California.
Out-of-state visitors came from Florida and Texas. The Museum website
averaged 766 hits per day in the last week. --- Mike Nelson, Administrator,
(805) 933-0076, info@oilmuseum.net

Current Exhibits:

§ Flyers & Floods: 75 Years at the Santa Paula Airport ? to Oct 23

§ California Faces and Places Art Show (SP Society of the Arts) ?
to Sep 18

§ Santa Paula Collection: Exceptionally Fine Art (SP Hist Soc) ? to
Oct 2

§ Trace Fossils (Ventura Gem & Mineral Society) ? to Nov 30

Permanent Exhibits:

§ California & The Age of Petroleum

§ The 1900 Cable-Tool Drilling Rig

§ The Lundgren & Bennett Gas Pump Collections

§ Great California Gas Brands

§ The 1890s Offices & The 1930s Apartment

Upcoming Exhibits:

§ 8th Annual Heritage Valley Quilt Show ? October 9

§ Toys We Love (SP Historical Society) ? October 23

§ Destination Mars (Space Science Institute) ? November 6

§ History in Mind: 7th Edition (SP High School) ? December 4

Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

The just released audit can be found in PDF format here.

The Skate Park and LP Park both received extensive vandalism last night.
The Skate Park bowl was covered in graffiti and there was signficant damage
to the new restrooms at Las Piedras Park. Staff is working on repairs at
both locations. I have directed staff to close skate park until Monday to
help facilitate clean up and for the rules violation. FYI.

1. Consideration of petition to LAFCO to incorporate several "island"
properties into the City.

2. Presentation of management audit of the City's Public Works
Department. This is the second large audit done of a City department by an
outside consultant following audit of Police Department last year.

3. Discussion of next steps necessary for development of water softening
facilities in Santa Paula. This project would ultimately lead to
construction of facilities that would soften water in town rather than have
residents do it at home with private water softeners. This is necessary to
meet requirements of Regional Water Quality Control Board with construction
of new sewer plant.

4. Consideration of amendment to Santa Paula-Ventura greenbelt.

5. Update on master planning of City's East Area One general plan
expansion area.