SEIU Local 721
2009 City of Ventura Candidate Questionnaire
INTRODUCTION
Thank you for taking time to fill out this questionnaire. In order to better inform our
membership about where the candidates we support stand on the issues, SEIU Local 721
requires all candidates seeking our endorsement to complete this questionnaire.
SEIU Local 721 region-wide has more than 85,000 members. We are the largest union in
local government. Unions like SEIU are the economic backbone of California’s middle
class. Our mission is to empower workers to provide economic security and economic
opportunity for themselves and their families. SEIU fights for jobs with decent wages,
health care, pensions and good working conditions, with opportunity for advancement. We
also work with the consumers of the services our members provide to enhance economic
opportunity and the quality of life in our state by advocating for and improving the services
our members provide.
CAMPAIGN PROFILE
*Please provide pictures of the candidate for our use. By giving us the photos, you authorize
us to use them. Also, attach your biography, a list of current endorsements and any
campaign literature you have printed as of yet.
Candidate Name: Camille Harris Campaign Address:
Campaign Phone:
Fax:
Email:
FPPC #:___________________Party Affiliation: (DTS) Independent
Occupation: Retired CEO
Employer:
Proposed Ballot Designation: Retired CEO
Elected offices currently/ previously held:
Other campaigns for elected office:
Appointed offices currently/ previously held:
Campaign Consultant:
Media Consultant*:
Mail Consultant*:
Fundraising Consultant*:
Field Consultant*:
NAME
PHONE / FAX
Diane Underhill (with tips from Marc O’Hara) 805 643-1065
Tom Stanley
805 648-6077
Dianne Moon
805 653-1877
(Democratic Club of Ventura has offered help in precinct
walking and phone banking.)
Pollster:
Campaign Manager:
Kelley Miller
805 650-1887
Anticipated Budget: $15,000 to 25,000
Funds Raised to Date: $
Still coming in
(please attach campaign
finance report) Not yet due
Current/Prior union membership:
Other organizations you belong to: National Women’s Political Caucus, Ventura Citizens for
Hillside Preservation, Ventura Hillsides Conservancy, Ventura Citizens for Responsible
Development, PEPP, active in recent Chamber of Commerce/ City Economic Summit,
SEIU Local 721
2009 CANDIDATE QUESTIONNAIRE
1. Why are you seeking the endorsement of SEIU Local 721? List your qualifications and
reasons for seeking this endorsement.
I started a business in my garage and built it up until I was CEO of a multi-million dollar
company. I am retired now and anxious to put my skills to work to help my community.
Many of my friends and neighbors work at the city and their welfare is important to our
community.
2. What is your attitude toward unions? What experience have you had with unions?
I appreciate that unions work for fair wages and better living conditions for workers. I
want people who work in Ventura to have a live-able wage and decent benefits. (One of
the reasons that I am supporting Measure C is that I do not like Wal-Mart’s anti-union,
anti-worker-organizing stances. The low wages and refusal to treat their workers fairly,
has made me a firm opponent of Wal-Mart and its practices. (Imagine asking your
employees to work overtime and then not compensating them for that work!) I am a big
supporter of the underdog and find that it is often the workers that are unfairly treated
by big multi-national corporations and it takes good union-organizing to level the
playing field.)
I understand that I am surrounded by union members in my everyday life everywhere I
go: teachers, librarians, food workers, grocery store clerks, city staff, city administrators,
construction workers, maintenance workers, farm workers, police and firefighters… (My
campaign manager is an administrator in our penitentiary system.) I understand that
these are the people that make up my community—these are my friends and neighbors.
My experience with our local SEIU city employees has been very positive. I have vocally
defended city jobs when cutbacks were threatened during these difficult economic times.
The rank and file workers are the ones who do the real work of the city. They keep
things running smoothly and have a deep understanding and great institutional
knowledge regarding the city.
3. Wright Library serves 2/3rds of Ventura’s population and is in danger of shutting
down because of budget shortfalls. Is closing the busiest library in town appropriate
when there may be other solutions to the budget deficit?
No. Saving Wright Library is one of the reasons why I am supporting Measure A.
Wright Library serves so many functions in our community. Of course, when schools
are being forced to cutback their own library budgets it makes Wright Library’s services
that much more important for our children and for other educational purposes. Also
Wright Library serves as an after-school safe-haven for many of our community’s latchkey children.
4. City employees this year took a 6% cut to their salaries and had to implement
furloughs to help the city meet its budget needs. What will you do to help make
those city employees whole again?
I would want to ensure that when the economy rebounds that these city employees (who
worked with the City during fiscally-challenged times) are the first to have these
concessions re-examined and returned. I understand that these employees have worked
hard for these past salary gains. The fact that they came to the bargaining table in good
faith to collaborate and help find answers to reduce further worker layoffs and other city
cuts when the city was in such dire financial straits makes me want to make sure that
they are at the head of the line to be made whole from these a salary cuts and work
furlough requirements.
5. There's a lot of talk about pension reform in the public retirement system. Do you
support it and what does that process mean to you?
I do think that some of the upper echelon department heads knew how to work the system
to be able to retire at some pretty high pay scales. However, I also know that there are
people who would use these few particular instances of particularly high retirement pay to
try to “reform” all public retirement pensions. I know that these few instances of high
retirement pay are not indicative of what the rank and file employees are experiencing. I
would want to ensure that the public was well aware that “facts” can be presented in a
way that does not honestly represent a whole.
6. What is your opinion on in-sourcing of work?
I have long voiced opinions against hiring expensive out-of-town consultants to do
work that would be much better done by knowledgeable city employees. I would much
prefer city work to be performed by people who know and have a stake in the
community.
I also would prefer that we promote from within City departments rather than go out
on the nation-wide head-hunting searches that not only places Ventura in the position
to pay unreasonably high starting salaries, but also places current experienced city
employees in the position to have to teach their new-comer “superior” information
about Ventura that would be readily apparent to any longtime city employee.
(Promoting from within City ranks would also reduce the necessity to have the City
help fund homes for these new-to-the-area employees recruited from out state.)
7. In election races, candidates and office holders always say they value public
Employees. What will you do to show the employees you do value them? What will you
do to demonstrate that to the public?
As mentioned above, I would ensure that when the economy rebounds that pay cuts and
work furloughs (instituted so that the City could weather the current economic storm)
are re-examined.
I have demonstrated my support for City employees whenever they needed me and I will
continue to do so. Over the last few years I have had the occasion to work closely with
employees in many different City departments and have come to consider many friends.
I do value the professional manner, expertise, and experience that Ventura city
employees possess and their ability to share their knowledge with the public to help
clarify both problems and solutions.
8. If elected, what relationship do you expect to have with SEIU? Would
you consider including SEIU and its members in future planning? Would you
consider appointing qualified SEIU members to appointed Boards or other
positions in your office or in City governance?
Absolutely, I am basically a populist and I believe that power must be shared
with the people. As this questionnaire points out in its introduction: unions
like SEIU are the economic backbone of California’s middle class. Of course
SEIU members should have a seat at the table in future city planning and
discussions on city governance and direction—they are absolutely
stakeholders in this city.
9.
Describe your priorities if elected or re-elected?
I would make sure citizen and city employee concerns were discussed and addressed
at the Council level, rather than leaving the City Manager to dictate city direction.
I would continue to work for a solution to the problems that surfaced when the City changed a
historic policy of “complaint-based” code enforcement to a policy of “proactive” code
enforcement.
Current administration did not understand a majority of Ventura’s properties could be cited
for some kind of “un-documented” improvement and that some upstanding citizens would be
“criminalized” as having “substandard” properties, even though their properties were safe.
Current codes allow properties to be foreclosed upon if the owner cannot pay penalties, fees
and fines (many of which were recently doubled). This situation breeds fear, quells dissent,
and dampens civic engagement.
Code enforcement employees, directed to become self-financed, had little choice but to focus
on revenue-generation. (I know of at least one person who left city employ rather than be
forced to implement the aggressive proactive code enforcement practices that allowed
subjectivity and raised legal questions.) It is patently unfair to require public-safety officers to
be self-financed. They deserve more respect.
City leaders admit many building records are incomplete, lost or destroyed; nevertheless code
enforcement policy is forcing citizens to prove their innocence. (Civil rights violation?) Older
homes have had many owners. Buyers often do not request documentation for improvements.
Until the change to proactive code enforcement “Silent Grandfathering” was the pattern and
practice of the city. Punishing citizens retroactively (often for improvements that existed when
they purchased the property) has resulted in general turmoil and created potential lawsuits
against the City. (Fighting lawsuits is certainly not a good way to spend taxpayer money when
we are asking City employees to take salary cuts and work furloughs.) We need a process to
work with citizens—not against them.
We must find a less punitive grandfathering solution that includes a process to get “nonconforming” units documented in order to retain this valuable affordable housing and to
retain our valuable city employees by ensuring that they have good working conditions and
are not made to enforce bad public policy.
10. Do you support Measure A, the City’s Tax initiative a sales tax increase to protect
government services and jobs against further cutbacks and some restoration?
I mentioned that one of the reasons that I support Measure A was to ensure funding
for Wright Library, the other reasons are to protect city worker jobs from further
cutbacks during this economic downturn and to maintain city infrastructure. I
strongly feel that if we allow too much City maintenance to be deferred it could end
up costing us many million dollars more to repair greatly deteriorated infrastructure
than it would to have simply kept it up with repair and maintenance.
What impact do you see its passage having on the city workers?"
I think Measure A’s passage will help City workers avoid further cuts to work
schedules and pay rates.
11. If further salary cuts were necessary in a worsening economy, do you support a
furlough option?
In a worsening economy we may be forced to resort to a furlough option. I would
certainly be willing to listen to all available options so that we might weather this
economic crisis without losing valuable city employees.
I would also support looking at top-management salaries. I think our city government
could be top-heavy as far as pay rates and that department heads might be able to endure
cuts that would not necessarily affect their “quality of life” --whereas rank and file
employees might be just scraping by.
12. Are there any other comments you would like to make to explain why SEIU
should endorse you for office over your competition?
Our very quality of life is now at risk, and it will take leadership and creativity to save it.
Venturans are ready for a proven leader with fresh ideas and common sense. Continuing
the status quo has not worked for our citizens or our city workers.
I have been active in many City issues--most recently, on this Nov. 3 ballot, I am the
proponent for the Measure B Citizen Initiative (10,972 signatures) which will give the
community a voice on preserving their views from being destroyed by incompatible
development. Community concerns were not being heard.
Additionally, I spearheaded “Grandfather Ventura” when Code Enforcement was basically
forced into the position to be self-financed. Inspectors were directed to aggressively and
proactively search out code violations --many of which turned out not to be safety-related,
but recording-related. Many City Code Enforcement workers were unhappy with the
proactive code enforcement policies. They saw that citizens could potentially lose their
homes if they cannot prove older improvements were permitted and/or cannot afford the
levied fees, fines and penalties. It is common knowledge that city’s records are spotty at
best. Many inspectors were not pleased to be forced into the proactive code enforcement
role and were happy when the City Council temporary rescinded the policy. (I am currently
working with community leaders and the City for a reasonable, common sense solution.)
I support Measure C not only because it is targeted to limit a Wal-Mart type superstore
from going into an inappropriate site on Victoria Avenue where the additional traffic load
would be detrimental but also because a Wal-Mart Super store in Ventura would adversely
impact our other grocery stores that are unionized and are paying their employees a liveable wage. (I want people treated fairly and I want the clerk that rings up my groceries to
be able to afford to live decently in Ventura. I do not want Wal-mart moving into the City
and instigating a competitive “race to the bottom” as far as worker pay, worker treatment
and worker benefits.)
I also oppose Wal-Mart because of their historic pattern of using predatory-pricing policies
in an attempt to drive other competitors from the market--only then to raise its own
prices. Adding a Wal-Mart type superstore to Ventura will not bring more sales tax dollars
to Ventura City coffers but will only cannibalize sales tax that is now collected at other
existing Ventura businesses---including large existing businesses like Sears, Lowe's,
Penny's, Target, and smaller mom and pop retail businesses that currently exist in
Ventura. As smaller businesses that cannot compete fold their tents, local jobs will be
lost. (Smaller businesses are also the backbone of America. Statistically, smaller
businesses employ over half of the American workforce. We need to protect our city's
smaller businesses because they re-circulate money directly into our local economy.
Collectively these small businesses are a quiet, constant economic-engine for our city—
which is good for the City and good for city workers. These small businesses bank locally
and use local suppliers, keeping money available for active use in our own community.
Wal-Mart Superstores send profits back to Arkansas.)
When elected to City Council, I will take the lead in implementing actions to correct
problems voiced by Venturans-- including all of my union neighbors. We must re-align the
spending choices of City Hall to reflect Ventura’s core values --which in my mind include
protecting our knowledgeable city workers. Above all, we must respect our citizens’ wishes
to be included in the process of self-government.
13. List all other endorsements you have received:
Democratic Club of Ventura (DCV)
National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC)
Ventura Citizens for Hillside Preservation (VCHP)
Ventura Citizens for Responsible Development (VCORD)