Press Release

Ventura, October 3, 2009

Andrews Receives Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association Endorsement

The only Ventura Council candidate on the prestigious Jarvis organization endorsement list

Ventura City Council member Neal Andrews announced today that he had received endorsement by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association in his re-election bid for a third term on the Ventura City Council. In its letter of endorsement, Kris Vosburgh of the Jarvis organization described Councilman Andrews as “an excellent representative for taxpayers” whom the Jarvis organization hoped to work with for years ahead in its efforts to protect taxpayers’ interests.

Andrews is a member of the Ventura County Taxpayers Association, but the County organization does not make endorsements of candidates. Nonetheless, in a recent editorial in the Ventura County Star Don Facciano, Executive Director of the County tax watchdog organization noted that Andrews was one of only two elected officials in local government in Ventura County who had been willing to put his political life on the line to attempt to reform the public employee pension system.

“I’m delighted to receive the Jarvis endorsement,” Andrews said of the honor. “It’s pretty remarkable and, I think, virtually unprecedented for the statewide Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association to reach down into a local non-partisan small town election to anoint an individual candidate for office with its endorsement. It seems like I have been fighting the battles alone to get our Council to make better fiscal decisions and to protect the taxpayers’ interests for a long time now. It’s great to learn after all that a powerful group like the Jarvis organization is paying attention and is willing to step down into the fray at the local level as an ally.”

Andrews was the only Council member to oppose the ill-conceived 911 fee adopted in 2008 by the Ventura Council, and he led the successful effort to repeal it in 2009. He also was the lone vote against the 19.5% increase in police compensation during the last round of negotiations with the police officers union, and he led the unsuccessful opposition to the 50% increase in firefighters pension benefits in their union’s last contract negotiations. It’s been no surprise that neither the police nor the firefighter’s union have endorsed Andrews’ re-election, and last month he was the victim of a push poll “survey” by the police officers union that attempted to smear his reputation and to mislead voters to view his performance on the Council negatively. That attack has been widely regarded as a vicious self-serving assault by the police officers union and was uniformly described in a recent candidates’ forum at the Ventura Townhouse as unethical and improper by every other candidate running in the current election, including the former police chief who, having retired on a $187,000 per year pension in his early fifties, not surprisingly, has been endorsed by the police union.

Some have questioned whether the police officers union in connection with that smear campaign may have violated the California Political Reform Act, although the penalties, if they did violate the law, are uncertain and will no doubt be imposed months, if not years, after the election is over.

While Andrews has often stood alone in opposition to actions of the Council on fiscal and tax matters like the 911 fee and the union contracts, he has a reputation as a very effective Councilman, having proposed more policy initiatives during his term on the Council than any other member of the Council and never having lost a bid to enact one of his measures. He’s been responsible for some of the most innovative ideas the City of Ventura has enacted in recent years, including the implementation of Performance Based Management, the Jobs Investment Fund, the adoption of the Ahwahnee Water Principles, the Employee Housing Assistance Program, and the adoption of the Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness, among many others. As a member of the National Policy Steering Committee on Community & Economic Development, he is the only member of the Council to hold a position on a prestigious national policy advisory body. Mike McGuire, former President of Affinity Bank, described Andrews as “the most creative economic mind we have seen on the Ventura City Council in decades.”

Howard Jarvis was the legendary author of Prop 13 who led the tax revolt that established Constitutional limits in 1978 on the ability of State and local government to increase property taxes in California. That colossal grassroots effort established a benchmark of historic significance for popular concerns with limiting taxation and controlling government excess in this State. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is a statewide organization that works in the spirit of its famous founder to secure tax limitation and implement sound fiscal policy and reform at all levels of government.

Councilman Andrews has also received the endorsement of the Lincoln Club of Ventura County, the Greater Ventura Chamber of Commerce PAC, the Ventura County Coastal Association of Realtors BORPAC, the Ventura County Republican Central Committee, Planned Parenthood, Ventura County Young Republicans, and many other individual community leaders from all areas of Ventura and all aspects of life in our community. He was recently voted one of the three top elected leaders in Ventura County by readers of the VC Reporter in its “Best of Ventura County” program.

Press Release

Ventura, July 21, 2009

Council Unanimously Adopts Council Committee Recommendations

Andrews’ efforts to negotiate City policy changes successful

Last evening the Ventura City Council agreed unanimously to adopt a set of guiding concepts and principles and to undertake a series of proposed specific actions that will go a long way toward facilitating future negotiations with our employees over matters relating to competitive compensation, on the one hand, and in expediting future development projects that have high economic value for Ventura and strong fiscal impacts on city government, on the other. Each concept and proposed action was carefully negotiated during a week of intense discussions by a three person committee appointed by the Council for that purpose.

“We have made very substantial cuts in our budget both this year and last year,” said Neal Andrews, Chair of the City Finance, Budgets and Audits Committee and a member of the Council committee that drafted the proposed actions. “Some of these cuts, I believe, have jeopardized valuable programs. They have certainly prevented the addition of the police and fire personnel that I have long argued are needed to improve public safety in the city. Our employees have cooperated in these budget solutions, both improving productivity and efficiency, and in voluntarily accepting reductions in their own compensation.”

Andrews also noted, “This compromise recommendation did not do everything that I felt needed to be done to convince voters that they should support a sales tax increase this fall, nor did it propose all of the strongest actions that I had advocated, but I believe it shows discerning voters that the Council ‘gets it’ now. The adoption of these recommendations and principles, I think, shows a far greater understanding and appreciation by the members of the Council of some of the major structural problems that have led to our current fiscal problems. The Council’s willingness to embrace them is an expression of their intent to correct these structural problems that make our budget system unsustainable. For this reason, I concurred in the compromises contained in this report and enthusiastically endorsed it.”

“It is especially important,” he added, “in light of the expectation that the State will take millions more from the City of Ventura in the near future. The State will force us yet again to make even deeper and more drastic cuts in our local budget, because Sacramento is unwilling or unable to solve its problems responsibly. It will be essential that we have the tools to work with our employees to make those cuts without devastating losses of jobs and reductions in service to our citizens. And the changes in policy that are designed to expedite revenue generating development projects will speed our ability to come out of this recession faster and to restore vital services and programs that we have or may be forced to cut as we cope with the State’s raids on our funds.”

Press Release

Ventura, June 3, 2008

Ventura Councilman Has Role in National Policy

Council Member Neal Andrews Helps Formulate Economic Stimulus Recommendations

The City of Ventura is fortunate to have one of its own City leaders, Neal Andrews, on the Policy Steering Committee for Community and Economic Development for the National League of Cities. Following a meeting of the Steering Committee in Kansas recently, Andrews reported to his colleagues on the Ventura City Council that he and other municipal government representatives were continuing to press for Congressional action on a package of recommendations they had prepared previously to help people resolve mortgage financing issues and stay in their homes, thus reducing the negative impacts of the mortgage foreclosure crisis on cities. In addition, he noted that the group was working to formulate a strong set of recommendations supporting the re-establishment of a coherent national policy on transportation by investing aggressively in highway, rail and public transit to support stronger national economic growth, while at the same time improving quality of life with reduced congestion, less pollution, improved safety and more energy independence and sustainability.

“We’re looking at a lot of things right now,” Andrews noted in his comments to Council on his return from the meeting in Kansas. “Besides the transportation issues, much of our focus in this set of meetings was on establishing more effective and less costly advanced training programs for technical jobs by coordinating relevant programs among community colleges and trade training programs. These kinds of jobs are the backbone of an advanced economy – an economy based on knowledge and high levels of technical skill. That’s the kind of economy that will remain competitive in a global environment. Often these kinds of training programs are expensive to establish and operate, and the demand for such specialized training may be relatively small in any one community. The only thing that makes sense is to be able to offer such programs to many communities from one source. To do that efficiently and economically means that the schools and programs have to collaborate with one another and that they have to be able to use modern technology to support long-distance education via teleconferencing and the like. That’s what we were exploring. I think it is especially relevant for us here in Ventura. We already have much of the technical capability for videoconferencing and internet telecommunication.”

“I brought back five new ideas from this meeting,” Andrews added. “They weren’t all ideas that we talked about, and only two were ideas that other cities were actually doing, but you get ideas when you talk to creative people. They just crop up like the proverbial light bulb going off in your head. So, I got these ideas that I want to take some time to work out some details on and reason through. If they still seem viable after I’ve done some ‘due diligence’, I will try to formulate them into concrete, practical proposals for the City Council to consider.”

The National Steering Committee on Community and Economic Development is made up of about forty elected officials representing all types and sizes of municipalities across the United States. Each member is chosen because he or she is considered an expert in some aspect of economic development or some area of relevant public policy. Most of the members have been major innovators or initiators of significant economic or community development policies or benchmark programs in their home cities. The Steering Committee is the “think tank” for the National League of Cities on community and economic development issues.

Press Release

Ventura, May 10, 2009

Ventura Councilman Joins Regional Defense Partnership Meeting with Congress

Council Member Neal Andrews Supports Local Naval Base

Ventura City Council Member Neal Andrews once again participated with colleagues from Oxnard, Camarillo, Port Hueneme and the County of Ventura recently in Washington, D.C. in an effort to secure additional funding and bring more business to Naval Base Ventura County (NBVC). The trip was undertaken under the auspices of the Regional Defense Partnership for the 21st Century, a community based organization that supports and advocates on behalf of the naval base. Andrews is a member of the Board of Directors of the organization and serves on its Strategic Planning Committee. He is the City of Ventura liaison to the group and to the naval base.

“A group of us representing the various local governments in western Ventura County go back to Washington each year to try to convince Congress to fund needed projects at the naval base,” Andrews explained. “Over the years we have been pretty successful generally. Our efforts usually have brought between five and ten million dollars per year in new investment in the base. In addition we have encouraged the Department of Defense and the various branches of the military to locate numerous new tenant commands and projects at the base. It’s those new projects and tenants that have helped insulate the base from closure in the last two Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) processes.”

In recent years the group has successfully lobbied to establish the Center for Asymmetric Warfare at NBVC, which is now a permanent part of the Naval Post-Graduate School, and has secured funding to build the new pier at St. Nicholas Island, upgrade the electronic warfare laboratories, and to acquire the fleet of state-or-the-art C-130J Super Hercules aircraft flown by the California Air National Guard from Pt. Mugu, among others. (In recognition of this effort, each of the aircraft in the fleet is named for a city in Ventura County.)

“Few people fully appreciate the importance of the base to our local and regional economy,” Andrews added. “That base represents about 17,000 pretty good jobs and around $2 billion in economic activity in the area. I was impressed recently when I saw a report from just one of the 92 different commands on the base, though one of the bigger ones of course, that showed they charged $3 million on their Visa card in the last year. Most of that was spent locally. That’s big time money in our local economy.”

This year the RDP group met with the heads or senior staff of twelve Department of Defense and Homeland Security offices, as well as the members of the local California Congressional delegation and the staff of the most important Congressional committees relating to defense issues. They participated in a total of 17 different meetings over a period of three days with some of the highest-ranking members of the Department of Defense and the Navy, in addition to the elected representatives on Capitol Hill.

“We left Washington feeling pretty good about the visit,” Andrews commented. “I think we made a significant impact. We left with assurances that our views were being sincerely considered, our points were being incorporated into the analyses relating to the funding and development decisions, and our support of the interests of the defense establishment was appreciated. While we of course were there to advocate for VCNB and Ventura County, not one thing that we suggested was inconsistent in any way with the best interests of the nation and the American defense effort. We never asked for a single dollar that would not be well spent if our recommendations were followed.”

In his early career Andrews was a well-regarded specialist on foreign policy and military affairs and is the author of a book and a number of articles in prominent professional journals in the field. He was formerly a Scholar-Diplomat under the auspices of the U.S. State Department and was a National Defense Fellow in the nineteen-sixties and early seventies. He is better known today for his more recent work in health care and business management and his strong advocacy for sound management and economic development issues in local government. On this visit to Washington, in one meeting with one of the Assistants to the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Andrews was fondly referred to as the “Sledgehammer” when it came to persistent and strong advocacy for the interests of the nation and his community among the Defense establishment. His call sign on U.S. naval vessels was the “Professor.”

Press Release

Ventura, April 5, 2008

Ventura Councilman Speaks on Affordable Employee Housing

Council Member Neal Andrews Addresses Canadian Congress

Ventura City Council Member Neal Andrews described the City employee housing program he authored in the City of Ventura for delegates attending the 40th Annual Canadian Housing and Renewal Association Congress in Vancouver, British Columbia, today. The Canadian Housing and Renewal Association is the largest organization working in the area of housing and urban redevelopment in Canada and includes social services organizations, governmental entities and private development interests and corporations across the nation. Attendees came from throughout Canada and the United Kingdom and included Ministers of Housing and Urban Development from a number of Provinces, municipal officials, Members of Parliament and Provincial Assemblies, and the housing agencies of the Federal Government in Ottawa.

“It was fascinating to sit down with delegates attending from the U.K., New Zealand, Australia, and all over Canada and talk about the problems we are all facing. And they are truly the same problems. Affordable housing, the mortgage crisis and foreclosures, homelessness, quality of life, employee recruitment, rising prices, economic slowdown, disadvantaged and special needs populations. We each seemed to face the same challenges,” Andrews noted on his return.

“It brought home in a way I had not previously as fully appreciated just how thoroughly our economy is globalized. The great thing about it was to see a group of concerned people at very high levels of government and industry collaborating actively with social interest groups to seek out the best solutions and the most practical and pragmatic approaches to the problems. There wasn’t much Polyanna going on, and not a lot of hype. It was roll up your sleeves and tell us how you are doing what you are doing and how it works. Not much tolerance for baloney, so it was my kind of conference.”

“ I think the best part was to hear about some very effective social entrepreneurial programs and some creative public-private collaborative projects. It seemed clear to me that some of the best programs and ideas were coming from the Europeans who have faced housing challenges, social equity problems, and urban land use issues creatively for years, though their tolerance for density is probably higher than most Venturans might have. But in some areas, the problems are far worse than we face here. In Alberta, for example, in the oil patch territory, housing prices were reported to have been rising 40% annually for several years. In many cities rising rents have been accompanied with a doubling and tripling of the homeless population. And, while they all seemed to have the same kinds of problems with finances that we have, it was clear that they tended to place greater priority on social equity than we have and to be more willing to grapple realistically with the homeless issues. Not one person I heard was talking about cutting social support programs. Rather, they were looking to beef them up to meet the emerging problems more effectively and anticipating greater needs. In fact, most of them regarded the social services programs as collateral efforts commensurate with public safety. Moreover, because of the way their governments work, it is easier for them, it seems, to transfer savings achieved in one area, such as jails and health care, as a result of social programs to others, like housing for the homeless, than it is for us, but that may have just been my impression as an outsider seeing the cooperation that was apparent among the levels of government.”

An estimated 2000 delegates attended the Congress from all over the Canadian provinces. Speakers were brought in from throughout the United Kingdom and Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the Pacific Rim nations. Many of the delegates represented First Nations and Aboriginal Peoples.

“It was a good opportunity to showcase our City to people from around the world,” Andrews noted. “And since most of the cost was paid by the Congress, it was an especially good deal. I got to learn a lot about what is being done in other parts of the world largely on their dime. I only hope they feel that what they got from me made it worth it for them as well.”

Council Member Andrews not only authored the Ventura employee housing assistance plan, but he is the author of the City’s jobs investment fund proposal and has been a chief advocate for emphasis on economic development initiatives on the Council. He called for the creation of the City’s Economic Development Committee and was its first Chair and still serves as one of the three Council Members on the committee. He also currently chairs both the Employee Housing Task Force and the Council Homeless Committee, as well as serves as the Council liaison to the Ventura Social Services Task Force and the chief Council spokesperson on homeless and related issues. He was recently appointed to the National Steering Committee for Community and Economic Development of the U.S. National League of Cities, where his work has been focused sharply on housing and economic development issues. In addition, he is the Chair of the John McCain 2008 campaign committee within Ventura County and was the founder of the Ventura Economic Club.