LOCAL ELECTIONS : Ventura City Council Race Takes a Nasty Turn as Voting Draws Nearer

Local politicians and candidates say this year’s Ventura City Council race has turned strikingly nasty, with some political efforts designed to only criticize specific candidates rather than promote others.

As the Tuesday election draws nearer, local newspapers and radio stations are airing ads that attack candidates. One set of ads features derogatory cartoons characterizing three candidates as smelly fish. Another cites a councilman’s arrest record. A third criticizes incumbents’ voting records.

“I think it’s getting pretty far out of line as far as mudslinging,” former Mayor John McWherter said. “It’s pretty degrading.”

Former Mayor Richard Francis, agrees, though he has decided to engage in some negative campaigning of his own, targeting an old City Council opponent, James Monahan.

“It’s gotten awful bare-knuckled,” said Francis, who is heading a committee called “Anybody But Monahan.” “Frankly I don’t enjoy it. All of us thinking people decry negative advertising, but when you look at the results, it works. Sad, but true.”

Francis frequently quarreled with Monahan when they served on the council from 1987 through 1991. The committee, which is also chaired by former Councilman Don Villenueve, has purchased local newspaper ads exhorting residents to vote for any candidate but Monahan.

One ad quotes some of Monahan’s comments on the council. Another ad prints local newspaper reports of Monahan’s arrest record. Monahan said the charges were nonsense and that every allegation except for a drunk-driving conviction was dismissed in court.

Candidates said they believe the mudslinging may backfire and instead turn off voters.

“That wacko attorney (Francis) is probably getting me more votes,” Monahan said.

None of the 14 candidates are actually responsible for the negative ads, which are being placed by political allies and supporters.

Incumbent council members Gary Tuttle and Todd Collart, and candidate Steve Bennett have been the most frequent targets of negative campaigning in the past two months.

A coalition of business interests called Venturans for Responsible Government has launched a campaign against the trio. Using advertisements and letters to absentee voters, the group has criticized Collart and Tuttle’s voting records on the council. The letters and ads concentrate on fee increases and studies approved by the council in recent years.

Bennett has come under fire because he is closely associated with the pair and has a similar political philosophy, said Carolyn Leavens, a rancher who heads the group.

“It’s not a hit piece, doggone it,” Leavens said. “All we’re doing is trying to deliver a report card on the last four years. We are avoiding any kind of personal attack.”

But Collart and Tuttle both assert that many of the issues stirred up by Leavens are non-controversial and were supported by the entire council--which includes three council members that Leavens’ group helped elect in 1991.

“All those votes were 7 to 0,” Tuttle said. “She’s playing word games.”

Local businessman Ray Ellison, who owns M & M Management Co., has also purchased a series of ads denouncing the trio. The “fish ad,” as it is being called, caricatures the three candidates as fish, and says they “stink from the head.”

Rosa Lee Measures, who has not been a target of any negative campaigning, called a press conference Friday to announce that she is not associated with Ellison, who also purchased newspaper ads supporting Measures.

Ellison said Measures asked him to pull upcoming ads, and that he was not able to do so because local newspaper executives told him it was too late. Ellison, who is a longtime political ally of Monahan, is supporting Measures, Monahan and candidate Clark Owens.

Ellison denies he is engaging in any negative campaigning.

“My position is that if the public is informed, they can vote wisely,” Ellison said. “In order to inform them, sometimes you have to go about it in strange ways.”

Tuttle, who is running for a second term, said negative ads typically pop up toward the end of a political race because it does not give candidates time to respond to charges. Candidates usually have spent most of their campaign funds so they do not have the opportunity to place counter ads, he said.

Measures, who is seeking office for the first time, said negative campaigning will have a detrimental effect on future city races.

“If people see what they have to go through, we’re going to have difficulty encouraging qualified candidates to run in the future,” she said.