3 Supervisors Take Oath of Office

Winning state approval for a new public university and restoring library services were among the top priorities outlined by newly elected Ventura County Supervisor Kathy Long and returning incumbents John Flynn and Susan Lacey as they were sworn in to office on Tuesday.

More than 300 city and county officials as well as friends and family members crowded into the board hearing room at the county Government Center in Ventura to watch as Long, Flynn and Lacey were given the oath of office by County Clerk Richard Dean.

Afterward, the supervisors’ first official action of the new year was to select Flynn as the new board chairman--a largely ceremonial post--for the next 12 months. The chairman presides over the supervisors’ meetings and serves as the county’s ambassador at official functions. Supervisor Frank Schillo served as the previous chairman.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Long, Flynn and Lacey talked about their goals and plans for the next four years. All agreed to lobby for state approval to convert Camarillo State Hospital into a four-year public university, to push for local welfare reform measures and to reorganize the county’s troubled library system to deliver more and better services.

Long, whose 3rd District includes the agriculturally rich Santa Clara Valley, also promised to work to protect county farmland and its nearly $1-billion-a-year agricultural industry.

“I’ll work to streamline regulations that impact our agricultural industry and help promote their markets overseas, just as we do for other industries in this county,” she said.

Long, a former top aide to retired Supervisor Maggie Kildee, also took a moment to pay tribute to her former boss, whom she described as a mentor and teacher.

“Thank you for your encouragement and belief in me,” said Long, who had worked for Kildee since 1991. “I will strive to serve the citizens of Ventura County with the joy, truth and the love that you served with for 16 years.”

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Kildee, who attended the ceremony with her husband, Bob, said she had no regrets about her decision to step down this year.

“I came here today just to make sure Kathy didn’t change her mind,” Kildee joked. “ ‘Cause I sure don’t want my job back. It just feels like the right time to [retire]. It feels good.”

Meanwhile, Flynn, who is beginning his sixth term, and Lacey, who is starting her fifth, vowed to protect the county’s health care safety net by finding a way to keep open the county hospital and its outlying clinics. If major improvements are not made at the 75-year-old public hospital, officials say, its state license could be revoked.

“The people own the hospital, the clinics, the health care system and the responsibility for providing a safety net,” Flynn said. “We need to make sure that is carried out. There always has to be a safety net.”

For her part, Lacey said she wanted the public to understand that money is getting tighter while the demands for government services keep growing, placing greater demands on an already overburdened county work force.

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She also noted that while the county may be successful in getting more control over its welfare programs, it will ultimately have fewer dollars to help retrain people and get them back to work because of federal cutbacks.

“I look around the room today and I see the important needs we have,” Lacey said. “But we have to have the resources to meet those needs. We cannot and should not sit here and tell people we’re magicians.”