Council doesn't speak for residents

The current story (told, and as yet, untold) concerning the High Street Arts Center reflects a very important cultural problem in Moorpark, but one surely not limited to our city. The problem is that City Council members do not serve as if they were representatives of the electorate. In my assessment this has been the situation over the entire 18 years I have resided here. That is why it may be defined as a cultural condition, not dependent upon the particular council membership.

The council members serve instead as if the they were senators, particularly wise persons in whom the public places blind trust as to their judgment. I do not write to imply anything but an intention by the council members to provide good public service. When they divide on an issue, one can see sincerity on both sides.

However, five particular persons with the bias of being in office and viewing a situation from that perspective do not necessarily represent in their judgment what the public wants. In representative government, often the public does not get what it wants because informed judgment of the representatives decided otherwise.

Before important decisions are made, two steps should be made. Exactly what is being contemplated should be defined. Then the public should be fully informed and its inclination should be ascertained.

I criticize every single one of the contract reports the city has paid for and the Moorpark Acorn has discussed over the past several years. When the council members do not have proper knowledge with which to proceed they hire a contractor. Then they take as they may from the contractor's report, not providing it for the public to expose the report's deficiencies. So not only may the report itself be even severely defective but what the council picks and chooses from it stands as the justification for the action which follows.

This is the direct opposite of representative government. It is equivalent to a corporate board of directors trying to hire the expertise which it does not have without having the expertise to know whom properly to hire. It would cost something, of course, to acquire public assessment instead but then it would be more difficult to ignore the public as opposed to presuming that the public is asleep and uninterested.

The public should wake up and ask questions well in advance of the next municipal election. One person voicing individual views on a general subject at a City Council meeting amounts to nothing but blowing steam.

A year ago I wrote to one council member suggesting the investigation of the possibility of creating a nonprofit foundation to support the arts center. I received no answer and I've seen no evidence that anything was pursued silently. A nonprofit foundation is the basis of the support for performing arts which makes them successful in Thousand Oaks. That city is four times our size. Taking size into account, we are as prosperous. It should be possible to organize support here.

On the other hand, the expectation that the arts center ever will be a break-even operation was not well-founded. A simple look at T.O.'s approach should have made that clear. The current record of deficits has made it clear. Tax money should not support what only a few choose to partake of.

A situation exists which should be been completely aired publicly before the theater building was purchased.

A situation exists which requires a very sound business evaluation and as to that I would urge that the city depend upon a volunteer committee of prominent local businessmen and businesswomen- hard headed business operators. Such an evaluation should by no means be made by some contractor.

"You only get what you pay for" extends only in the positive direction. When you get far less than you pay for, that can happen all too readily. Gilbert Bahn Moorpark