The World According to Larry.

This is my home, and I am doing something about it. I regularly pick up trash when I see it when I am out for walks and on my bike. I care deeply for the preservation of the natural beauty of Ojai.

Just after moving to Ojai in 2017, my wife and I were forced to evacuate our home: to decide what to bring and what to leave behind, and the anxiety of not knowing the condition of our beloved town. This was our first fire and it is indelibly burned into our memory. I will never forget the relief of arriving home, smoke damage and all. Quickly followed by the realization that many came back to ashes.

That’s why I am so deeply concerned about fire resilience, ember screens, infrastructure maintenance, and maintaining the quality of life for those who live within the City of Ojai. I want to make sure that we all have a home to come back to.

Can we replace tourist revenue? Short answer: we can’t, but we can and must supplement it.

Tourism and the taxes it generates support a large share of what the city spends. During COVID-19, hotels and restaurants were hit hard, and the city had to draw down its emergency reserves to keep basic services running. That period was a wake-up call about how closely Ojai’s finances are tied to tourism.

Ojai was built as a destination, and over the years our expenses, staffing and services have grown to match the income visitors provide. At the same time, our ability to grow is limited by our location, available land, roads and state tax law. Most importantly, we have chosen to manage development so Ojai doesn’t become a 24/7 tourist destination. That choice protects our quality of life, but it carries financial consequences.

Tourism will remain our economic foundation. But if we can raise income without adding costs for residents and making Ojai less affordable, we should seriously pursue those options while rigorously reviewing our internal spending.

Government is neither a business nor a charity. Its purpose is not to make a profit, but to serve people responsibly: meeting real needs, helping those who need it most, and making thoughtful choices about limited resources. Every dollar represents someone’s hard-earned money, and we owe it to our residents to make every dollar count.

I don’t support spending on projects that can’t provide metrics of effectiveness, or a city that can’t follow procurement requirements. I don’t support overspending and locking us into commitments that force tax increases or skimming the reserves below 100%. In fact we should increase our reserves.

Our financial commitments seem to be growing faster than our expected income, even if taxes go up. If we keep spending like this, the only other way to pay the bills will be building more hotels, since they generate the most tax revenue. But more hotels just mean more traffic and more congestion. We shouldn’t be spending ourselves into a corner where our only choices are higher taxes or more traffic.

This is not about not spending, cutting spending, or trying to end tourism. It’s about fiscal discipline: using every tool at our disposal to spend effectively and thoughtfully, while keeping a constant eye on the consequences of our decisions. Having to raise taxes, or take from the reserves unless there is a legitimate emergency, must be the last resort.

Bringing in non-hotel, non-retail businesses won’t generate enough tax revenue to replace tourism. It will, however, modestly supplement our income, give residents local job options, and reduce commuting. Many of these businesses will be run by remote workers or local entrepreneurs, unless an outside firm establishes an in-person customer base here.

Retail businesses that primarily serve residents generate less sales tax and struggle with high rents. Supporting them requires a city-led effort, or a Housing and Commercial Land Trust that acquires property to keep rents sustainable. Repositioning the former Chaparral High School site is a strong example of a location where OUSD and the city could partner.

Economic diversity is helpful, but it is not a replacement. Tourism will remain our economic foundation.

I don’t support overregulation and requirements that have increased the cost of housing in California and Ojai significantly.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had more residences for the middle class that are being squeezed at the top, when the only housing being built right now is for lower income? We all have single friends or older couples living alone in big homes who would love to downsize and stay in Ojai. Where can they go that’s smaller, with management and maintenance?

The upside is Ojaians get to stay here, and new families move in.

I would try not to get involved in issues outside of the City of Ojai that we cannot impact at City Council, other than being on a supportive list to satisfy a few while creating division and a distraction within the community.

You have your priorities and I have mine for those within the City limits. We need people on the City Council who are focused 100% on Ojai.

If there are procedures and policies to follow, then you follow them, like procurement. The processes are there for a reason, not as something to work around or ignore.

We have a city manager, lawyers, department heads, and staff that know the processes, and I expect them to ensure that we and they follow them.

Many of the ordinances need to have automatic review dates or a sunset provision built in, rather than having to be voted on to be reviewed. The problems arise when an ordinance never gets a chance to be reviewed, based on a lack of political will rather than commonsense or fairness.

I want a continual review of ordinances to make them less ambiguous for the public. You should not be getting two opinions at the building department for the same ordinance with the same set of facts. That is unacceptable to everyone.

It is almost impossible for our small staff to do what is required of them in a timely and fiscal manner without AI. I would want them to use AI for reviews of ordinances and other documents: the pros and cons, the conflicts, and the errors, with the goal of making them more effective and unambiguous.

It would come with training first. You do not ask people to use a tool like this without teaching them how it works and where it gets things wrong. Nothing would become final without human staff review and approval.

While this isn’t in the scope of the work of city council, this is an issue forefront to our citizens.

The state of California and the City of Ojai have policies and regulations in place regarding immigration enforcement, and I support those laws and requirements. I don’t support any funding cuts from any source that affect the City of Ojai and its residents.