Ventura County District 3 supervisor race kicks off with first debate
Santa Paula, Fillmore and Ventura County’s oil industry took the center of the virtual stage Monday night at the first debate among the three candidates for the Ventura County District 3 supervisor.
The candidate forum was held over Zoom and was co-hosted by the League of Women Voters and the Santa Paula Chamber of Commerce, with some of the questions focused on Santa Paula and Fillmore. District 3 includes those cities as well as most of Camarillo and the eastern and northern parts of Oxnard.
The supervisor for the district since 2016 has been Kelly Long. She is running for her third term, and under the county’s term limits ordinance, it would also be her final one. Her opponents are Kim Marra Stephenson, a teacher in Oxnard and former high school principal in Camarillo who ran against Long in 2020, and Heather Schmidt, a public policy consultant who ran for Camarillo City Council in 2020 and now lives in Oxnard.
The primary election is March 5. If any candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, she will win outright; if not, the top two finishers will face off in the November general election.
During Monday’s debate, both Stephenson and Schmidt criticized Long for her stance on oil drilling in the county. Last year, Long was one of three supervisors who voted to allow the re-drilling of two old oil wells in the Lemonwood neighborhood of Oxnard, which is in the 3rd District. Oil companies also spent big on an independent campaign to support Long and other candidates in the 2020 election and have donated to Long’s campaign again this year.
“We need to hold our industries accountable for their practices,” Stephenson said. “We have to make sure that we’re meeting environmental standards, and we’re not automatically approving or grandfathering in antiquated permits.”
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Schmidt also said the county should have “more stringent requirements” on oil and gas companies and should “at the very least, require them to clean up after themselves.”
In her response, Long pointed out that oil and gas production has been declining in Ventura County for decades, so there is no oil boom happening here, and there has been no evidence of contamination of ground water by drilling operations.
All three candidates agreed that climate change is serious problem. The two challengers said the county isn’t doing enough to address, while Long said she’s proud of the county’s emission reduction strategy and the way its new general plan addresses climate change.
“I’ve dealt with the Thomas Fire, and two more fires in 2018 and 2019, storms with declarations of emergency,” Long said. “There is definitely something that needs to change with our weather and how it affects our community.”
When asked about homelessness, all three candidates said it is one of the biggest problems facing the county. Schmidt pointed to the issue as one that would benefit from improved service delivery by county government.
“There are people in crisis who are qualified for public services, but they didn’t get them in time,” she said.
Schmidt and Stephenson both said they support Proposition 1, a measure on the March ballot that would raise $6.4 billion in bond funding for mental health treatment, housing and other programs to reduce homelessness. And Long said she and her fellow supervisors have discussed plans for proposition funding with Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, D-Thousand Oaks, one of the authors of the legislation.
All three candidates also said they strongly support two major government projects that have been proposed for the Santa Paula area: a new public hospital to replace the existing Santa Paula Hospital, and a new Ventura County Community College satellite campus.
The three candidates have agreed to another debate Feb. 13. Like Monday night’s forum, it will be moderated by David Maron of the League of Women Voters. Unlike the first event, it will be held in person at the Oxnard Union High School District headquarters, at 1800 Solar Drive in Oxnard. It begins at 7 p.m., and is open to the public with no registration required.
Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tbiasotti@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation's Fund to Support Local Journalism.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: District 3 supervisor race kicks off with first debate
