Brooks Institute of Photography: Their film school here in Ventura has quickly become one of the most highly acclaimed in the nation.

Art City: Largest supplier of sculpture stone in the country, and home to numerous outstanding sculptors.

Ventura College: Well-known, high quality arts program, whose “master” instructors such as Ellis Jump, Norm Kirk and Gerd Koch have mentored a generation of fine artists.

Axtell Expressions: Local puppet designer and manufacturer, whose innovative, high-end puppets have received many awards and are used in professional productions worldwide.

Rubicon Theater Company: Quality theater right here in Ventura. With the hiring of a new general manager, and possible purchase of the Laurel Theater, their excellence will continue to grow.

Focus on the Masters: Offering arts education, this is a great resource for children and adults.

Ventura Music Festival: Musicians perform in local historic venues during this annual cultural event which brings the finest talent to Ventura.

Red Brick Gallery: Local art for sale, and the sponsor of many arts-related events, such as Paint Ventura.

I don’t believe the city should control or completely finance artistic entities in our community. An important part of art is the freedom to create without “strings.” However, city government can support the arts and encourage their growth by:

- continuing to give grants,

- providing assistance in finding additional grants and funding,

- working to promote local artists through collaborating on events such as the Art Walk,

- actively seeking to bring arts-related business to town.

The Mission’s stone church was completed in 1809, the hub of a thriving compound with orchards, gardens and a 7-mile aqueduct. The good soil, excellent climate and ingenious irrigation system contributed to abundant crops of apples, pears, peaches, pomegranates, bananas, coconuts, figs, sugar cane and grapes, and passing ships stopped to replenish their food supplies. The largest ranching operation in California, the Mission owned 10,000 head of cattle and harvested 9,000 bushels of grain annually. A sketch dated 1829 shows a busy village, with outbuildings, a small chapel, grazing cattle, Chumash brush dwellings, and Serra’s cross standing on the hill behind the Mission as a marker for travelers.

By 1856, the Mission was surrounded by several hundred pear trees and 70-80 houses, inhabited mainly by the native Chumash and Mexican settlers. Over the next few decades, the small town of San Buenaventura expanded around the Mission property, using the church as its parish sanctuary. By the 1860s, Main Street boasted a boardwalk, four stores and 6-8 rum shops and restaurants. The Spears Saloon (at Palm and Main) was used for town council meetings after the city of San Buenaventura was incorporated March 10, 1866.

The population grew. New residents were attracted by the burgeoning oil and agricultural industries as well as the natural beauty. An editorial in the town newspaper in 1885 stated:

“Ventura has no superior, if an equal, on the Pacific Coast. Aside from possessing a climate the most delightful and healthful, it has a beautiful beach, stretching for miles along the waterfront. There are shady groves, picturesque canyons, wild gorges and limpid streams innumerable.”

By 1900, stately stone bank buildings and red brick storefronts (many still in use today) and Victorian-style hotels lined the several blocks of Main Street east of the Mission. The adobe walls of the Mission Quadrangle still enclosed courtyards, fountains, orchards and gardens. A building boom over the following two decades gave us the nearby 1901 Moorish-influenced Bard Memorial Hospital on Poli Street, the unrivaled 1913 Beaux Arts-style City Hall (no more meetings in the saloon) and the Ventura Theater, a 1928 Spanish Revival movie palace.

Today, looking down from the Grant Park Cross at our lovely, historic town, I’m reminded that San Buenaventura is fortunate to be a city blessed with a picturesque coastal landscape, a rich culture and a downtown that has retained its vibrancy for more than two centuries. Buildings have been constructed, demolished, renovated, reused. Dusty streets were paved, parks created, electric lights and water lines installed, businesses prospered. Over the years, downtown Ventura has evolved into the largest business district in the County (over 600 businesses within fifteen square blocks).

I see the bell tower of the Mission, and am grateful that the original heart of Ventura has remained vital, consistently providing a cultural and spiritual sanctuary for its citizens–

in the dynamic, continually-changing downtown, a lasting sacred space.