Written by Andra Belknap

Here we go again. Ojaians are fighting on Facebook and carrying protest signs to standing-room-only public meetings. It’s a good old-fashioned political uproar, and I cannot look away.

Let’s review: the drama of the moment includes the potential lease and development of the Ojai Unified School District’s (OUSD) property in the center of town: the current district offices, a preschool site, and a recently-declared Ojai historic landmark. The proposed design includes a 200-person hotel (at maximum) in addition to affordable housing, a parking lot, and commercial space. Tourism has become a potent topic over the past decade, as the abundance of visitors has increasingly impacted residents’ lives (and the City budget.) So, the proposed transformation of a former school site into a hotel site has caused…commotion.

The story of our school district is one of declining enrollment. During the school year 2000-2001, 4,084 students attended OUSD schools. Ten years later, enrollment was 2,945, and today, it’s approximately 2,200. In fact, according to a 2021 State of the Region report, nearly every public school district in Ventura County has seen enrollment decline over the past decade. So, why is that important? Public school funding in California primarily comes from the state, and the funding formula is based on enrollment. You can see the issue. 

The declining enrollment in Ojai’s public schools has taken place alongside a visible increase in tourism. I covered numerous tourism flashpoints while working as a reporter for the Ojai Valley News (2016-2018.) There was the issue of the now-shuttered Ojai Visitors Bureau and its international solicitation of tourists. There was a clash over Airbnb and similar vacation rental businesses invading neighborhoods and clogging traffic. In both cases, opposition to tourism won. And now, we have the OUSD proposal.

I’ve covered enough of these debates to be familiar with the traditional arguments and the associated responses. Ojai would not exist if not for tourism: true. Tourism threatens the very small-town nature that attracts tourists: also true. Business owners need to make money, just as school districts need funding: true again.

Last week, the City of Ojai’s Planning Commission considered a “design review” of the proposed redevelopment project. Notably, the city, up to this point, has had little control over the project. The community turned out to the meeting en masse. During the public comment phase, which was in strident opposition to the project, residents cheered each other’s critiques. Planning Commission Chair Steve Qiulici earned a laugh from me when he attempted to quell the applause. “I appreciate the enthusiasm,” he said, entirely in monotone.

The anger of the crowd was about more than the proposed development; it was about tourism. “I feel like I live in a town that I no longer am part of,” one woman said, explaining how the influx of tourism keeps her from visiting downtown. Another woman addressed the developers directly, “We don’t trust you, we don’t want you here, we don’t want anything to do with you, do you understand that?” she seethed. 

Just as we have been unable to escape California real estate and tourism trends, the community has not been exempted from the toxicity of the national political debate. Indeed, the school district building in question was recently defaced with a scrawled red script: “Unmask my kids!!!!” A reference, of course, to the school district’s enforcement of COVID-19 protocols.

I mentioned I’ve worked as a local journalist. I should also say that I’ve worked in national politics: on campaigns, on Capitol Hill, and as a member of the Obama Administration. And national political trends are all I see in the tenor of Ojai’s political debates. Anger and fear are perhaps the most salient pieces of the national political debate. So too in Ojai. And what are we so angry about? Since I have control of the keyboard, I’ll posit an answer: it’s an uproar about commodification. It’s about being on the losing side of capitalism. Ojai investors have profited from tourism mightily; those profits have not reached public institutions. The school district is attempting to leverage profit from the best game in town: tourism.

In my mind, this is a discussion of public vs. private. What of a community is for public benefit, and what is to be monetized? What’s interesting about tourism is that the thing being monetized is us. Ojaians become extras in a scene depicting a quaint California town. The community becomes a beautiful background for an Instagram photo. Our childhood homes become vacation rentals.

I think back to a comment I heard at a City Council meeting during a discussion of the Ojai Visitors Bureau. The speaker, a retired travel writer, said he believed Ojai was in danger of becoming a “Potemkin village.” I laughed darkly to myself, thinking of Ojai as a kind of manicured tourist playland, obscuring the community that lives within. I can see the joke come to life on the weekends, as bachelorette party buses and jeep tours enjoy the community’s facade. 

The other national trend that must be considered in this debate centers around journalism and public participation in government. The local newspaper, The Ojai Valley News (my former employer), is in perpetual financial straits, as are most community newspapers. The county-wide newspaper, The Ventura County Star, is owned by media conglomerate Gannett. The Ojai community has become accustomed to reading news online and receiving it for free. Local Facebook forums have become de facto local news sources, and misinformation (and wildly engaging conflict) proliferates. Notably, the proposal to develop the school district property has been discussed at countless OUSD school board meetings and at least one Ojai City Council meeting over the past few years. And few seemed to notice. This is a terrifically worrying sign because the erosion of local journalism indicates a weakening of democracy. 

What I’m trying to say is that we’ve had this fight before. Mine is not an attempt at providing the solution but an attempt at naming the problem. And the problem is far from unique to our community. Ojai loves to believe itself unparalleled, but here we are caught up in the same trends that contribute to the anger and toxicity of national politics. Each of us is trapped in an exploitative economic system that leaves us without the time or resources to engage in local politics or invest in local journalism. This is a fight over dwindling public resources as wealth continues to rise to the top and gain dividends for private citizens and private corporations. I don’t know how to defeat this system (though I would love to!), but I do know that we need to get beyond the particulars of this fight and recognize the systemic causes. 

And I have one humble suggestion for the passionate attendees of the recent Planning Commission meeting: channel your energy into a school bond campaign. Once the fight over the proposed development is over, OUSD’s financial problems will continue. The only way to save our public institutions is to fund them.