The proposal considered on Tuesday night was intended to be a big stand for a small city. This is a vast strip of vulnerable people from the Trump administration: the LGBTQ+ community, undocumented immigration, women seeking reproductive healthcare.
Instead, the Ventura City Council meeting has been transformed into a five-hour crammed forum for some of the country’s biggest divisions. Over 130 people have signed up to give the council a part of their heart.
Some were choked. Others cried. There were signs of a duel: “Trans rights are human rights.” Graphic photo of a discontinued fetus.
“You’re lucky for those who don’t have to live in fear, but you’re probably also a straight white man. The reality is living in fear. This policy is necessary to alleviate that fear.”
Overflow crowd attends the meeting,
(For the time of Michael Owen Baker)
She added to her jealousy and cheers: “I believe that Jesus Christ will approve this policy.”
Anti-abortion activist Nate Hergus told City Council:
Ultimately, the city council delayed doing anything about what is called the Ventura Care Policy. This is essentially a broad “sanctuary city” ordinance.
Councillor Liz Campos, who introduced community autonomy, rights and equality policies, drew that out of consideration. She will fine-tune the language and bring it back to council next month.
When fellow councillors proposed boiling a broad scale into a statement reaffirming their support for marginalized communities, audience members cried out, “We don’t want your statement, cowards!” And “We will protect ourselves! We will be ashamed of you!”
“In addition to filling the pot holes and making decisions about small projects, I think our residents expect us to protect them,” Campos told fellow council members.
She added:
Ventura City Councilman Liz Campos, left, Deputy Mayor Doug Halter and Mayor Janet Sanchez Palacio will listen to speakers during public comments.
(For the time of Michael Owen Baker)
Care policies require local officials and law enforcement to reject federal immigration enforcement and potential investigations of people who provide or receive gender affirmation or reproductive care.
It sparked concerns from the public and some city council members that President Trump, who vowed to cut off federal funds in the sanctuary city, has taken the pledge to target 110,000 cities.
“I’m not sure we’ll take millions of dollars in the city,” Deputy Mayor Doug Holter said, adding that he understands the need for people who are “attacked” to feel protected.
Mayor Giannet Sanchez Palacios said, “I would rather make people mad at me because I voted rather than satisfy this, rather than satisfying it.”
She said she didn’t want to give people a “sense of false protection, a sense of false hope.”
Campos told the Times before the meeting that the ordinance deliberately wiped out the scope and protects “communities under attack by the president who believes that executive orders can be used to change the constitution.”
Just like the Sanctuary City policies adopted by municipalities across the country, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Ventura Care policy prohibits the use of city funds, resources, and personnel to support “federal immigration enforcement activities, including deportation, detention or investigations,” launched by the U.S. immigration enforcement and other federal governments.
Lori Mills opposes care policy.
(For the time of Michael Owen Baker)
The ordinance prohibits city employees, including law enforcement, from sharing the status of individual immigration — or any other data that can be used to determine that, along with federal agencies “without a legal signature and an approved judicial warrant.”
The Care Policy also prohibits the use of urban resources to investigate those seeking or providing gender-affirming or reproductive care, including abortion services and contraceptives.
The city will not “recognize or enforce any subpoena, warrant or request for information or assistance regarding individuals who have traveled to Ventura for reproductive or gender-affirming medical care,” the proposal states.
Much of the policy is already covered by state law.
Access to abortion and birth control is provided by the California Constitution. State law blocks out-of-state attempts to punish families coming to California for treatment for transgender children and teens. And Sanctuary State Law limits the way law enforcement agencies work with federal immigration authorities.
The Ventura Care Policy is being debated as Trump moves with dizzying speed and numerous executive orders, cracks down on illegal immigration and targets the rights of transgender people.
Participants are holding signs at the meeting.
(For the time of Michael Owen Baker)
Last week he summoned the Alien Enemy Act of 1798 to use wartime power to deport undocumented immigrants in a process that has little or no documented. (The federal judge halted the deportation under the order a few hours later.)
In January, Trump signed an executive order that is now being blocked nationwide, with the aim of ending the birthright citizenship of undocumented immigrant children. Another executive order declares that the federal government only recognizes “two genders, male and female.”
Additional executive orders will bolster Hyde’s amendment, which limits federal funding, including Medicaid compensation, for most abortions.
The first public commenter, Ventura resident Dale Marinus, told the council he opposed the policy and sent copies of it to several federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice.
Jeff Wenling said he is a lifelong Ventura resident who said he was a father of four and a grandfather of nine, and is plagued by some of his care policies dealing with gender-maintaining care.
“We believe that we need to have children become children and that there is no need to talk about sexual nature for young children,” he said.
He added: “Now we’re talking about sex changes when we were teenagers. When I was a teenager, I was a breakdancer, I was a skateboarder, I was all these different things.
Wentling is a trans woman who lived in Ventura for 25 years at Mike, followed by her mother of two, Amber Thompson.
“My gender is not sexual,” she said in response to his comment.
Thompson and Michelle Rosenblum, another transgender woman living in Ventura, told The Times they worked together in the original draft of the care policy they submitted to Campos, which they worked with.
Rosenblum said she is in a hurry to renew her California birth certificate and show that she has transitioned after Trump is re-elected.
Michelle Rosenblum, a transgender woman, will be attending the Ventura City Council meeting. Rosenblum advocated a care policy.
(For the time of Michael Owen Baker)
She then applied to renew her passport, but she hadn’t renewed since she was a child. She applied as a woman, but received a written letter from the US Department of State saying she had to make changes “to amend your information to indicate your biological sex at birth.”
Rosenblum said that working on her care policy made her feel, at least she could do something locally to make a difference.
“Like many of us, I was worried,” she said. “We’ve been introducing fate. Did I now do that? I can post on Bluesky or Instagram, but I wanted to take action.”
Thompson said the care policy was written to cover three communities: LGBTQ+ people, immigrants and women.
Smoking ban protesters scream at members of the Ventura City Council.
(For the time of Michael Owen Baker)
“I’m going to just look at the trans policy and I’m talking about the transgenders themselves and 1% of their allies, so I’m going to be loud and vocal opposition,” she said. “Creating a more comprehensive and larger tent could potentially give us more support to pass policies like this. … All three of these segments need strong protection right now.”
In an Instagram video Wednesday morning, Thompson said he hopes that if care policy is returned to city council next month, it will be “strengthened against stronger, clearer, legally enhanced attacks.”
“We all come into play when this policy comes back, and we hope that Ventura’s leadership will emerge for us not just in the politics of performance, but in real protection,” she said.
“We won’t solve it cheaply and we won’t deserve anything more. See you in six weeks.”
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