IN MEMORY OF MIKE MORGAN
History Lesson #20
Charlotte Craven, Mayor Emeritus of Camarillo
On this night when a new Mayor is selected, the night when new Council- members would be sworn in, it is appropriate to say goodbye to the man who served as Councilmember longer than any other.
Mike Morgan and I served on the City Council together for 32 years, more than half the time the city has been incorporated. He was first elected 6 years before me and left the Council 4 years before I did. Although he served longer than I did, I liked to remind Mike that my term was continuous, while he had a 6-month break. His first term was extended by 6 months in 1982 when the Council moved elections from April to November, but after an unsuccessful run for the Board of Supervisors in 1996, he switched to a different voting cycle when he won an election to fill the seat of Ken Gose, the only Councilmember to die in office.
Michael Dean Morgan was born in Vernon, Texas in 1947. His stepfather was in the Navy so the family moved to the San Francisco Bay area and Port Hueneme.
When his stepdad retired, they bought a house in Camarillo. Mike was happy to have a permanent home; he loved this place and graduated from Camarillo high school amid talk of city incorporation. He was proud to carry a “Charter Citizen” card, devised by the Camarillo Daily News. Camarillo was always first and foremost in Mike’s heart. After graduating from Long Beach State, he returned here and worked, first, as a Ventura County Probation Officer and, later, as a Federal Pre-Trial Detention Officer, based in Los Angeles.
Mike ran for Council unsuccessfully in 1978, but in 1980 his $5000 campaign trounced the $20,000 campaign of his competitor. Skip Sorich and I ran that campaign; Mike’s brother Kevin installed signs; and Mike knocked on doors every day on the way home from work. One Friday night a month he’d go to Leisure Village and dance with the ladies. In his first term, Mike and Councilmember Tom Martin spearheaded the Growth Control Initiative, which won by a landslide. During that term he and Rick Smith formed the Camarillo Arts Council; in order to have a place for Concerts in the Park, Mike, single- handedly, solicited the materials and money to build the Performing Arts Pavillion in an empty lot adjacent to City Hall, now known as Constitution Park. At the same time, he had a hand in starting the Camarillo Academic Olympics and was on the Board of the newly-reorganized Camarillo Fiesta Association. He was the Energizer Bunny!
Now I’m not here to tell you that Mike and I always got along; when I first ran for City Council, Mike wrote a letter to the paper, telling people to vote for anybody except Charlotte Craven, yet he was the first to call and congratulate when I won.
That sums up our relationship: at times we agreed; other times we didn’t, but we shared a love for Camarillo. Gail Doi, a former Assistant to the City Manager, compared Mike and me as big sister, little brother when our ideas of what was best for Camarillo differed. I came on the scene just before the City’s financial crisis came to light. After that Mike was a staunch supporter of tight financial policies and procedures.
Mayor Kildee called Mike “bigger than life”. I called him the ultimate idea man and promoter. He was always out there talking; wherever there were people, Mike was there, finding out what they thought of a project and chatting up his latest idea. He had his thumb on the pulse of the community. When his idea of what was right for Camarillo conflicted with the chatter, he was bothered and had to talk it out. He’d often knock on my door and didn’t mind standing in the kitchen while I cooked or in the garage while I did the laundry; he had to talk it through. Sometimes, as he was about to leave, he’d turn around and say, “Oh by the way, what do you think of this?” THAT was the real reason for his visit that day. He was good at softening people up and then going for an answer he thought he might not get earlier.
Whenever a new project was introduced, Mike had ideas. Take Old Town. His work took him through the Tri-Counties, as well as LA and Orange Counties; he knew what other re-development looked like and snatched ideas for here. He liked Ojai’s free trolley, touting one in Camarillo for years before the Council took to the idea. Multi-colored sidewalks? Mike’s suggestion. If a fountain shows up in the entry to the new convention center, that was Mike’s idea. He also loved the idea of murals, especially historic murals, in Old Town. Some of Mike’s ideas flew and some didn’t, but he never held a grudge; after a vote was taken and he lost, he was ready to move on.
His ideas weren’t just about Old Town. When developments were proposed near the freeway, Mike piped up that we needed hills to divert freeway noise upward, above the houses. For years he promoted a desalter for a better water supply for city water customers and for tertiary treatment at our sanitary plant; some of his ideas were ahead of their time and others were so massive they took years to plan and finance. When we planned the library, Mike had 10 ideas for every one introduced by the designer. Mike was passionate about our library, wanting it to set the benchmark for new libraries everywhere, and I think it does.
Mike’s skill as a talker was equaled by his skill as a listener; he had an uncanny way of sniffing things out when he suspected something was askew. One time during Public Comments a local hotel owner complained about the Director of Finance’s letter, threatening a fine if he didn’t pay his hotel tax, claiming it was double taxation. The guy went on and on, and I got notes to shut him off, but Mike was sitting forward, devouring every word. I let them go, and before long Mike had the guy saying that he lied on his Federal or State tax returns. Another speaker complained that the Business Code Officer harassed him. Again, Mike sat up and took notice, getting that guy to confess that he had entered a home on Regent Street through the back door, illegally, because the woman had not bought his cleaning product.
He helped form our Sister City Association with Autlan, Mexico. He became Chairman of the Christmas Parade when he disagreed with the previous Chair.
He took over Camarillo Fiesta when the Board did not want to expand it; he and Donna ran it for more years than either would have liked. After retirement from the Federal Government he joined the Pleasant Valley Lions Club, the City’s DART Team and the Sunrise Rotary Club. The Celtic Festival was another idea; it only lasted a few years.
Then there was the University. One committee had gotten the state to buy 250 acres of lemon trees adjacent to the Youth Authority prison on Bradley Road, but nothing was happening. When the papers screamed that Governor Wilson did not include Camarillo State Hospital in his January budget, both Mike and Jane Rozanski called me; we joined forces with others and sprang into action to have the State Hospital converted into a State University. We printed flyers and neon yellow postcards to be sent to the Governor; every Saturday morning we’d meet for walking routes, and then spread out to convince residents to send the postcards. Mike and his children and my family were always there; others came as time allowed. We were not popular with State Hospital employees; both Mike and I received multiple threats to our lives and our families’ lives. Undeterred, we plastered the city and, when enough postcards piled up in the Governor’s office, he came down for a tour. The papers quoted, “This will be the jewel in the crown of the State University System.” Mike called bright and early, “We’ve got him! All we have to do is convince the Legislature to keep it in the budget.” One of Wilson’s aides later told me they piled our cards on a table, and when the table was full, they knew they had the support of local residents. The rest is history:
California State University Channel Islands started a few months later with Handel Evans its first President and the original committee the University Foundation.
A complex guy, Mike had no problem vigorously supporting Camarillo’s Growth Control Ordinance, but at the same time being the front man in Sparks, Nevada, for his best friend’s development company, asking that City Council to approve a very large development with a shopping center and lake. I asked him about that once; he explained that, while slow growth was best for Camarillo, growth was much needed in Sparks. Mike liked meetings, but was not compelled by time, often showing up late because he’d stopped to help somebody. He and Mary Gail were late to so many Council meetings during his first term that they moved CamSan meetings from being last, up to first in order; Councilmembers are paid for attendance at CamSan meetings; neither was late again.
He was also forgetful, carrying his calendar, stuffed with reminders, wherever he went. Once he left it on a chair on the way home from Texas. About two weeks later a big box arrived at City Hall during a City Council meeting. We were wary of a bomb and had the Police Chief open it, finding Mike’s calendar inside. Another time he left his camera on a table in the Sacramento Airport. It, too, showed up at City Hall a couple of weeks later.
I’ve tried to keep this factual, with things related to the city, but I have to comment and I’m sure Mike would agree 100%. Mike took a long-term view of things; he brought some ideas up again and again. It took decades for the library and desalter ideas to cook, for the city to get the necessary money, and to convince others they were needed. Term limits prevents that, and in the future Camarillo might very well suffer because there will be no Councilmember in office long enough to champion an idea through to reality.
Former City Manager Bill Little used to say that Mike had an angel hovering overhead, following him around to protect him all the time. That angel must have been on 10 o’clock break that fateful day Mike and Donna were driving to Sparks.
Donna was by Mike’s side in every step of his ventures and adventures. Mike was a powerhouse; Donna put all the pieces together. Mike had ideas; she wrote the letters and sent out publicity pieces to make them happen. While Mike was the dynamo, Donna was the wind beneath his wings. God bless them both.