Jerry Nordskog Letter to the Editor

Dear Councilwoman,

In your email notice entitled “Health and quality of life a priority in these difficult times,” dated July 27, you did not make mention of the Christian Cross Conservatory. I assume it is still being monitored at the top of the hill behind City Hall—is it? We were so proud of you when we had the initiatives on the cross years ago and that City Council meeting when you intervened with your brilliant compromise plan to organize a conservatory to keep the beloved long-standing cross and surrounding area safe, with the cross still high on the hill. We had fought to keep the cross there—had meetings as you know—and your compromise was a blessing.

However, on another matter, I am ashamed of the Council this year, very much so, including you! Why? That you and the Council, in which you have long held a good reputation, would dare to preempt the people living in our city of Ventura, even before input was requested of its citizens, in a 7–0 vote to accept and support the Black Lives Matter movement causing havoc all over our big cities, is deeply alarming. May I ask if you or anybody on the Council researched that organization? 

BLM is not about supporting Black people. It is a well funded and well organized group whose stated mission is to cause insurrection, anarchy, theft, and destruction in big cities around the nation. Their website states what they are aiming at: “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.” Yet it is well known that the breakdown of the nuclear family that arose from policies promoting dependence on government handouts and discouraged fatherhood is the greatest threat to Black achievement in America today. By her own admission, BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors says she and other co-founder Alicia Garza “are trained Marxists.” Yet Marxist ideology destroys incentive to excel and reduces everyone except a select few to servitude and poverty. BLM chapter co-founder Charlotte Helm suggests that white people should give up their homes to black people. Yet private property allows all people the dignity that comes from stewarding the products of their own labor.

This is not a question of not caring about Black people. The suggestion is absurd on its own merit. All peoples, no matter the color of the very thin layer on the outside of their bodies, are worthy of honor and respect, all made in the image of God. We already have numerous initiatives and laws in place that protect from discrimination. Where our society might fall short in fairness of implementation toward Black people, the answer is not Marxism and further breakdown of the essential elements of society that promote well-being and success—most particularly the nuclear family.

Why would you, Christy, join the ranks of those who refuse to look deeply into the true purposes of BLM and condone this destructive organization? The Council in Ventura has morphed into a rotten bunch of coconuts and bad apples (to say it mildly). God proclaims in His Word that He hates wicked and evildoers. Don’t you? 

Furthermore, your 6–0 vote regarding Father Junipero Serra is also alarming. In our City of Good Fortune, Father Serra’s reputation has always been unassailable. I have a very good history book about California by Dorothy Dimmick. I would be glad to furnish you with a copy. It says not one thing negative about Father Serra. He spread the Gospel where he went. He has been honored by many, including the Catholic Church. He walked up and down the coast of California, founding nine of the first dozen missions. He did not abuse the Native people. The Spanish-Mexicans may have done harm during their reign later on, before California was established, but he did not do anything to warrant being removed from the beloved spot in Ventura across from City Hall. 

You all on the Council seem to have relied upon some other book that denigrates Serra’s name. Perhaps the author did not realize that the Spanish military (Spain-Mexico) had the coastal regions of California under their control, and any irregularities happened in their regimes, not Serra’s.

Your minds seemed to be made up before even calling the meeting, finally to get input from the community. Now I understand the Council is not only moving his statue (after taking it down in the wee hours of the morning), thought to be going to the Mission Church on Main Street after the Council’s unanimous vote, but is actually in further consideration of where to send Father Serra. Did you know my dad, Bob Nordskog, helped raise funds for the restoration of Padre Serra around the late 1980s?. He and others promoted and organized a powerboat offshore race to donate all funds from the event to the City of Ventura for the restoration, and he received a miniature bronze statue for his help. 

Father Serra died in 1784, two years after San Buenaventura was founded in 1782. Twenty-one missions were eventually established from 1769–1823 overall. They have been a blessing to our state for all these years, leading men and women to become saved. That is a good thing!

Dear Councilwoman Christy, please RECONSIDER, YES RECONSIDER FOUR THINGS:

1) Keeping the statue of Father Junipero Serra in our city

2) Removing the council’s support of Black Lives Matter, a Marxist organization causing anarchy in the streets of numerous cities of our beloved nation and great destruction in the lives of our fellow Americans

3) An initiative to support instead the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the State of California (from its Preamble: “We, the people of the state of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure and perpetuate its blessings, do establish this constitution….”)

4) Keeping the seal of our city as it is 

STOP THE INSANITY.

Respectfully Yours,

Jerry (Gerald Christian Nordskog)

“No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.”

President George Washington (First Inaugural Address)