New Commissioner Appointed to Ventura Port District Board
The Ventura City Council has appointed Nikos Valance, a local attorney, economist and lecturer at California State University Channel Islands, to his first four-year term on the Ventura Port District Board of Port Commissioners. Valance, a New York native, also is a board member of the Ventura Hillsides Conservancy and he previously served for four years as member of the Manhattan Community Board in New York. He moved to Ventura in August 2014.
Valance said he applied for the Port District Board as a way to share his skills and experience with the community. His term expires on June 30, 2019. “In New York I was always very active in civic affairs and community projects. Once I settled in Ventura, I wanted to be more active and also give to the community,” he said. “I’m really thrilled about living in Ventura and enthusiastic about the potential of the Harbor.”
Valance would like to see the City of Ventura and the Ventura Harbor grow as tourist and vacation destinations, and work together more closely. He’d also like to see more art events and activities at Ventura Harbor, such as artists painting outdoors and a theater for plays. “It would enhance the whole ambiance at the Harbor.”
An attorney and economist, Valance is excited to be teaching economics for the Martin V. Smith School of Business and Economics at California State University Channel Islands. Previously in New York, he was an adjunct lecturer at several universities over a span of about 20 years (including the City University of New York and New York University), teaching both undergraduate and graduate-level economics courses.
Valance has several areas of interest and specialties in his work, including: business and human rights; domestic and international water policy; local and regional sustainable economic development; systems of local and regional governance development; natural resource development; and the rights of indigenous people domestically and internationally.
In 2012 and 2013, while living in Tucson, Arizona, Valance briefly served as a consultant to the Office of the Attorney General for the San Carlos Apache Nation in San Carlos, Arizona. He helped to revise the tribe’s statutes and codes, and worked on tax issues and rules of civil procedure. In 2012 he also served as a staff attorney for the Indigenous Economic Development and Sustainability Fund in Tucson, working on litigation before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in support of Yaqui Indians in Sonora, Mexico, and developed fundraising efforts to support economic development initiatives to bring potable drinking and irrigation water to Yaqui natives in the Yaqui River Basin in Sonora. Valance also previously worked as a business journalist, a legislative and research director for a New York state senator. He is fluent in Spanish.
The Ventura Port District is committed to providing quality, marine-oriented, visitor- serving assets and a safe environment for the public. The Ventura Harbor is a premier recreational harbor in Ventura County offering a variety of amenities for boater enthusiasts and visitors, including easy access to the Channel Islands, recreational fishing activities, boatyards, fuel docks, tours, rentals, cruises, vibrant yacht clubs and a new public launch ramp. Ventura Harbor has five marinas with 1,500 boat slips.