Ojai Valley News Blog

As the newly crowned Miss Teen Oak View Beth Angelini leads the 2010 Pageant of Excellence competitors in an American sign language rendition of “The World Is a Rainbow” Saturday night, 14-year-old Alan McComas, brother of Miss Oak View entrant Caitlin McComas, takes in the wonder of the scene.

Ramirez family again
represents community

By Sondra Murphy
The Oak View Community Center and attendees looked dashing Saturday during the annual Miss Oak View Pageant of Excellence.

Layla Ramirez is living proof that persistence pays off. A three-time pageant contestant, the very poised Ramirez took home the Miss Oak View 2010 crown.

Besides the excitement of the young ladies walking down the runway, the event served to debut the new chairs purchased due to January’s “Treasure for Chairs” benefit, collaborated on by Oak View Civic Council and Oak View Recreation Commission and supported by the many community groups who regularly use the center.

Following dinner prepared by the Ojai Valley Moose Lodge, the pageant began with a dance number to “All That Jazz” by all 15 contestants, plus last year’s winners, while Meagan Rose sang two songs to entertain between competition events, as well as “The Star-Spangled Banner” after Boy Scout Troop 503 presented the colors.

The music, sound and lighting provided by Roger Phelps Sound ‘n’ Eyes helped keep the event more festive than ever, especially as each contestant walked the runway to a tune she picked herself. Tonya King brought grace and experience to the night in her role as mistress of ceremonies over the course of the evening. Raised in Fillmore, King is a former contestant of many pageants and now directs or consults with state competitions, such as the Miss Montana USA Pageant.

Judges interviewed the contestants earlier in the day and the evening competitions included the Personality on Parade event, in which each girl dressed in a style to exemplify her goals or hobbies, and the Evening Gowns and Speeches competitions.

During the speech portion, contestants spoke of their experiences visiting various residential care facilities throughout the valley. Each told stories about the people they met and the impact they felt from the meetings. Contestants also performed to the song, “The World Is a Rainbow,” using American sign language as coordinated by Jan Key.

“The pageant gives you so much confidence,” said Ramirez afterward. “The directors encourage good morals. This is the best pageant.” Last year’s winner, Amanda Ramirez, had the honor of placing the tiara on her younger sister’s head during the coronation.

Ramirez was one of three contestants for Miss Oak View 2010, while the Miss Teen and Miss Pre-Teen categories had six contestants each.

The Miss Teen Oak View winner was Beth Angelini and first runner-up was Melani Woolwine. Carley Heath was named Miss Pre-Teen Oak View winner and first runner-up was Victoria Neumann. In addition to the sash and tiara, winners received Barnes & Noble gift cards.

The 2010 court consists of Miss Oak View, Cathia Flores and Caitlin McComas; Miss Teen Oak View, Jordan Alvarez, Kiley Brunner, Karrissa O’Hearn, and Lexi Hicks; and Miss Pre-Teen Oak View, Cheyanne Lake, Mariah Hanline, Megan McGraw, and Shyanne Ordoñez. Like Layla Ramirez, many contestants enjoy the Miss Oak View Pageant enough to repeat the experience and several have indicated they plan to be involved again next year. All contestants are assimilated into community service as the Civic Council pageant “court ladies” and will help with events throughout the coming year, including the upcoming Easter egg hunt, Memorial Day parade and the awards dinner and mayoral selection in June.

“It was wonderful,” said pageant executive director Kim Armstrong. “These kids were incredible.”

All three 2009 winners, Nikki Neumann, Chyanna Trush and Amanda Ramirez, expressed appreciation for their year of reign, the latter bidding a tearful farewell to pageant competition as she moves on to continue her college career.

Port Hueneme naval escorts Anthony Morales, EO2, Matt Gallagher, BO2, Jacob Higgens, EO3, and Dustin Nicholas, EOCM, accompanied contestants to the runway. This year’s judges were Cheryl Hamilton, Jimmy Harvey, Scott Miller, Jeannie Nelson and Margaret Tonius.

The Oak View Civic Council is a traditional supporter of the pageant, as well as other service events throughout the year. The council is still working to raise enough money to supply a total of 300 new chairs for the Community Center. The council’s next big event is the Easter egg hunt at the Oak View Park and Resource Center on April 3. Meetings are held the first Wednesday of each month at 6 p.m. in the Oak View Community Center, 18 Valley Road. For more information, go to oakviewca.org.

At 94, The Gables Of Ojai resident Irene Janousek delivers a punch line to a packed house at the Ojai Valley Woman’s Club at Friday night’s “Ojai’s Got Talent” show.

Nonagenarian ‘kills’ at Woman’s Club show

By Logan Hall
Ojai has long been known for being a town of artists and creative minds of many types. Last weekend seemed to prove that, indeed, Ojai has talent. Hosted by the Ojai Valley Woman’s Club, with more than 20 acts scheduled ranging from a LED-light hula-hoop routine to live folk music, the show had something for everyone.

Of many highlights, one in particular seemed to get the crowd going: 94-year-old Irene Janousek, The Gables of Ojai resident and longtime comedian, carefully made her way to the microphone. With a little help from a walker and her daughter-in-law, she squared up to the crowd and began to deliver a series of jokes. Some of which weren’t entirely G-rated. “How do you make holy water?” asked Janousek into the mike, followed by a brief pause. “You boil the hell out of it.”

Born in Grafton, N.D., in 1916, Janousek moved to California in 1962 where she owned a beauty shop for more than 11 years in Glendale. “I told jokes to my customers,” she said on developing her act, “… and at our parties and family get-togethers.”

Janousek, who has seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, moved to Ojai six years ago and now lives at The Gables where she performs regularly for the other residents. “She’s hilarious,” said Gables marketing director Christine Fenn. “Her jokes are amazing.” Everyone seems to get along with Janousek. She is quick witted and definitely seems willing to chat with her fans. “She’s so easy-going and a pleasure to be with,” added Fenn. “The other residents love her.”

Also performing later in the show was a trio of young gentlemen who paid homage to the forefathers of rock ‘n’ roll by firing off a few classics such as Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” Dressed up in black shirts and leather, they quickly had the crowd cheering for an encore.

Soon after, St. Thomas Aquinas College freshmen Liam Collins on the fiddle, and Daniel Bagdazian on acoustic guitar, proceeded to wow the audience with a few Irish jigs and folk instrumentals. The two seemed to have a chemistry that worked well, and everyone was tapping their feet and clapping in rhythm.

All in all, it would seem as though ticket holders got their money’s worth. With proceeds from ticket sales being given by the Woman’s Club to scholarships and various charities, the event has been a way to get the community together to share their talents and give something back. “This is really something special for Ojai,” commented Woman’s Club President Irene Petroff.

Does Ojai have talent? Come out to next year’s “Ojai Has Talent” show to find out.

By Nancy Gross
“This is very nice, very special,” said Ojai Studio Artist Ruth Farnham early Thursday evening, and indeed, the third Annual Ojai Valley Chamber of Commerce Awards Gala allowed chamber members to unwind, have fun and socialize in elegant comfort at the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa.

And to wear some fancy clothes. Chamber president Bob Kemper of Troop Real Estate said, “I don’t think I can recall seeing so many well-dressed people in Ojai, especially at the same time.”

Yet, coupled with the pleasures of talking and mingling, the gala is a significant opportunity for businesses to be invigorated by the work ethic, innovations and successes of one another. Monthly chamber mixers fulfill these aims also.

Kemper said, “The six businesses that will be recognized represent only a small segment of the excellent businesses in the Ojai Valley. This is an important event for all, a congratulatory event.”

The gala was also a time to reflect on the year. Roberta Raye of Made in Ojai said “I just keep thinking of where I was last year compared to this year. Right after this event we formed the co-op, and the chamber has been so supportive.”

The chamber’s chief executive officer Scott Eicher offered a statistic that testifies to the tenacity and forward thinking of Ojai business owners. After last year’s gala, the chamber held a series of workshops to help businesses cope creatively while facing a nationwide economic recovery. Eicher said that according to Bruce Stenslie, of the Economic Development Collaborative of Ventura County, the rest of the county had similar programs going, but Ojai’s were the best attended.

Additionally, it was mentioned that chamber services provide for many needs of nonmember businesses by default. “We are the voice of business in the Ojai Valley.”

During the cocktail hour some guests shared their thoughts about how they are managing while the economy moves sluggishly toward health. Interior designer Philip Brocious of Kava said, “I’ve been doing a lot of redesign which involves rearranging and fine tuning, suggesting paint colors. I charge per room and it is a lot about making suggestions.” He said it allows people to make small changes to their surroundings, and make purchases over time. “It shifts the energy completely and it spreads throughout the house.”

Amy Segovia, front office manager at The Ojai Valley Inn and Spa said the inn benefited from Valentine’s Day being on a long President’s Day weekend, and that spring break is about to start, and, due to different school schedules, it will cover many weeks.
Segovia added, “Guests enjoy going into town. We compliment the city and the city compliments us.”

After chatting, drinks, appetizers and photographs, Steve Vera’s large group of employees and family from Smart Technology Enablers, who offer managed services for computer networks, posed for a shot by one of the inn’s fireplaces, the guests moved over to the awards ceremony.

Before the awards were given to six businesses who had won through a balloting process, Eicher recognized his executive assistant Shannon Allen, who has gone above and beyond in her 10 years with the chamber, “improving the weekly e-blast and website, helping both the Lions and Woman’s Clubs meet their financial goals, changing the business and shopping map from a two-color map to a four-color map,” and creating an interactive online map that a visitor on the way to Ojai can access to navigate into and around town. Allen was awarded a spa day at Spa Ojai.

Roger Phelps handled the video and audio, as each of the three nominees in each category had been taped in their businesses by Olga and Aaron Singer, often speaking about the honor of being chosen, the privilege of working in Ojai and the benefits of working with the chamber.

The first category, Small Business of the Year, recognized a for-profit, locally owned business with no more than 10 employees, with an innovative approach to customer service. Emily Sandefur of Heritage Financial presented, and Feast Bistro took the prize.

Susan Coulter, chef and co-owner of Feast Bistro with Beryl Schwartz, accepted the award and said, “We’re all in this together. We rely on each other. We need each other. It’s important to be a part of the community. The chamber is the way to go” She especially thanked the merchants in the Arcade, and said, “I hope we’re around for a long time after this.”

The next honor was presented by Eicher, and Ojai Valley Directory’s Ren Adam, for the best Environmentally Conscious Business, and E.J. Harrison and Sons was chosen. Myron Harrison, the owner, who said he began driving a trash truck in 1965, accepted and also said, “I’d like to thank the chamber and the city of Ojai for all their efforts. “This is a family business. We love this valley,” Harrison said.

The Entrepreneurial Spirit award, presented by Kathy Hartley of the Ojai Theatre and the Lavender Inn, and Olga Singer of Graphics Unlimited, went to Lara Moga of Casa Bella residential care for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients. Her moving acceptance speech brought silence to everyone else in the room. She began, “I’m the luckiest person in the world because I get to take care of people.”

She thanked her father for his “grace and courage under unbelievable circumstances,” and told him repeatedly that she loved him, and that he had given her a great life. She also said, “Nobody gets anywhere alone. My husband Dorulet is my rock. As an engineer, he built Casa Bella for me.” She added some special phrases to Dorulet in Romanian, and lastly acknowledged her father one more time for being someone who “showed me you could do anything in life. He always asked, ‘why not?’”

The Tourism Development Award was given by Janis Clapoff, managing director for the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa, and Dave Brubaker, president and CEO of Ojai Community Bank. Ojai Studio Artists won in this category.

OSA president Linda Taylor accepted the honor and said “I’m very excited. We’ve had our open studio tour for 27 years. The chamber helps us so much. They sell our tickets. I want to thank Scott in particular. He is such a great support and always gives us so many great suggestions.”

The Heart of Ojai award was then given to a nonprofit chamber member offering enhanced quality of life for those living in the Ojai Valley. The Ojai Valley Youth Foundation took the honor, and Dan Burrell, interim executive director and Meg Wall, program manager accepted.

Burrell said, “I so wish that Cindy Jones was here,” and he commended her for her outstanding fundraising ability, saying that at a recent luncheon she was able to “raise 45,000 in one hour and 15 minutes, from this community, in this economy.”

Burrell also said that Wall “began with the Youth Foundation when she was 12 years old, and is now our amazing program director,” and Wall expressed thanks for the way the valley supports its teens.

The final award was the Cornerstone Award, given to a chamber member with more than 10 employees, making an investment to grow business in the valley. Dawn Shook, executive officer of the Ojai Board of Realtors, and Martha Dowden, branch manager for Los Padres Bank, presented the award to Rains Department Store.

Alan Rains was videotaped saying the store began in 1914. He kept his comments brief, expressing appreciation and thanks. “We’re not new to the block. We are a specialty department store. We are honored and humbled. Being a chamber member for more years than I remember is an asset to us.”

Throughout the evening, chamber members returned to the topic of tourism, and enthusiasm was expressed for the work of the chamber in securing $160,000 from the city of Ojai to begin a public relations and marketing campaign for Ojai as a tourist destination. Ruth Ballin’s PR firm has been chosen for this enterprise. Ballin currently oversees the Ojai Playwright’s Conference.

Eighty-five percent of budget goes to employee wages and benefits

By Daryl Kelley
For a decade, some Ojai teachers have received pink slips in mid-March, notifying them that their services might not be needed in the fall because of declining enrollment. Usually, most of those notices were rescinded.

But this time, the Ojai Unified School District may have no way to keep dozens of threatened teachers in their classrooms, because state and federal cuts, and fewer students, have left it with a nearly $3-million deficit next fall, a huge drop from this year’s budget of  nearly $25 million.

Distraught district trustees voted Tuesday evening to notify 51 part- and full-time educators, including several managers, that they may have no jobs after June. Pink slips went out on Wednesday and Thursday.

That’s fewer than the 76 termination notices sent last year, when few teachers were actually laid off. But this year, officials said, there is little wiggle room in the state budget, and no new federal stimulus money such as the $1.3 million that rolled in this year.

The district could balance its budget by laying off 27 full-time educators, including three managers, but 51 were notified to give the district more flexibility in where and how it makes cuts. State law prevents a teacher from being dismissed unless notice is given by March 15.

This year’s “pink slip list” is especially grim, superintendent Hank Bangser told trustees. And it could reach “a significant distance down the seniority list” of teachers in the district.

Because 85 percent of the district’s budget goes to employee wages and benefits, that’s where trustees must look to cut, Bangser said.

Trustees will also consider soon proportionate reductions in the size of the district’s non-teaching staff, such as aides, secretaries, custodians and bus drivers. Fifteen full-time non-teaching positions need to be eliminated to balance the budget.

“Nobody is feeling there is going to be any relief,” Bangser said. “This is the end” of dodging the budget bullet, he said.

“This is a structural deficit, which means it doesn’t go away.”

That means that Ojai’s public schools will have fewer teachers, fewer class options and more students per class, officials said. There might also be fewer days of school. But just ow that shakes down is still up in the air.

Trustees must make those difficult choices during the next three months, giving final notice to teachers by mid-May and approving a budget by June 30.

“We’re really at this sort of precipice that we’ve never been at before,” Trustee Pauline Mercado said.

Even programs that are popular with parents and teachers are on the chopping block this time.

Size reduction of primary grade classes — kindergarten through third — are at risk. Those reductions to the current 20 students per class could be replaced with classes of 30, saving the district $400,000 as about 10 jobs are eliminated, Bangser told trustees.

“This is not a recommendation,” he said, “but it might be a place we have to go.”

Other options include a compromise, keeping primary classes at about 25 students, which would still save more than $200,000 annually.

John LeSuer, principal at Topa Topa Elementary, asked the board to do everything it can to keep class sizes down.

“At Topa Topa, our low economic sub-groups have doubled,” he said. “It’s really important that we try to keep these class sizes down.”

Advanced placement classes at Nordhoff High School are also in jeopardy, principal Dan Musick told the board. He has already decided to cut Spanish 5 and AP World History from the curriculum next fall, because the budget simply cannot support them any more, Musick said.

“This is the first year that we’ve said we are not going to have these classes next year,” he said. “We’re still going to have Spanish 4, a college-level class. And we still have three AP offerings in history — U.S., European and government.”

A shortened school year is also a distinct possibility.

Last year, teaching days were cut by five to 175. And the president of the Ojai Federation of Teachers, Martha Ditchfield, said that might be an option teachers prefer instead of layoffs. The district saves $100,000 for each of these so-called furlough days.

The teachers’ union distributed a survey this week, asking instructors to list their preferred cuts. The survey should be back by Monday, Ditchfield said.

“We’re asking: ‘What’s most important for you to keep?’” she said. “’What are you willing to give up?’”

If the district follows its 51 educator notices by laying off the equivalent of 27 full-time teachers and managers, and then another 15 non-teaching staffers, that would cut $2.8 million from the 2010-2011 budget, district analysts said.

It would also cut 41 people from the district’s full-time work force of 281: That’s nearly 15 percent of workers.

Under the new budget plan, the district would also reduce its emergency reserves from $742,000 to $217,000, just 1 percent of the total budget. State law requires a 3 percent reserve, but a waiver can be granted in dire economic times such as these.

Board President Kathi Smith asked Bangser to do all he can to survey parents as well as teachers.

And trustees agreed that the district should place a survey form on each school’s web site to gather parents opinions.

She mentioned that district voters had defeated an $89 per parcel tax that could have helped balance this year’s budget by yielding $600,000. Sixty-five percent of voters approved the tax, but it failed by 77 votes.

“Our taxpayers are asking us to diminish the education in this district,” Smith said. “It’s going to get worse.”

Other trustees also expressed dismay.

“I don’t understand the world, almost,” Trustee Rikki Horne said. “Yet, with all that, we’ll continue to educate our kids.”

Linda Taylor, a board member and former teacher, said she can hardly sleep with the responsibility: “All the gains of the last 15 years are really being wiped out, just flushed down the toilet.”

Trustee Steve Fields noted that the district has been shrinking for a decade as Ojai has grown older more rapidly than the rest of the county or state. The 3,000-student district is down about 50 more students this year, but seems to be stabilizing.

“We’ve been cutting, cutting and cutting,” Fields said. “In spite of that we’ve been able to keep what makes the district great.

“But it’s a slow bleed,” he added. “And it’s wrenching.”

Gloria Claudette Grinnell holds a poster commemorating the Richmond 34 sit-in in 1960.

California native recalls discrimination, jail time in Virginia

By Nancy Gross
Things were different in 1960, especially in the South, where the movement toward civil rights was slow and discrimination was overt. Courageous people had to take a stand — or a sit — for fairness.

As part of Black History Month in February, Ojai resident, Gloria Claudette Grinnell returned to Richmond, Va., to mark the 50th anniversary of the downtown sit-ins in which she participated as a Virginia Union University student.

Grinnell had grown up in San Francisco and San Diego. Discrimination in her youth in California, she said, was covert. “The South was different, quite different.” Richmond had been the capital of the Confederacy, and Grinnell, though she had experienced racial slurs and stereotypes, was not used to the way the community’s black people were repeatedly spoken down to. She didn’t fully understand their difficulty speaking up.

The college, however, was an all-black school, and Grinnell said it was the first place she learned any black history. Her teachers and classmates called her “California.”

Martin Luther King Jr. had spoken to humanities classes at VUU. His message of nonviolent resistance rang in the years of two VUU ministry students, Charles M. Sherrod, now a college professor in Albany, Ga., and the late Frank G. Pinkston. They recruited students in the cafeteria to take some action.

For three days, hundreds of dressed-up VUU students went into downtown Richmond and sat down at department store lunch counters where only whites were served. In stores like Thalhimers, Woolworth’s and Grant’s, Grinnell said “You also couldn’t use the facilities. You couldn’t try on clothes.”

The students were denied service, but refused to leave.

The first attempts only caused the lunch counters to close for the day. The arrest on the third day was what the organizers were looking for, to call attention to the inequality in such a way that Jim Crow laws would come under legal scrutiny.

It was the holiday for George Washington’s birthday, Feb. 22, 1960, and 34 students, who came to be called the Richmond 34, were arrested at the Thalhimers lunch counter.

Grinnell said, after hours in jail, “The vice president of religion put his house up to bail us out.”

The students inspired others to picket, boycott and protest; within a year the stores opened their lunch counters to everyone. Three years later NAACP lawyers won a suit in the Supreme Court, and the arrests of the Richmond 34 were called unconstitutional.

These were important birth pains leading to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

This untagged American bald eagle is drawing the attention of fishers and visitors to the valley’s lake.

Lake Casitas site of nesting pair

By Logan Hall
The Ojai Valley is home to many wild animals. It’s not uncommon to see a deer in a back yard or a coyote running down the street. Lately, one thing seems to have the wildlife community buzzing. The American bald eagle has recently been sighted hunting fish and small birds out at Lake Casitas.

Known for its trademark white head and yellow beak, the bald eagle is found in most of North America, but mainly resides in Alaska and the west coast of Canada. The bald eagle was once abundant in Central California, having a large population on the northern Channel Islands. Due to hunting and pesticide chemicals such as DDT, breeding eagles had disappeared from the islands by the mid-1950s. In 2002 Channel Islands National Park began reintroducing tagged bald eagles back to Santa Cruz Island, which have been spotted at the lake several times. The particular eagles that have recently taken up roost at Casitas, are not tagged. “The fact that they have no tags is exciting,” said Kim Stroud, director of the Ojai Raptor Center. “These are wild birds.”

The birds have mostly been sighted by boat on the northern part of the lake, but a few people have been lucky enough to see them from shore. Raptor Center volunteer and avid bird watcher, Becky Donahue, was walking along the east shore when she spotted an incoming eagle. “This bird just came out of nowhere,” she said. “It was so beautiful.”

Aside from a few fishermen and bird watchers, most people are unaware that America’s national bird is right in their own town. “I’ve never seen them out here,” said Lake Casitas park officer James Martinez. “I’ll be looking for them now though.”

So far, it appears that there is one adult male (white head and tail) and possibly a female and two juveniles. With a large food source available and very few predators to threaten them, the local eagles may have found a seasonal, if not permanent, home at Lake Casitas.

The American bald eagle, although no longer on the U.S. Department of the Interior’s endangered species list, is still protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Anyone encountering the birds is urged to observe them from a distance, being careful not to disturb them.

For more imformation on the Ojai Raptor Center. visit ojairaptorcenter.org.

Bill Murphy

Navy pilot, Colorado transplant steps in as former director is remembered

By Nancy Gross
Bill Murphy has been appointed to fill the Division 7 seat on Ojai Valley Sanitary District’s governing board of directors. Division 7 covers the eastern portion of the city of Ojai, encompassing the Oak Glen-Gridley Road area, Golden West tract, Topa Topa School area, North Fulton and North Drown neighborhoods.

Murphy, his wife, Diane, and their daughter, Rae, moved into that area in June of 2009, after spending seven months renting in Mira Monte. Before that they lived in Colorado Springs.

“I want to try to make an impact on the community, to be a good steward,” Murphy said. “I have not served on this type of board. I have been on the alumni board for my college, Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky.” He has also sat on boards in the military. “I served 24 years as a Navy pilot.”

Murphy likes that he can walk to his work as program manager for the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation. “I volunteered for about six months before they hired me on.

“I like what they do. Nothing is the same day after day.”

Murphy is filling the seat vacated when Bill Lotts died on Jan. 2.

Lotts lived in Ojai beginning in 1948. He sat on the OVSD board for 21 years. Also a military man, he was at Point Mugu for 38 years, working in the weapons center.

Lotts’ friend Bruce Dunwoody said that Lotts’ last assignment at Point Mugu was being a target director. “I think he was flying drones.

“When he retired in 1985 he started an electrical contracting business,” Dunwoody said.

Dr. Fred Fauvre, who became Lotts primary care physician for 20 years said Lotts had been his electrician since he moved to the valley in 1975. “He occasionally made emergency visits when the electric stove or oven were on fire and took care of all of our electrical needs. Old houses have electrical needs.”

Like Murphy, Lotts was community service-minded. He was a charter member of Rotary Club of Ojai-West. Fauvre said he remembers serving with Lotts on Rotary projects, “including the Matilija portfolio project, interviewing Matilija Junior High students and giving them an exposure to a job interview and adults.”

Dunwoody said Lotts “was a pretty salty character. He had a moment of fame in 1992 when he went before City Council and demanded that they preserve the old jail building in Libbey Park, saying it was a historical building.”

Both Fauvre and Dunwoody shared the story of how Lotts had apparently spent one night in that jail. “He and a policeman were competing for the favors of a lady,” said Dunwoody. “Somehow he got locked in the jail, at least overnight, relating to that,” Fauvre said.

Lotts was also a substantial property owner in the valley, and raised five sons with his wife, Peggy. After Peggy’s death he married Gwen.

Two of Lotts’ children have relocated to Bakersfield and Reno, and of his sons who remain local, Fauvre said, “They are now populating and serving the valley in an honorable way — actually two of them are electricians.”

Issued 2/24/10 by  the Ojai Police Department

Good Afternoon Watchers,

One of our friends from Santa Barbara PD learned about this new credit card scam from a local banking official and passed along the following to us.  The banker’s message emphasizes just how important the 3 digit security code is on the back of our credit/debit cards.

THE SCAM

This one is pretty slick since they provide YOU with all the information, except the one piece they want.

Note, the callers do not ask for your card number; they already have it… This information is worth reading. By understanding how the VISA & Master Card Telephone Credit Card Scam works, you’ll be better prepared to protect yourself.

One of our employees was called on Wednesday from ‘VISA’, and I was called on Thursday from ‘Master Card’.. The scam works like this:

Caller: ‘This is (name), and I’m calling from the Security and Fraud Department at VISA. My Badge number is 12460. Your card has been flagged for an unusual purchase pattern, and I’m calling to verify. This would be on your VISA card which was issued by (name of bank). Did you purchase an Anti-Telemarketing Device for $497..99 from a Marketing company based in ?’

When you say ‘No’, the caller continues with, ‘Then we will be issuing a credit to your account. This is a company we have been watching and the charges range from $297 to $497, just under the $500 purchase pattern that flags most cards. Before your next statement, the credit will be sent to (gives you your address), i s that correct?’

You say ‘yes’. The caller continues – ‘I will be starting a Fraud investigation. If you have any questions, you should call the 1- 800 number listed on the back of your card (1-800 -VISA) and ask for Security.’

You will need to refer to this Control Number. The caller then gives you a 6 digit number. ‘Do you need me to read it again?’

Here’s the IMPORTANT part on how the scam works. The caller then says, ‘I need to verify you are in possession of your card’. He’ll ask you to ‘turn your card over and look for some numbers’. There are 7 numbers; the first 4 are part of your card number, the next 3 are the security Numbers that verify you are the possessor of the card. These are the numbers you sometimes use to make Internet purchases to prove you have the card. The caller will ask you to read the 3 numbers to him. After you tell the caller the 3 numbers, he’ll say, ‘That is correct, I just needed to verify that the card has not been lost or stolen, and that you still have your card. Do you have any other questions?’ After you say No, the caller then thanks you and states, ‘Don’t hesitate to call back if you do, and hangs up.

You actually say very little, and they never ask for or tell you the Card number.. But after we were called on Wednesday, we called back within 20 minutes to ask a question.. Are we glad we did! The REAL VISA Security Department told us it was a scam and in the last 15 minutes a new purchase of $497.99 was charged to our card.

Long story – short – we made a real fraud report and closed the VISA account. VISA is reissuing us a new number. What the scammers want is the 3-digit PIN number on the back of the card Don’t give it to them.

Instead, tell them you’ll call VISA or Master card directly for verification of their conversation.

The real VISA told us that they will never ask for anything on the card as they already know the information since they issued the card! If you give the scammers your 3 Digit PIN Number, you think you’re receiving a credit. However, by the time you get your statement you’ll see charges for purchases you didn’t make, and by then it’s almost too late and/or more difficult to actually file a fraud report.

If this has recently happened to you, immediately call your credit card company and ask to speak to their security office.  They will be able to check for any fraudulent charges based on your statement and advise you further.  If you do have a fraudulent charge, your credit card company will usually require a police report to verify the facts before removing the fraudulent charge(s).

PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG TO ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS AND RELATIVES.  THE POWER OF CITYWATCH IS THAT EACH OF US NETWORKING CAN COLLECTIVELY REACH THOUSANDS OF OTHERS BY FORWARDING THIS EMAIL. (link) http://ovnblog.com/?p=2582

Be Safe,

Randy

City manager expects trend to continue into upcoming fiscal year

By Sondra Murphy
Predicting government revenues is tricky in any climate, but the city of Ojai has tried to be conservative in the past few years. While city finances have looked better, the good news is that staff outlined ways in which to create a balanced budget in the upcoming fiscal year.

Not surprisingly, cutbacks figure prominently.

City manager Jere Kersnar presented the midyear budget report to the City Council Tuesday with two recommendations. The first sought authorization to budget adjustments for fiscal year 2009-2010; the second was for direction to staff in preparing the proposed fiscal year 2010-2011 budget based on projections contained in the midyear report.

He said he expected a shortfall in the current budget of 11 percent, or about $907,000. “Both the midyear budget report is sort of a preview of what the budget for 2010-2011 may look like, what’s on the horizon,” said Kersnar. “Early reports were looking grim and reports since are not looking better.”

Kersnar said the biggest factors to declining city revenues centered around sales and transient occupancy taxes. A drop in midweek business travel to Ojai combined with a decline in development activity has impacted city accounts. “As you know, we’ve already adjusted our staffing in response to that,” said Kersnar, referring to the limited planning division staffing. “One of the surprising things is our property tax has remained steady. I believe it to be because we have had relatively few turnovers.” He added that, while the market values of homes have fluctuated in recent years, the assessed values have remained steady, helping to maintain that source of city revenue.

Noting a more than 20-percent decline in revenues in the past two years, Kersnar estimated that the city budget is likely to be about  $7 million in 2010-2011. “Just to remind you, we adopted a $7.9 million budget for 2009-2010, down from $8.8 million, which we thought was a conservative number,” Kersnar said. “We are beginning to see glimmers of increases. Property tax is showing a 6-percent increase, our receipts have gone up and that’s a good figure … Sales tax, however, is negative 20 percent and TOT is even worse, down 27 percent.” He said that amounted to about $900,000 less than June projections.

But Kersnar said more cuts were needed in order to stay within actual revenues and to counter unplanned unbudgeted expenditures totaling $112,000. These are comprised of Stop the Trucks Coalition assistance at $18,000; Ventura County Homeless & Housing Coalition grant at $1,500; Student Resource Officer contribution at $75,000; and National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System cost overruns at $17,035.

Besides expenditure reductions currently in place, Kersnar’s proposed new cutbacks included a $4,000 cut to the Historic Preservation Commission; $4,000 savings through staff compensation time in lieu of overtime; $37,861 saved in the planner position; and $42,401 in contracted landscaped projects. “What we’re suggesting is we suspend all our contracts with maintenance and do those duties in house,” Kersnar said, adding that to continue outside maintenance contracts while eliminating staff would create problems with having enough staff to respond to issues such as pot holes or fallen tree limbs. “We don’t know what the impact will be on city services, but … that one will have the most notable impact.” The total savings for these cuts were estimated at $89,649.

“We had a surplus going into 2009. We now see a deficit of about $365,000,” said Kersnar. “That would come from reserves.” He said this would take the general fund balance reserve to about $3 million and should be a one-time, emergency use to allow them not to have to use reserves during the next fiscal year while maintaining a balanced budget.

Projections being an intangible element, much of the discussion about upcoming budget got as philosophical as accounting can. The council unanimously approved the proposed adjustments to the current budget, but were not so quick to direct staff to create the next budget based on the projections garnered from the exercise.

Kersnar projected more than an $824,000 reduction in 2010-2011 revenues, but presented possible expenditure reduction adjustments totaling $838,022. These adjustments included many of the reductions used to address this fiscal year’s shortfall, like planner position and landscape maintenance contract, as well as employee compensation strategies.

“I don’t feel there’s enough information for me to feel comfortable with the second recommendation,” said Councilwoman Betsy Clapp.

“It sounds like we’ve given a philosophy, but we’re going to wait and get more details on how we’re going to proceed.”

“All I was doing is putting it out to you: Are you satisfied with just a balanced budget?” Kersnar said. While he felt confident that staff could create a balanced budget without dipping into reserves again, he felt it unlikely that the city would be able to add to reserves, either.

Councilwoman Sue Horgan said she was comfortable for staff to proceed with that plan, expecting they would see all the details when it was presented to them. She brought up an issue discussed earlier in the agenda, that of changes in how cities must account for post-employment benefits.

With the implementation of the Government Accounting Standard Board Statement 45, post-retirement health benefits, the city faces a decision of whether to pay-as-you-go or pre-fund such benefits or explore other options. While pre-funding has many advantages, committing to the annual contributions would need to be addressed in the 2010-2011 budget. “Something we haven’t considered here is the previous discussion item, the GASB impacts, and that’s going to come into the discussion,” said Horgan.

The council and city staff voiced reluctance in cutting employee compensation in any way, but Kersnar said they would be looking into the possibility to include with the next budget report.

Mayor Pro-Tem Carol Smith moved to direct staff to prepare the proposed budget for fiscal year 2010-2011, “based on what our income will be and that it be balanced.” With this modification to the motion, it passed unanimously, as well.

Customers, employees, corporate to benefit from major makeover

By Sondra Murphy
Shoppers who have been into the Vons grocery store at the “Y” shopping center have witnessed a number of changes recently. With crews working during closed hours, midnight to 6 a.m., Vons’ employees and customers find new surprises every morning.

“We’re doing a full remodel,” said store director Todd Baker. “We have the aisles so there are no poles and are expanding on variety.”

Besides wider aisles, Vons will be expanding the produce section to increase the variety of organics, as well as building a new service deli and bakery. “We’re expanding bakery items so there will be doughnuts in the bakery and expansion in the deli to offer high-end cheese,” said Baker. The meat and seafood department and liquor offerings will also be expanded.

All new, deeper shelving and check stands will be installed, while new flooring will include tile, wood and entrance-area carpeting.

Back room changes include an expanded employee break room and a larger customer rest room. Baker said that the end result will resemble other Vons stores in the county, such as the one on Thompson Boulevard in Ventura, but on a smaller scale.

“The last remodel was about eight years ago, but it was nothing major like this,” said Baker. “Full completion will probably take about another six weeks.”

Fifteen girls enter competition to name Miss Oak View, Teen and Pre-teen

By Sondra Murphy
Accentuating etiquette, confidence and inner beauty, the 2010 Oak View Pageant of Excellence is a long-time valley tradition. Scheduled for March 6 at the Oak View Community Center, 18 Valley Road, 16 young ladies have been busily preparing for their night to shine.

“The pageant contestants have been very busy preparing for this year’s pageant by visiting care facilities in the valley and will be writing their speeches according do what they experienced,” said Kim Armstrong, pageant coordinator. “They also have been rehearsing for their event by learning sign language, a new dance routine, walking the walk and gaining confidence in high heels.”

While the pageant is a great learning experience for contestants, it’s the year of community services which follows the pageant that helps them learn the importance of making a true difference in the world. The “court ladies” assist the Oak View Civic Council in its many events, such as the Easter egg hunt, Christmas tree lighting ceremony, plus help decorate floats and ride in cool cars during Oak View Memorial Day and Ojai Fourth of July parades.

To prepare for the pageant, “The girls attended a tea held at The Gables of Ojai and an etiquette class taught by Sandy Delaney at the Ojai Methodist Church in Ojai. Not to mention all this, they actually found time to do community service by helping the Park and Recreation Committee and the Oak View Civic Council’s fund-raiser ‘Treasure for Chairs’ and then serve at a Valentine’s dinner at the Ojai Methodist Church,” Armstrong said. “As you see these are very committed young ladies and I invite the community to come experience a wonderful evening watching these young ladies excel in the Pageant of Excellence. Our Theme, ‘Look Within,’ says it all!”

This year’s contestants are as follows: Miss Oak View, Layla Ramirez, Cathia Flores, Caitlin McComes; Miss Teen Oak View, Beth Angelini, Jordan Alvarez, Kiley Brunner, Karrissa O’Hearn, Melanie Woolwine, Lexi Hicks; Miss Pre-Teen Oak View, Cheyanne Lake, Mariah Hanline, Megan McGraw, Shyanne Ordoñez, Victoria Neumann and Carly Heath.

Tickets may be purchased at Olivares Allstate Insurance in the Purple Wagon Mall until March 1. The prime rib dinner costs $30 per person and will be served promptly at 5 p.m. General admission for the pageant itself is $10, with admission beginning at 6:15 p.m. and the event expected to begin no later than 6:45 p.m. Dinner and general admission tickets will also be sold at the door on the day of the pageant.

The Ventura County Fire Department and the Ojai Police Department took many calls inquiring about the apparent sonic boom that jolted the Ojai Valley and beyond this morning, but there has been no official explanation from any emergency department or the Point Mugu Naval Air Station. What did you hear and what do you think it was?

Judy Cochran, left, and Debbie Roper will dye their hair pink if they each get $1,000 donations for their participation in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in September.

By Logan Hall
Debbie Roper and Judy Cochran are going to dye their hair pink. That is if they can get someone to sponsor them for $1,000 each in the upcoming Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in September. The two women are trying to raise the event’s sponsorship minimum of $1,800 each, and hopefully much more.

Held annually in 10 cities across the country, such as San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and Santa Barbara, the Avon Walk raises money for various areas of the breast cancer cause including awareness, access to treatment, and research. Avon’s web site states that from 2003 to 2008 the breast cancer walks raised $265 million.

This year, Roper and Cochran plan to make an impression of their own by spicing things up a little. “We will dye our hair pink,” said Roper, “for $1,000 each.” Last year between the two of them, they raised more than $10,000 for the cause. This year they hope to beat that number by doing whatever they can to generate sponsorships.

“I’ll shave my head … for $10,000,” said Cochran, who didn’t appear to be joking. “It’s not about me. It’s to get rid of this ugly disease.”

In the United States alone, a life is lost to breast cancer every 13 minutes, and this year, more than 180,000 men and women will be diagnosed with it. Thanks to people like Roper and Cochran, many lives could be saved in the future. Now they just need to get sponsors, and both have plenty of support from family and friends.

“It’s a great cause,” said Roper’s husband, Ventura County Fire Chief Bob Roper. “We believe in it and that’s why she keeps doing it.”

Although the walk isn’t until September, they need to start the fund raising early. Anyone who is interested in helping them reach their goal can contact Judy Cochran at 947-7004 or they can donate online at avonwalk.org/goto/debbie.roper.

Eleven-week course planned to explain police function, operational procedures

By Lenny Roberts
Some people say there’s never a cop around when you need one, while others counter there are too many police cars patrolling the valley. Whatever the perception is, a better understanding of the function and operational procedures of local law enforcement officers can lead to a safer, more stable community.

It’s been years since the Sheriff’s Department has offered valley residents training and an inside look at police work through the Ojai Police Citizen’s Academy. During the planned 11-week course, scheduled to begin March 24, students will be introduced to a variety of topics starting with the history of the Ojai Police Department and a station tour.

Academy classes will be taught by veteran law enforcement officers, and participants will have the opportunity to meet with Capt. Chris Dunn, Ojai’s police chief, and members of his staff. Academy members are encouraged to ask questions as well as express ideas and concerns. The curriculum and teaching methods are similar to the traditional Sheriff’s Academy. However, the weekly sessions are not designed to train participants as police officers.

The course is designed to give citizens an overview of procedures in Ventura County’s criminal justice system through the eyes of judges, prosecutors, public defenders, patrol and K-9 deputies, narcotics officers, station and major crimes detectives and S.W.A.T. and Bomb Squad teams. The classes will also include explanations of crime scene investigations and tours of the Ventura County Main Jail in Ventura and the Air Unit and Sheriff’s Academy at the Camarillo Airport. The training will conclude on June 2 with the Citizen’s Academy graduation, featuring invited guests, refreshments, the presentation of certificates and photos with Ojai’s police chief and mayor.

The Citizen’s Academy requires a commitment of one night per week, three hours per session plus the scheduled ride-along. Those selected to participate will be notified by mail at least two weeks prior to the beginning of classes.

Participants will be selected by the Ojai chief of police. Applications are available at the Ojai Police Station, and enrollment is limited per class.

Potential candidates for the Ojai Citizen’s Academy must meet the following criteria:

• Minimum age of 18 years

• Live or work in Ojai or the unincorporated area of the Ojai Valley

• No felony convictions

• No misdemeanor convictions within one year of application

Any requirements may be waived or modified upon review and approval by the chief of police.

For additional information about the Citizen’s Academy, call 646-1414 during normal business hours. Classes will be held on Wednesdays from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Ojai Police Station. A copy of the application in PDF form can be downloaded here.

By Sondra Murphy
It is hard to look at the Ojai Creek and imagine people used catch rainbow trout in Libbey Park, but a group of dedicated volunteers believe they can revitalize the native habitat around the east barranca to eventually support a diversity of fish and wildlife.

In preparation for the second phase of its watershed improvement project, the Ojai Valley Green Coalition is combining forces with other nonprofit groups to restore the vitality of the Ojai Creek riparian corridor in Libbey Park. Volunteers have been instrumental in enacting the plan along an 800- by-100-foot section along the eastern side of the park adjacent to the Libbey Park tennis courts.

More than 100 OVGC members and community volunteers began removing invasive plants during three weekends in November as part of the first stage in re-establishing the native habitat around the park. The efforts have been made possible by a $28,250 grant from the Southern California Wetlands Recovery Project, a component of the Community Wetlands Restoration Program, which gets funding from Earth Island Institute.

Since the Ojai community tends to be pro-tree, the process of removing 11 palm trees from the creek area has alarmed some residents. But the efforts are for a greater good, said OVGC executive director Deborah Pendrey. “A lot of people are looking at it aesthetically. Palm trees are, especially, the most insidious of all trees,” said Pendrey. “Cutting them down is better, because when you actually remove them, you have a big hole. The Department of Fish and Game is very particular about the type of material we can use to fill them in.

By Nancy Gross
The primary agenda item for the February 8 Ojai Valley Municipal Advisory Council meeting was a preliminary review of the conditional use permit extension application for the monopole cell tower on Black Mountain.

MAC Executive Director Steve Offerman explained that the original CUP was approved in 1995, “just months before the enactment of the Ojai Area Plan.” The 20-year CUP expired in 2005.

Doug Carne, of American Tower Corporation, who manages the tower for Verizon, said, “We weren’t officially notified. As soon as we became aware of it we submitted the CUP renewal.”

This was 23 months ago, and since then ATC has been going back and forth with the county trying to come up with a way to paint or otherwise disguise the tower so that it would be more in keeping with the protection of ridge lines that the OAP put in place.

The county said a color change was an unacceptable solution.

Carne, who was accompanied by two Verizon engineers, wanted the MAC to consider the option of allowing his company to have landscaping done behind the tower. Three years growth, he said, would create an adequate backdrop so that the tower would no longer be visible at all.

It is a 49-foot pole with whip antennas extending from it, making it about 56 feet. It relies on microwaves. Carne said, “The microwaves provide the collection to the system in an east-west direction. One shoots to Red Mountain, and one to South Mountain.”

Carne and the MAC members discussed the possibility of putting two towers on either side of Black Mountain, below the ridge line.

Russ Baggerly, MAC chair until Mike Zielsdorf was chosen for the position this month, did not support the landscaping idea. “If you irrigate it, it will be green all year. Native plants brown out.” But of shorter antennas Baggerly said, “The paddle antennas up there, nobody sees.”

About delegating the antenna’s job to two antennas placed lower down, Carne said, “I’m sure the property owner will lease additional space to us, but he’s going to want to charge us for that.”

Jerry Kaplan said, “I think the people who have direct sight of this ought to have notice and opportunity to attend the meeting.” The Ojai Valley News mentioned the meeting and the agenda items in an article dated Jan. 20, 2010.

Resident George Berg, who attended the MAC meeting, said, “I would just like to emphasize the importance of not having things on ridgelines.” He added that the tower is much less visible than it was 15 years ago due to vegetation growth and weathering of the metal.

“If heights can be reduced that might well take care of all the problems,” Berg said.

Todd Wilson, elected as the new liaison with county planning, asked if there were any other cell towers on this site, and Carne said that this is the only one. Wilson also asked if the only reason for the reissue of the CUP is the expiration of the permit, and Carne said, “Yes.”

Baggerly said, “The MAC only makes recommendations,” and said in this case the recommendation is “try to find a way to remove the monopole and provide an array of antennas that are not on the ridge line.” All other MAC members present were in agreement. Carne also said that a land line, instead of microwaves, is being looked into as an option.

Photo and report by Scott Wintermute

Two vehicles collided Wednesday evening on East Ojai Avenue at Drown Avenue in the beginning of what would prove to be a rough night for all parties involved.

At around 7:40 p.m. a Ford Escort being driven by a teenager with a provisional license, with four of his friends as passengers, was in the left-turn  lane  from eastbound Ojai Avenue to Drown Avenue. According to the California Vehicle Code, a provisional license does not permit the holder to operate the vehicle with passengers under the age of 20, among other restrictions. The  vehicle was then struck by a convertible Mustang driven by the male, pictured above,  who was allegedly uncooperative and arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.

According to authorities, at least one of the passengers in the Escort left the scene after the accident, but was located by her mother, who arrived quickly, and asked that her daughter be taken to the hospital, despite the fact that none of the involved parties complained of injuries.

State Medical Board alleges gross negligence after overdose death

By Daryl Kelley
The state Medical Board has accused an Ojai psychiatrist of gross negligence in treating patients, including one who died from a drug overdose, complaints that could lead to revocation or suspension of the veteran doctor’s medical license.

In a written “accusation” filed recently, the Medical Board of California has maintained that Dr. John Nasse Jr., 76, was negligent in treating five patients, including an Ojai Valley man who died in 2006 from an overdose of three drugs prescribed by Nasse.

Nasse is accused of repeated acts of gross negligence in four of the cases, and a failure to maintain proper records in a fifth case. Treatment occurred from 2005 until 2008, according to the state filing.

One case involved a “patient” who was an undercover investigator for the Medical Board, according to the state filing by the attorney general’s office, which represents the Medical Board.

In the Jan. 28 filing, the Medical Board notes that Nasse, a doctor in California since 1967, has not yet had a hearing or been found guilty of any charges.

Nasse said in a brief interview last week that he and his lawyer are negotiating a settlement of the case.

“These things are in the process of negotiation,” he said. “It’s way up in the air. I can’t discuss any more. I can say nothing at this point.”

Nasse did say that he is offering a defense to the charges.

This case is the second state Medical Board action against Nasse in the last decade. He was accused in 2001 of “gross negligence, repeated negligent acts, incompetence and dishonest and corrupt acts” in regards to treatment of one patient between 1987 and 1997.

To resolve that case, Nasse stipulated that the board could establish a factual basis for those charges, and he gave up his right to contest them.

His medical license was revoked. But in a settlement agreement, that severe penalty was replaced by five years of probation against his license, a 15-day license suspension, 60 hours of community service annually, passage of an ethics course and payment of $2,000 to cover investigative costs, according to state records.

Nasse also was fined and his medical license suspended in the state of Hawaii in 2004, according to records on file in Sacramento.

In the current case, Nasse is accused of repeated acts of negligence in the treatment of Ms. C, a patient with multiple sclerosis and back and hip problems, who needed pain medication.

Beginning in 2005, Nasse prescribed hydrocodone 48 times in 30 months, in 100-tablet increments, far exceeding appropriate dosage levels, the state maintains.

Nasse’s “prescribing of hydrocodone in excessive amounts, failure to consult with Ms. C’s pain management physician to ensure that she did not abuse hydrocodone, or refer her to her pain management physician constituted acts of gross negligence and an extreme departure from the standard of care” required by the state medical code, according to the accusation.

In a 2006 case, Mr. J., died of a drug overdose “due to” a combination of three anti-depressant drugs prescribed by Nasse, the state maintains.

Nasse’s “failure to obtain tricyclic blood levels to establish the effective levels of the medications, and perform a drug screen to determine what other drugs the patient was taking constituted repeated acts of negligence,” according to the accusation.

Then, in 2007, when a Medical Board investigator posed as a patient, Nasse  “failed to conduct a comprehensive initial examination and evaluation.” Still, the doctor purportedly prescribed the drug. Diazepam, a tranquilizer and muscle relaxant, for the investigator, then failed to set up a follow-up examination within 30 days.

That scenario demonstrates gross negligence and repeated acts of negligence, the state maintains.

Again in 2007, in another case cited by the state, Nasse treated a Ms. T, who had been suffering from depression and alcohol abuse. About seven weeks into that treatment, the patient was admitted to Ojai Valley Community Hospital. She had a .217 blood-alcohol level and was having seizures. She also had an anti-epileptic drug in her system, investigators report.

The Medical Board maintains that Nasse prescribed Ms. T anti-anxiety medicines 19 times in one year, and it concludes:

“The prescription of benzodiazepines (anti-anxiety medications) to a patient who has a history of alcohol abuse and chloral hydrate (sedative) usage risks a potentially lethal outcome and constitutes gross negligence and an extreme departure from the applicable medical standard of care.”

Nor did Nasse refer Ms. T to a neurologist for her seizures or consult with her previous psychiatrist to determine her psychiatric history, the state maintains.

Nasse also failed to maintain adequate and accurate records for a fifth patient, the state finds.

The lawyer representing the Medical Board could not be reached for comment about how soon the case may be heard, or resolved; Nasse would not identify his own attorney.

This remembrance of Marty Fujita was written by family friend and former OVN intern Cole Bettles

This past Sunday, hundreds gathered at Meditation Mountain to celebrate the life of Marty Fujita. The service greatly reflected the positive impact she had on her community and the world at large. Amid the tears, upbeat music, laughter and a feeling of optimism filled the air on Meditation Mountain as friends and family reflected upon her life.

For 10 months, Fujita had been fighting lung cancer. Early on, she accepted the fate of this horrible disease, yet she spent her final months working ardently to see that her life’s mission of conserving our environment would be carried out by co-workers, friends and family. In fact, in the hospital during her final days, she was texting, e-mailing and calling others to plan various events.

Fujita had an ability to amalgamate individuals with a common vision and lead them to create change. Her elocution was loud and strong, but she always put the money where her mouth was. In Ojai, she co-founded Food for Thought Ojai, a community-based farm-to-school organization. She was a leading member of the Ventura Agriculture Futures Alliance, a program that advocates for the long-term viability of the region’s food system. In 2008, she contracted to serve as a director of the Social Justice Fund for Ventura County. That same year she contracted to oversee all retail operations and develop, implement and incorporate into all operations of the Ojai Music Festival, a “green plan” to work toward carbon-neutrality.

Recently she brought all of these local lessons and experiences to Hawaii where she served as advisor for the Kokua Hawaii Foundation’s ‘Aina In Schools program, a farm-to-school organization for Hawaii’s public schools. Fujita also helped to organize the Hawaii Ag Alliance, and was asked to become a board member of the Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation.

In 1977, after receiving a bachelor’s in biology at the University of California at San Diego, she realized her love of the earth would become more than a passion — a career. She continued her studies at UCSD in sociobiology and population biology. Soon after, she took graduate courses in statistics and evolutionary biology at Iowa State University. Her studies drew her even farther east to Boston University. Here she earned a doctorate in ecology, evolution and behavior; her dissertation was on “Latitudinal comparison of growth and development in the little brown bat, Myotis lucifungus, with implications for geographic variation in adult morphology.” She finished up her education with postdoctoral research at Harvard University; she also taught behavioral ecology at Harvard.

Fujita’s impact went far beyond Ojai and Ventura. In the late ‘80s, she served as an assistant environmental advisor for the Latin America and Caribbean Bureau – U.S. Agency for International Development.  Thereafter, she served as an international conservation officer of the conservation and research center of the National Zoological Park, part of the Smithsonian Institution.  Here she was a liaison for conservation-oriented Smithsonian projects in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Washington, D.C. After spending some time in Indonesia for the Smithsonian Institution, she fell in love with the region and became director of the Pacific Region of The Nature Conservancy. Fujita brought success to this program and her extensive impact is evident today. It is during this time she met her husband, Chuck Cook, and gave birth to her twin daughters, Dana and Taylor.

But raising a familiy did not hold her up. In fact, Chuck, Dana and Taylor became closely integrated with her work and the family began their story in Indonesia. Fujita continued her work directing several more programs and projects to protect the environment in Palau and Indonesia. When her daughters turned 4, the family moved back to the states. In 2002, the family became residents of Ojai.

Chuck Cook and Fujita were a team, consistently working together to create, implement and manage their programs of interest.

Donations in honor of Fujita’s life and work can be made to Food for Thought Ojai: P.O. Box 1645, Ojai, CA 93024.

Casitas Municipal Water District’s rejection
of disposal plan threatens dam’s removal

By Daryl Kelley
The Casitas Municipal Water District refused Wednesday to endorse in concept disposal of 2.1 million cubic yards of silt behind obsolete Matilija Dam to a storage area above the dam, an alternative favored by county and federal agencies.

Casitas directors, on a 3-2 vote, refused to grant conceptual approval to an alternative proponent recommended to rescue the troubled $155-million dam demolition project by moving it along more quickly and for much less money.

Two other silt-removal alternatives had turned out to be either more expensive than expected or were blocked by uncooperative private property owners.

Casitas’ approval of the new alternative was considered essential because federal money, the bulk of the overall project’s funding,- cannot be pushed through Congress without Casitas on board, project backers said.

Conceptual approval by Casitas would have enabled federal officials to gain about $4 million needed to complete a final design of the project, backers said. About $4 million has already been spent on such studies.

But most Casitas directors said Wednesday that they did not have enough information to commit to the new alternative, even conceptually.

They said they needed to be convinced the project would not harm the quality of water in the huge Lake Casitas reservoir or interfere with the district’s federal mandate to assist migration of endangered steelhead trout.

They asked for more study, saying they felt they were being forced to make a decision prematurely or to take the blame for killing the overall project.

Indeed, after the vote, county and federal officials said Casitas’ position puts the entire project in jeopardy, because delay will allow scarce federal funds to go elsewhere.

“The project is at more risk now than it was before this vote,” said Ventura County Supervisor Steve Bennett, spokesman for groups favoring the newest alternative. “I remain committed to finding a way to overcome this setback, but this decision makes it much more difficult.”

Directors Russ Baggerly, Pete Kaiser and Richard Handley said they wanted more study before they could commit to the new storage concept, while Directors Bill Hicks and Jim Word voted for conceptual approval because of warnings that the project could die from delay.

Baggerly, frequently an ally with Bennett on environmental issues, said he had to break with the county supervisor this time, partly because he did not want to see a permanent silt storage area built in Matilija Canyon. Perhaps the silt could be stabilized above the dam by mixing it with soil, he said.

Baggerly said the new alternative would accomplish none of the goals set out by groups that have worked for more than a decade to remove Matilija Dam, which has been nearly filled with silt and sediment since the 1960s.

The alternative would not restore the Ventura River to its natural state, he said, nor would it bring sand to Ventura beaches, enhance recreational opportunities or assist migration of the endangered steelhead trout.

“We don’t necessarily have to jump into this today,” Baggerly said, complaining that Casitas had only weeks to study the new alternative, which is poorly defined so far.

“If we get our heads together we might be able to work something out,” he said. “But this dog won’t hunt … There are other alternatives.”

He asked Bennett and representatives of the county Watershed Protection District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to bring in experts to answer Casitas’ questions about what might happen to the stored silts during heavy flooding and to study whether some of the silt stored in the canyon might be released over time, instead of placed in a de facto “landfill” permanently.

“I don’t want to endorse this preliminary idea until it is more thoroughly vetted,” Baggerly said.

A Corps of Engineers spokesman, Darrell Buxton, told the board that its approval would pave the way for a more complete analysis of the Matilija Canyon storage alternative.

“This is a conceptual design,” he said. “With your concurrence, we’ll go forward and answer a lot of these questions.”

Board member Hicks said he didn’t think Casitas had much choice.

“If we’re going to lose this funding, then where are we?” Hicks said. “If, in fact, the funding is going to go away, this is the lesser of three evils.”

But Baggerly, joined by Kaiser and, finally, Handley disagreed. They approved an amended statement of the Casitas position that called for more study instead of endorsing the behind-the-dam storage alternative.

“The proposed concept may have elements that could prove to be beneficial,” the Casitas statement said. “And, in the spirit of collaboration, there may be other ideas on the subject that may also prove to be useful.”

But, after the vote, Bennett said the county had no money for studies and that the Corps of Engineers had a very limited budget for such analysis.

So, Bennett said, Casitas’ position could derail removal of Matilija Dam, which had been on a fast track in Washington but could now be shunted aside in favor of other federal projects that are ready to go.

“After the millions that have been spent, Casitas asking for more expensive in-depth studies when they are not willing to even conceptually support the proposal likely dooms the project to the decades-long slow track,” Bennett said Thursday morning.

“The Army Corps has hundreds of underfunded projects,” he added. “Why would they spend their scarce dollars on expensive in-depth studies if the Casitas board is not willing to even conceptually support the proposal.”

Baggerly’s response was that it would have been “bad government” for Casitas to endorse so sketchy a proposal.

“Casitas told them publicly that if they could demonstrate that the fines (silt) could be stabilized upstream permanently, we could live with it,” he said Thursday. “To date they have not been able to answer one single question. The only answers we have received are ‘We don’t know,’ or ‘We will have to look at that.’”

Baggerly said project backers need to revisit an alternative embraced six years ago, to pump slurried silt from behind the dam to the Baldwin Road area, where it would have been spread along the Ventura River to wash downstream during storms.

The cost of that proposal skyrocketed from about $30 million to more than $50 million, so project backers looked for cheaper alternatives.

Baggerly said the Baldwin Road plan might be used in conjuction with other alternatives.

“Just as they have come up with a new concept,” he said, “I believe there may be some combination of concepts that may work.”

The malfunctioning temperature sign outside the Ojai branch of Washington Mutual reached a sizzling 123 degrees Oct. 3, 2008. The actual air temperature was about 93 degrees at the time. Some have complained about its removal, while others say the time and temperature were never right.

Chase removes longstanding time-temperature display

By Sondra Murphy
A throng of people gets off a bus and each seems to immediately place a cell phone to his ear. The dashboards of late-model automobiles look like the spaceship controls in a typical science fiction movie and many now talk to drivers.

In an era where most people have a plethora of information at their fingertips via satellite transmission to personal electronic gadgetry, few could anticipate the removal of a bank sign displaying dot matrix time and temperature would be considered a drastic loss to the community.

And yet the OVN has heard several complaints since last month, when the Chase Bank branch on Maricopa Highway replaced the old, glowing Washington Mutual sign with one that simply identifies the new company.

According to assistant city manager Steve McClary, the city’s sign ordinance prompted Chase to opt for a simpler design. “Because of some other requirements that the city was placing on the sign, it was my understanding they chose not to replace the sign,” said McClary.

“The bank asked if they could remove the sign and we said, ‘Yes,’” said Shari Herbruck, city planning and building technician. “Our code doesn’t allow interior-lit signs because it’s in violation of the city sign ordinance.” Herbruck said Chase received approval for the change Oct. 15 and the previous sign had required conditional use permit approval by the Ojai Planning Commission to allow for the luminous display.

“We were able to obtain a permit for only one sign and the sign up there was not operating properly,” said Gary Kishner, a Chase Bank spokesperson. “So we just replaced it with our standard signage.”

Perhaps the change will motivate us to dust off our owner’s manuals and figure out how to read our vehicle’s digital time display while the radio is playing. Local automotive shops might even earn some extra revenue by stocking temperature sensor devices for those vehicles currently without them.

Council struggling with nighttime lighting costs

By Sondra Murphy
Like most of us, the city of Ojai has been dealing with increases in utility costs and they want public input on its lighting and landscaping challenges.

Ojai Public Works director Mike Culver presented reports on landscaping and lighting districts No. 1 and No. 3 Jan. 26. In it, Culver said the districts, “continue to show a substantial deficit in revenues vs. expenditures.”

After eliminating all non-essential maintenance services, Culver reported that street lighting is the only remaining means to reduce costs. The idea is tricky, however, due to the way in which lighting revenues are raised.

District No. 1 was created in the ‘30s under the provisions of the California Street Lighting Act of 1919 and re-established in 1988. These assessments provided about $50,000 in annual revenue for the cost of landscaping needs, including electricity and maintenance. When the revenues came up short in 2003-2004, District No. 3 was created in order to continue the established level of service.

“Costs continued to escalate over the next few years, prompting an election requesting a 40-percent increase in assessments during fiscal year 2006-2007,” Culver’s report cited. Voters rejected the assessment, 2-1.

Culver said this fiscal year’s budget for such needs is $169,874, while the revenues are only $97,582. One-third of that budget goes to the cost of lighting, while the remainder is to cover maintenance functions and support, park lighting, indirect overhead, emergency capital improvements, preparation of the engineer’s report and minor expenses.

The districts are split into 12 zones with each having an independent street lighting rate based on the density of streetlights in that zone. If lighting service is reduced in any zone, the assessment also goes down, reducing revenues overall.

All but two of the city’s streetlights are owned by Southern California Edison and billed in two different cost categories. Service charges are flat costs per month per fixture and intended to cover maintenance costs and comprise approximately 75 percent of the total bill. Energy charges are based on electricity usage.

“A good portion of this funding comes from the density of streetlights. If we turn off all the lights, we have no funds,” said Culver. “If we recalculate the density areas, it changes property assessments, so it’s a complicated issue.”

The streetlights in question do not include any of the lights along Ojai Avenue or Maricopa Highway, which Caltrans maintains. Culver concluded that eliminating streetlights was, thus, unlikely to impact public safety in the city. “There would, however, be potential security concerns as a result of residential neighborhoods with limited or no street lighting,” Culver said.

“We either need to make the service match the revenue or raise the revenue,” said Culver. He said the reverse approach is to categorize essential services and find out how important they are to residents.

“I think we need to make a commitment to provide those services,” said Councilwoman Sue Horgan. “I think it would be ridiculous to go to the voters and ask for an increase in revenues now. I don’t think it would pass.”

Mayor Pro-Tem Carol Smith suggested they temporarily reduce street lighting and ask for public reaction. “One thing I think the public needs to realize is what it means not to have these services … I agree safety is an issue, but we’re under the gun here,” she said. “The average person knows their electric bill has gone up. Why do they think the city’s hasn’t?”

Councilwoman Betsy Clapp liked the idea, but city attorney Monte Widders fretted over public safety and Horgan was not convinced that the savings would be sufficient. “That’s like punishing the public,” said Horgan.

“We’re not trying to punish them, we’re trying to make them aware of where the money goes,” Smith said.

“There’s a difference in philosophy going on here and I don’t think we’ll get the voters’ support,” said Mayor Steve Olsen. “I think it should be a balanced thing.”

“The reason we brought all the policy issues to you is because, if you had consensus, it would help the engineer,” said city manager Jere Kersnar. “I don’t hear that consensus tonight.” Council members decided to wait for the engineer’s report before holding further discussion on the issue. The council approved resolutions directing the city engineer to prepare the annual report for both districts.

Training center project closer to becoming reality

By Sondra Murphy
When catastrophe strikes, it is reassuring to know there is qualified help on the way and training centers for search teams play a vital role in disaster preparedness.

Upon returning from successful rescues during the aftermath of the recent Haitian earthquake, the Ojai-based National Disaster Search Dog Foundation announced the receipt of a $1 million challenge grant from the Wood-Claeyssens Foundation for the creation of a national training center on a 125-acre ranch site in Santa Paula.

The grant paves the way to help build a state-of-the-art center dedicated solely to the training of canine disaster search teams. “We estimate the total cost for the facility is $9.6 million and we’ve raised $3.7 million, so nearly $6 million is still needed,” said Janet Reineck, NDSDF development director. “We hope people will match what Wood-Claeyssens gave us and meet their challenge.”

NDSDF pairs rescued dogs with firefighters and first responders from the state and nation, who receive advanced training. “It costs about $15,000 to get a team going, then we support them throughout the working life of the dog,” said Reineck. “We follow the team and keep them trained and this training center will be at the heart of it. They have to be at the top of their game, or ‘highest deployment readiness.’”

NDSDF was started in 1996 after founder Wilma Melville returned from the Oklahoma City bombing site with the opinion that there were not enough search dog teams available. The foundation gained national recognition after Sept. 11, 2001, when 13 NDSDF teams were deployed to search the ruins of the World Trade Center disaster site.

Foundation teams have since responded to 67 disasters. In addition to Haiti and Ground Zero, teams have assisted during the 2005 La Conchita mud slide, a Paso Robles earthquake and 2008 Chatsworth train derailment.

The training center is slated to open Sept. 11, 2011 to honor those who served the country on 9-11 and as a memorial to those who lost their lives. It will include canine housing, disaster simulation training sites and classrooms and create a maintenance and depreciation endowment to cover operating costs. The center will also be made available to FEMA and State Offices of Emergency Services for the Search Team Certification testing required for disaster deployment.

“SDF’s services are in demand as never before,” said Melville. “We are the ‘911’ of the fire service — providing highly skilled canine-firefighter teams to find people buried alive under the wreckage of disasters. We offer the team and the training program at no cost to the fire departments. The Wood-Claeyssens Foundation challenge grant is an important, lifesaving gift to our community, state and nation.”

Shortly after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck on Jan. 12, seven NDSDF search teams deployed to Haiti, helping to rescue eight people trapped in the rubble. More than 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater were reported during the two weeks that followed. It is estimated that 200,000 perished during the disaster, 300,000 have been treated for injuries and 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial structures had collapsed or have been severely damaged.

“Our selection of the Search Dog Foundation to receive this challenge grant is based in our belief that there is nothing more basic for a community than to have the resources needed to respond to emergencies,” said Noelle Claeyssens Burkey, president of the Wood-Claeyssens Foundation. “Our community and state are prone to natural disasters and the Search Dog Foundation teams directly strengthen the emergency response network. If our funding is able to attract new donors to help the Search Dog Foundation open the center in the next 18 months, each and every citizen will benefit.”

The Wood-Claeyssens Foundation is a California nonprofit corporation that provides grants to qualified nonprofit organizations in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

According to Reineck, NDSDF does not receive government funding, but relies on sponsorships and donations from individuals and private foundations to remain in operation. The foundation trains highly skilled teams at no cost to the participating departments. To learn more about this nonprofit organization or to donate to its efforts, visit SearchDogFoundation.org.

.org.

SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT PRESS RELEASE
Officer preparing release: Sgt. Bill Schierman
Narrative: Ventura Avenue gang member Jimmy Villalpando was sentenced to eight years in state prison today for shooting a rival gang member in 2007.

On 2-23-2007, Ojai patrol deputies responded to a report of a gunshot victim in the 300 block of N. Drown Avenue, Ojai.  When they arrived, they found victim Hugo Guerra suffering from two gunshot wounds to the chest. Guerra told deputies that he was parking his car in front of his house when a car pulled up alongside him.  One of the occupants yelled out a gang slogan then shot him.  Guerra was transported to the Ventura County Medical Center where he eventually recovered from his wounds.

The suspect in the shooting was quickly identified as Jimmy Villalpando.  He was located several hours later in the area of Oak View and arrested.

On 2-27-2007, the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office filed one count of shooting at an inhabited vehicle against Villalpando.  On 2-28-2007, Villalpando was released on 90,000 dollar bail.  On 3-1-2007, Villalpando failed to appear in court and a 250,000 dollar warrant was issued for his arrest.

Shortly after Villalpando failed to appear in court, the Sheriff’s Gang Unit attempted to locate him.  Gang investigators tracked him to an area near El Paso, Texas and developed information that he crossed the border into Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.  Gang investigators believe he remained in Mexico until September of 2009.

On 9-23-2009, the Sheriff’s Department received a tip that Villalpando had returned from Mexico and was staying at his parent’s house in the 200 block of Burnham Rd., Oak View.  Sheriff’s gang investigators and Ojai patrol deputies went to the house and located Villalpando hiding in the attic.  He was arrested and booked into the Ventura County Jail.

On 12-22-2009, Villalpando pled guilty to one count of assault with a firearm.  On 2-4-2010, he was sentenced to 8 years in state prison.

Wilma Melville with former search dog, Jem, and one of her current BFFs, Newton, the dachshund, at play. Melville will have at least one dog in the lead convertible at this year’s Ojai Independence Day parade, scheduled for Saturday, July 3.

NDSDF founder selected to lead 2010 Independence Day parade

By Nancy Gross
The 10 members of the Independence Day Committee unanimously chose Wilma Melville, of the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation, to be this year’s grand marshal for Ojai’s Fourth of July parade. Melville and her organization are sources of hometown pride, and national and international heroism.

Committee member Nancy Hill said the parade has taken place since 1921, the year her uncle was the grand marshal, both in Ojai and Oak View. “This particular committee formed 45 years ago. We are the people who do the work and actually put on the parade,” Hill said.

“Last year we had our veterans come in,” Hill said, adding that the 40 veterans marked a proud, historic moment for the parade. The committee tried to find an act to follow that one. They came up with the idea of honoring Melville and the unusual heroes her foundation trains. “We’re hoping to get some of those dogs in the parade. Those dogs are so special,” Hill said.

Melville said, “It’s certainly an honor. No doubt about it. I’m pleased to carry out the tradition.”

Melville plans to have at least one dog with her. “I’m going to bring Abby, a dog that went on numerous deployments. The largest was the World Trade Center. She was also at the Glendale train wreck and the La Conchita mud slide. She’s the hero, not me.”

And yet Melville’s vision, along with the contributions of those who have partnered with her, have made it so that there are more than 100 advanced certified disaster search dog and handler teams in the United States, when in 1995 there were only 15.

“I just wanted to learn how to train a dog,” Melville said when asked about her early experiences with her black Labrador, Murphy. It was something that interested the retired physical education teacher, having a highly trained dog. She found Pluis Davern at Sundowners Training Kennel in Gilroy.

Davern taught Melville and Murphy the skills that make a fine canine search team. “Murphy and I attained advanced disaster search dog certification with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Murphy has written about what caused her to found NDSDF: “In April of 1995, Murphy and I were deployed to the terrorist bombed Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Murphy and the other search dogs covered large areas of rubble, barking loudly to indicate where victims were buried, thereby saving precious time for firefighters. This disaster made it clear that there were too few certified search dog-handler teams. Out of this heartbreaking experience came a determination to find a better way to create highly skilled canine search teams.

“My experience with trainer Pluis Davern taught me the three ingredients that are paramount: the right dog, matched with the right handler and professional training for both. This three-pronged combination not only addresses those pitfalls, but also accounts for our 85 percent success rate. The foundation chooses the dog, raises the funds to have the dog professionally trained, and then works with the handler and dog as a team until they reach certification and beyond. Another part of the success is that we use firefighters, who are first to a disaster, as the handlers.”

The dogs that are trained are rescued dogs, which make NDSDF a humane and humanitarian organization. They choose dogs with drive, focus and athleticism, and provide ongoing training for the dog’s 10-year working life, and lifetime care when the dog must be retired from their search team.

NDSDF reported at least eight rescues in Haiti, following the 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit on Jan. 12. Melville said, “I am glad the initial phase is over. It’s such a hard phase. Our handlers have learned a great deal. They will share that with us.”

Because the news from Haiti surprised many people with rescues occurring many days after the disaster struck, Melville added, “Earthquakes are like that. People can live through them. That’s why, in California, we prepare for them.

“We are heavily into planning a national training center. We’ll have props that simulate this disaster. That is how each disaster is. You have to learn from it.”

Visit searchdogfoundation.org.

Layoff notices due March 2

By Linda Harmon
In another long but productive meeting the Ojai Unified School District board heard the last of their school site reports for the year, positive results from a new math textbook trial, preliminary approval of proposed rules for the city’s new Skate Park, and received the newest estimates of the available funds for the 2010-2011 general fund budget.

“The board has received two iterations of the budget and everything that has happened over the last six weeks has been bad. Everything has been going in the wrong direction for us,” said superintendent Henry Bangser, introducing a presentation of the governor’s proposed state budget. “I’ve had several meetings with staff over the last few weeks for the purpose of getting ready for the dissemination of facts, answering questions, and looking at the basis of problem solving.”

Bangser then introduced assistant superintendent Dannielle Pusatere, who explained in detail staff’s two-page document with estimated figures for next year’s budget.

“These numbers are based on the governor’s January budget proposal,” said Pusatere. “They will change.”

Pusatere’s figures included $1.9 million in cuts with a 1 percent reserve, and include a total ongoing personnel reduction of 39.76 full-time positions for 2010-2011, even assuming the same cuts approved by the union last year.

“I’ll meet with anybody over the next month to make sure questions are answered. I realize there is a tremendous amount of anxiety, and rightfully so,” said Bangser of the outlook for job and program losses. “My plan is to have a clear, transparent and interactive process with staff and community.”

Bangser, who will be meeting with both Ojai Rotary clubs this week, acknowledged that the public has grown pessimistic about threats of layoffs and cuts due to increasing funding cuts.

“I’ve heard from numerous sources that over the last couple of years, right about this time, there were significant concerns raised about the ability to maintain the programs of that year the following year because of a financial challenge,” said Bangser. “I believe that. And I believe very intelligent minds came together. Dani worked her magic, Tim did his thing, the board did their thing, the union came together and, in some cases, gave up benefits and some cases, salaries. Whatever happened, the programs and the people were essentially retained in the following year.”

Bangser acknowledged that some things were cut, but in the grand scheme of things the public sees that many things were retained.

Not this year, as the 13 percent or $2,965,000 in reductions will be felt across the district.

“I absolutely assure you, next year’s staffing and programs will be markedly different than last year,” said Bangser. “It’s mathematics. A significant number of people that are here, will not be here next year. It breaks my heart that people who have been working here up to 10 years, may not be able to be retained.”

According to Bangser, he will have a list of names for pink slips by the end of this month for action on March 2, and a list of classified employees for next month. Bangser also said he will continue to work closely with staff and the union.

Union representative Martha Ditchfield said two-thirds of her union school site representatives may be getting pink slips but that she felt “good” about how Bangser was handling things on the whole.

At which point Board President Kathi Smith stated her understanding of budget figures saying, “but 85 percent of the district’s budget is people and 64 percent of that is teachers” — a fact Bangser acknowledged and to which Ditchfield added, “I just want to be sure that percentage stays the same. The concern of my budget committee is that we’ve already accepted cuts in benefits, increased workload, and a wage cut.”

Bangser said his main concern right now was “letting the public know” about the situation, even though no final figures are available.

“The budget will take effect mid- to late-August,” said Bangser, “You don’t start educating the public in late July or even on March 2.”

By Sondra Murphy
Last week’s presentation by a Golden State Water Company official to the Ojai City Council went over like a wet blanket. Ken Petersen, GSWC Coastal District regional manager, briefed the city on the 43 percent increase they are asking for from the California Public Utilities Commission. Petersen said a public meeting on the rate case was still under way at Nordhoff High School.

After a review of GSWC’s history, Petersen explained that the proposed increase, as reported in the OVN’s Jan. 22 issue, is to cover the cost of the deteriorating water system’s infrastructure and capital projects aimed at improving it. “We still have water mains that have been in the ground since 1929,” said Petersen, “and that, of course, affects water quality.”

If it sounds a bit like déjà vu to customers, it is because the same claims were cited by GSWC, an American States Water Company subsidiary, back in 2007. After going through an onerous CPUC hearing process, GSWC was allowed a 35 percent rate increase in 2008.

Petersen cited upgrades to aging pipes and supply wells, such as the San Antonio tank, as two of the reasons the increase is being sought. “Rates are established to allow recovery of operating costs and provide an opportunity to earn fair rate of return on investment,” Petersen said. “Since the last comprehensive general rate case in 2007, facility and operating costs have increased, resulting in the need to file the current proposal.”

Regarding increases in operating costs, Petersen specified water and electricity supply expenses, materials and supplies, group health insurance, property insurance, maintenance expenses, and postage. Petersen also said the company will be seeking a change from bi-monthly to monthly billing statements. “We have only five people working here in the coastal area and we would need an extra person reading that meter,” he said, if the rate case is approved.

“I’m sure we are all moved by your case for a rate increase, but what your customers are probably wondering is, ‘What are customers getting for these increases?,’” said Council-woman Sue Horgan. She added that it was her understanding that GSWC was directed at the last increase to submit reports to the city. “To my knowledge, we have received no such report.”

“The master plan that Mr. Petersen referenced is to be that report, but I have not yet seen it,” said city manager Jere Kersnar.

“I would suggest you start with those issues before giving us reasons for an increase,” Horgan advised Petersen.

“It sounds like you’re just assuring your rate of return to investors on the backs of the Ojai community,” said Councilwoman Betsy Clapp. “I’m fundamentally opposed to private water corporations owning public water. I think it’s pretty deplorable that, two years later, you’re asking for an increase of this amount.”

She then took it further. “I think it’s time for us to consider taking back the water,” said Clapp. “If we don’t, it’s just going to get worse and worse and worse and we’ll be hostage to a private company that has control over a public utility.” Clapp added that she would support looking into purchasing the city water supply through eminent domain and financing it through bonds.

GSWC has operated in Ojai under a long-standing, open-ended contract with the city and its service cannot be discontinued because it owns the pumps and water lines that serve the community, unless local water users buy the equipment.

Eminent domain is the inherent power of the government to seize private property, with due monetary compensation, but without the owner’s consent. The property is taken either for government use or by delegation to third parties who will devote it to public or civic use or, in some cases, economic development.

“It seems that not too long ago we did a study on the cost of taking over the system,” said Mayor Steve Olsen.

Sally Field at Matilija Auditorium

By Nancy Gross
Saturday’s Ojai Playwrights Conference winter gala and benefit, “Hearts on Fire,” featured stars Sally Field, John Glover, Dana Delany, Sandra Oh, Steven Weber, Noah Wyle, Amanda McBroom and Jane Kaczmarek on the Matilija Auditorium stage, performing selections from a number of plays by Terrence McNally.

The winter gala is intended to raise funds for the summer workshop program. The OPC believes that the value of theater as it is developed is linked to the value of theater as it takes its final form, and engages audiences, challenges ideas and changes the world.

The visuals for the show, which came before the food and festivities at St. Thomas Aquinas Center, relied on pared-down, grown-up elegance. The stars wore mostly black (accents included a grey sweater on Glover, Weber’s subtle lavender shirt and Oh’s lavender stockings, Delany’s pink and Field’s red shoes). The rich, red light-reflective curtains were like an open candy box, delivering differently concocted valentines, inspired treats, though glimpses of the human experience can’t be compared to sugary confections. Even so, the presentations were satisfying vignettes, not pessimistic.

Artistic director and producer Robert Egan said that he prepared for the event by trying to read through all of the plays of honoree playwright McNally. “I was struck,” Egan said, “not only by this man’s incredible output, but by his form, which is a mixture of naturalism and realism, and by the size of this man’s heart.”

At a row of black music stands, actors brought the scenes to life, with no costumes and very minimal stage direction. Introductions to the individual plays were brief; with each scene the audience was without much context, right in the middle of things.

It was a testimony to the ability of the actors and the honesty of the writing that convincing relationships appeared, and interactions created small affecting climaxes.

McNally would not want to credit the written play above the actors’ gifts for creating lives from thin air. Later in the evening he said, “I learn from my actors, my director, what the play is about. Theater is the most collaborative art.”

It is February, the month of Valentine’s Day, and the gala allowed for many examples of what it means to be relational.

“Frankie and Johnny at the Clair de Lune,” is a well-known McNally play because it was turned into the film, “Frankie and Johnny” with Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino.

The story captures sorrow-infused hope, or hope-infused sorrow, a valentine to those who have known grown-up, high-cost heartbreak. Weber and Kaczmarek read the parts.

Frankie to Johnny: “Not everyone thinks life is a picnic. Some of us have problems, sorrows … You don’t just decide to fall in love with people out of the blue.”

Johnny to Frankie: “Why not? When it comes to love, life’s cheap and it’s short, so don’t f—— with it.”

McNally’s work does not focus only on romantically involved couples. “Lips Together Teeth Apart” displayed a relationship between a brother and sister with ties both simple and complex, a brother-in-law and sister-in-law sharing a confidence, and the tendency for couples to compare their relationships. There was even mention of the relationship with one’s unborn children.

In a brief conversation out of “Love! Valour! Compassion!” strangers with ties to a common love interest talked around their jealousy and wound up flirting.

Best friends traveling in India together were portrayed in a scene from “The Perfect Ganesh,” bickering, alternating between which one is the more prejudiced and small-minded, like kids going up and down on a seesaw.

Throughout the evening, words worked to create believable lines of affiliation, even with few actions to accompany them. The actors were chosen well: their voices, faces and minimal gestures offered the audience characters whose hearts became visible just beneath, and even in tandem with, the workings of the ego. Perhaps that is why McNally’s characters are so beautiful, they aren’t big dissimulators.

Highlights of the after-party were cranberry and pomegranate martinis, a glimpse of timelessly sweet and strong Field, Oh with her beautiful manner and voluptuous hair, the smile and wit of Delany and Weber, the hilarity of Glover and the brilliance of McBroom. The food was prepared by celebrity chef Michael Hollingsworth. A surprise: typically dense carrots can become a light and frothy mousse as a cinnamon-topped souffle.

The stars appeared to be having fun, genuine fun, well cared for by the OPC staff and volunteers. McNally said, “There is nothing more joyful than being in rehearsal with great actors. American stage needs the kind of development that places like Ojai provide.”

The OPC takes good care of Ojai also, reaching out to residents with new and affordable options in downtown last summer, including the inaugural Family Day. The 2010 season runs Aug. 10 through 15. Visit ojaiplays.org.

Ojai-Ventura Film Festival president claims OVN report innacurate

By Linda Harmon
In response to a report in the Jan. 27 edition of the Ojai Valley News, David Shor, former director and chairman of the Ojai Film Festival, addressed the apparent confusion created by an e-mail sent earlier this month announcing the formation of the new Ojai-Ventura International Film Festival.

Shor claims that the article, which stated he resigned in December leaving a large deficit and bad feelings behind, contains inaccuracies.

“I didn’t leave anything behind of the sort,” said Shor, in a phone conversation Jan. 27. “I’m a volunteer and I had nothing to do with the money.”

According to Steve Grumette, vice president and creative director of the Ojai Film Festival, at the end of 2007, Shor assumed the role of treasurer with an $80,000 debt. Monday, Shor countered that the debt was actually closer to $100,000 and he only temporarily held the position of treasurer for less than three months.

“I want to make it perfectly clear, he is not completely responsible for all of that, Grumette said Monday, adding the board opened a line of credit to cover deficits, backed by seven of the board’s members. Most of those members have resigned. Shor said he was not one of the board members backing that credit line.

On the Ojai Valley News web site blog, Shor added this comment: “In fact, a substantial (a)mount of money owed by Grumette’s Ojai Film Festival is owed to me for out of pocket costs I paid.” On Monday Shor estimated that the amount owed to him to be about $2,000.

Shor acknowledges sending out e-mails announcing his planned event, referred to as a Save the Dates notification.

“The article states I sent out a press release last week which, again, is an example of an inaccurate statement,” wrote Shor. “I issued no press releases.”

Several people, confused about whether the e-mail was coming from the Ojai Film Festival, contacted both Herb Hemming, the current president of the Ojai Film Festival, and Grumette.

“I think people are still confused,” Hemming said. “For nine years it was the Ojai Film Festival. For one year there were some people on the board who wanted to expand the festival into Ventura. So last year they named it The Ojai-Ventura Film Festival.”

Shor said he has registered the name Ojai-Ventura International Film Festival with the State of California.

“I own that name and I have every right to use that name anyway I want,” said Shor, “and I’ve chosen the way I want to do it.”

Grumette agrees.

“David, personally, did register the name Ojai-Ventura Film Festival for us to use,” said Grumette. “If he wants to use that name and put on events using it, we have no problem with that.

According to Hemming, the Ojai Film Festival’s board doesn’t want this to be a continuing fight and says they are working hard to put this behind them.

“When David resigned we lost several board members for various reasons,” said Hemming. “At the time Steve (Grumette), Vickie Baldwin and I made a commitment to keep the Ojai Film Festival going.”

The Ojai Film Festival Board now has eight members and two consultants focused on paying off the debt left after the 2009 Festival.

“Here’s the only info I know for sure. As of Dec. 11, 2009, the figures were: total assets: $7,628.33, total liabilities $59,523.91, Grumette reported. “I don’t know how those numbers fluctuated between the end of 2007, when we had a very large deficit, perhaps $80,000 – $90,000, and Dec. 11, 2009 when the figures were as shown above.”

Members include Hemming, Grumette, Baldwin, secretary-treasurer Stuart Crowner, Bob O’Connor, Ann Willard-Bevans, Sam Hamman, and Ruth Hemming are working on their 2010 Festival scheduled for Nov. 4 through 7.

“Basically there was a disagreement about the direction of the Film Festival,” said Hemming. “Some people had a much more grandiose vision of the Film Festival and some liked it as the Ojai Film Festival. That is in the past. We just want to move forward and put on a good festival for the people of Ojai.”

Photos and report by Scott Wintermute

A three-car traffic accident closed the southbound lane of Highway 33 just south of Woodland Avenue Friday afternoon around 2:45 p.m. resulting in two people being transported via ambulance to Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura.

According to authorities, Jerry Stratman was at the front of the chain reaction in his Dodge Neon and was taken to the hospital after a Lincoln Mark VIII occupied by mother and daughter, Beverly and Sue Hartmann, was struck by a Honda Passport driven by Cheryl Buclklin. Complaining of neck and back pain, Beverly Hartmann was also taken to CMH. Traffic was affected for about a half-hour.

Construction set to begin in June, but $600k still needed

By Sondra Murphy
The money is still being collected, but the Ojai City Council is working to follow the time line necessary for the rebuilding of Libbey Bowl. On Tuesday, council members approved two items associated with the project to renovate the deteriorating facility in the heart of the city.

The city manager was authorized to execute a service agreement be-tween the city and Jones and Jones for construction management services during the approximately $3 million project, scheduled to begin in June at the conclusion of the 2010 Ojai Music Festival. Kevin Jones of the company acted as the project’s cost estimator during the conceptual design phase by David Bury & Company Architects, Ltd., then the city contracted with Jones and Jones directly last June to perform continued cost estimation services to assist in keeping the project design within the budget goal.

Ojai Public Works director Mike Culver said that there is now a need to hire a construction manager to act on behalf of the city throughout the bidding and construction phases. In November, Jones and Jones submitted a proposal to Culver for a fixed fee of $168,500 for construction management services for the duration of the project. “The typical fees for these services range from 5 to 10 percent of the total project cost, depending on the size and complexity of the project,” Culver reported. “This proposal amounts to 5.6 percent of the $3 million project cost.”

Councilwoman Betsy Clapp asked for specifics on the construction management job. “They will shepherd the process through the design phase, make sure cost strategies stay in place, assist with construction docs and bid docs,” said Culver. “Then, once the project starts, they will be the on-site manager.”

“We don’t pick the contractor, it’s let out to bid and the lowest responsible bidder gets the job,” said city attorney Monte Widders regarding the need for a manager to oversee the project.

Reimbursable expenses are anticipated not to exceed $5,000, making the total contract amount approved by the council $173,500. The agreement will include the standard termination clause that allows the city to end the agreement for any reason. Culver’s report said if, for any reason, the project did not proceed, the city would be able to terminate the agreement and would be liable only for expenses incurred to date by Jones and Jones.

Councilwoman Sue Horgan motioned for approval with the addition of a payments disbursement schedule for certain milestones. “I would just hate to run out of money before construction begins,” she said.

“I’m very happy that we have a local company,” said Mayor Pro-Tem Carol Smith. “We’re very privileged to have such an ethical company to work with it.”

The council next approved the recommended public art for Libbey Bowl. “This project requires public art, as does every public project above $300,000,” said city manager Jere Kersnar. “It’s a $40,000 minimum piece of art … the artist agrees it can be done for the budget amount. The amount was announced to all the applicants; we would like to have more, but that depends on donations.”

Kersnar added that the agreement would also include a termination clause in case the project does not come to fruition.

From a pool of 31 art proposals, Trimpin’s sound arch was recommended for selection by the Ojai Arts Commission and seven-member public art jury, which included members from the Ojai art community, Planning Commission, Arts Commission and Ojai Music Festival. Inspired by the curved shape of Libbey Bowl, the 12-foot arch will consist of 24 reclaimed metal tubes of varying lengths with resonators and internal mallet mechanisms that will produce chiming sounds similar to a xylophone.

Positioned at the entrance of the new Libbey Bowl, the sound arch will be activated by a motion sensor to play electronically pre-composed sequences. “The guiding principles of the concept was contrasting both simple and complex elements as well as produce a harmonious sculpture to highlight the Libbey Bowl’s presence,” said Trimpin in his proposal.

The sound arch will begin construction later this year and is part of the city of Ojai’s ongoing Public Arts Program. The sculpture will be officially unveiled during opening day for Libbey Bowl at the Day of Music on June 5, 2011. The drawings and artistic statement will be available on the city of Ojai web site at ci.ojai.us.

The council next heard more on the project itself. “To date we have secured $2.4 million. It’s coming in — in all shapes, forms and sizes,” said Bill Burr Jr., vice president of the Ojai Valley Service Foundation. “We expect that we will be able to fulfill the obligation to get the money in the bank so the city can get this built when it needs to be built. It’s probably one of the most exciting things, not only for the arts, but what it means for the community itself.”

Libbey Bowl amphitheater has been serving the community since it was built in the 1950s and is currently used by as many as 30 nonprofit groups for more than 50 events each year. It is estimated that 1,000 performances of plays, concerts and other civic events, such as OMF, have been staged at the bowl since 1957.

“Our plans are currently in the first round of plan check and we’re hoping to get them back next week,” said Culver. “Our expectation is we’ll come back to you March 23 to authorize bidding, so we’re full steam ahead.” Culver added that the base design cost estimate is $3,055,500, without the dressing room section Bury created, causing the features to become “add alternates” to include as bids dictate.

“We expect bids to come in very good and hope we can get all the add alternates,” Culver said. “We’re shooting for June 21 to start demolition and construction.”

“Save Libbey Bowl” is a communitywide project of the Ojai Valley Service Foundation, partnering with the city of Ojai, Civic Association, Ojai Music Festival, and other arts organizations to rebuild the outdoor amphitheater, the cultural hub of the Ojai Valley where more than a dozen performing arts events are held every year. To make a contribution to the Libbey Bowl reconstruction, call 646-3117 or visit LibbeyBowl.org.

Dolkar Tso, Norbu, Dorjee Tsewang, and Kangchen are shown in their back yard overlooking the Ojai Meadows Preserve.

By Nancy Gross
Immigrants from Tibet, Dorjee Tsewang and his wife, Dolkar Tso, said they wake up in their Taormina home every day happy to live in such a lovely place, with good friends close by, and a view of mountains and meadows from their back yard.

They miss Tibet, another place of great beauty, but their Tibetan Aid Foundation ties the two ends of their lives together like a strand of Tibetan prayer flags.

TAF, Inc. is nonprofit and non-political group, providing charitable and humanitarian aid. Having spent their young lives in Tibet, Tsewang and Tso know what kinds of projects can help with quality of life in a place dear to them.

They say it was in Ojai that the idea for the foundation came about, and began to grow quickly. “I feel that American people are very compassionate, very giving,” Tso said.

Tsewang said, “And our culture is based on compassion,” stating that giving back once they received assistance from others was what made sense.

“Our lives were enriched, and getting better in America. We had friends who wanted to help people in Tibet. We wanted to give out of our paychecks to pay back our sponsor, but he would not take the money and encouraged us to give to the people who need help, an extension of our happiness.”

They began TAF in 2004.

“We came to America with empty pockets,” Tsewang said.

“I had $50 in my pocket,” Tso said, laughing.

Their playfulness bears witness to the love they found in a refugee camp in India, prior to being sponsored and brought to the United States. They both agree, “America is a land of golden opportunity.”

Tsewang and Tso had never met in Tibet. He was from a small village, partially nomadic countryside and partially a plateau area with farming. She was from a much larger town about 150 miles away.

As young adults, having finished school, they both found themselves thinking about their future opportunities, and both decided to leave Tibet. Independent of one another, in 1995, they walked across the Himalayan Mountains into India, a journey of close to a month for each one. They met in Dharamsala, the current home of the Dalai Lama, and while they were falling in love with one another, they were also learning English. “The tourists teaching us got to know us. We bonded together,” Tsewang said. A Santa Barbara couple took a special interest in Tsewang and Tso.

Steve Harrison and Judy Flannery contributed funds for education and daily living, and brought Tsewang and Tso to America in 1997, at which time Tso attended an English language school in Pasadena, and Tsewang went to Ventura College. The two were married in 1998 and began living in Ojai.

Since coming to Ojai, Tsewang has worked at the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa, beginning as a pool boy, and becoming a manager of one of the inn’s restaurants. Tso cares for their two sons, ages 10 and 8.

In 2008, after 14 years away, they were able to take their boys and visit their homeland, reuniting with their parents. Sons Kangchen Tsering (who the family calls just Kangchen), and Kangchen Norbu (who they call Norbu) had another pretty landscape to play in. “They could go up on the mountain,” their mom said.

On Feb. 13 at 4:30 p.m. at the Ojai Theatre, Tsewang and Tso will present a documentary about the emotional reunions when they returned to Tibet. The film also follows the projects of TAF, while giving a glimpse of the land and Tibetan culture. The 17 hours of film shot by friend and Hollywood videographer David Luckenbach, were edited down to 25 minutes by Julia Green.

Luckenbach had insisted on accompanying Tsewang and Tso back to Tibet to capture the precious moments. Tso said, “Maybe it was his wife’s idea.” Luckenbach took his 12-year-old daughter to Tibet also.

Tsewang said, “The Tibetan Aid Foundation has become so many people’s lives. We have 300 donors since 2004.”  Projects concern education and health care.

“We sponsor seven kids to go to school. One has become a teacher, one a nurse. We have results.”

A hospital has been built in the Chazhu valley, and more than 3,000 people receive medical care. “We have two villages, 1,500 people receiving mountain spring water. Otherwise, every household has one family member dedicated to walking to get the water. At 14,000 feet above sea level, in the winter you have to break the ice to get the water.”

One family tells Tsewang that by bringing water into the community of people, “It frees up one daughter to go to school.”

Tsewang was one of nine children who grew up in a clay house. At times it would be 30 degrees below freezing both inside and outside of the house.

In early January, Tsewang and Tso both passed the tests to become American citizens. “We’re going to take our oath ceremony on Feb. 5 in L.A.,” Tsewang said.

“Sometimes we knock our own heads. We’re so blessed to be in this country.

“It is our American dream to give back. We’d like to have the whole valley be part of our lives.”

Ojai Theatre will present “Tsewang, Tso and Tibetan Aid Foundation” on Feb. 13 at 4:30 p.m. Visit tibetanaid.org.

Ojai businesswoman, activist selected as Adams’ replacement

By Sondra Murphy
The Ojai City Council appointed Kathleen Nolan to the Planning Commission on Tuesday less than a month after Tucker Adams retired from the position. After 10 years on the Ojai Planning Commission, Adams announced in December that she would be stepping down as of January.

Mayor Steve Olsen said that when he learned of Adams’ departure, he was anxious to get someone with similar skills in landscape design to help keep the commission well rounded. “Having worked with Kathleen Nolan on Libbey Bowl, I contacted her to see if she might be interested, and she responded,” said Olsen.

Councilwoman Sue Horgan also mentioned that she was impressed with Nolan while working with the Ojai Tree Committee.

Many locals are familiar with Nolan’s business, Studio Landscape, in Ojai. It is a landscape architecture design and consulting company. “I’ve had a couple of different business names and different partners,” said Nolan. “I was always attracted to nature and plants as a child and ended up studying horticulture and agriculture at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and then landscape studies and architecture at UCLA.”

This interest has led to her involvement with the Tree Committee, as well as the Ojai Valley Green Coalition. “I do promote sustainability, so it will definitely figure into my thought process on the Planning Commission,” Nolan said. “I helped form the Ojai Tree Committee and am co-chair right now.”

Having lived in Santa Barbara, Nolan said she had visited Ojai before moving here 29 years ago. “We were buying property in Santa Barbara and the escrow fell through and we found out about a property here in Ojai,” said Nolan. “I just fell in love with it and have been here ever since.”

With her background, the appointment seems a perfect fit, for both Nolan and the commission. “Interestingly enough, at one point I looked at the planning graduate program at UCLA,” she said. “I love being involved in the community and one of my favorite things about design is the planning; looking at the long-term ramifications, the big picture, the future, past and present.”

Nolan, 56, has three adult children who all live in Ventura County. “One’s married and I have a little grandchild,” Nolan said. “They’re all local kids.”

The first item of business at Wednesday’s Ojai Planning Commission meeting is the oath of office for Nolan. That meeting will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Ojai City Hall, 401 S. Ventura St.

Good Afternoon Watchers
In our last CityWatch Alert, I passed on how helpful it was for us to record at least the make, model and serial number of our expensive ranch equipment.  Let’s expand that thought to all property that a crook might want to take off your hands and add these two steps:

Operation I.D.
1.  Mark your valuables with your driver’s license number preceded by the letters “CA.” Burglars don’t want marked merchandise because it is difficult to fence and evidence of guilt if they are caught.
2.  Photograph those items, especially the items that cannot be engraved (jewelry, silverware, antiques….).

Take Care,
Randy

Trimpin’s proposed music machine awaits final city OK

By Sondra Murphy
With public art being a priority in Ojai and Libbey Bowl being a centerpiece of the city, the art chosen for the bowl’s make-over will be a crucial feature.

With public art being a priority in Ojai and Libbey Bowl being a centerpiece of the city, the art chosen for the bowl’s make-over will be a crucial feature.

The Ojai Planning Commission gave the go-ahead last week for the Art Commission’s recommendation for that art selection to progress to the Ojai City Council for final approval and it was an agenda item at last night’s meeting. The Planning Commission had previously approved the public art concept for the site, but was asked to verify that the piece selected was consistent with the design permit issued last year before being submitted to the council.

“I was the Planning Commission liaison to the selection committee,” said Commissioner John Mirk. “It was incredible. We had over 30 proposals, narrowed it down to three artists and that meeting went four hours because each of the proposals was great. What we chose with Trimpin’s work is just amazing. People will come from miles around just to see this.”

From three finalists, the selection jury unanimously picked the sound arch concept by Trimpin to serve as the art for the reconstructed Libbey Bowl, set for dismantling after the Ojai Music Festival ends this summer and expected to be finished before its next season in June 2011.

Trimpin is a Seattle-based kinetic sculptor and sound artist who has a history with Ojai. He was honored in May at the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa along with Joan Kemper by the MacArthur Foundation Fellows program and was a featured performer at the 2009 and 2006 OMF. His proposed sculpture is a one-of-a-kind work to be created for the bowl.

“The plan is to move the sidewalk from behind the tennis court bleachers out to the center of the lawn,” said city manager Jere Kersnar. The approximately 10-feet-tall by 15-feet-wide arch is to be installed at the new entryway. “It’s two octaves on a musical scale, so you can have all kinds of things.”

The tubular archway is inspired by the shape of the bowl’s shell and can be programmed for recurring tunes or sounds or even set up with motion sensors to create different tones depending on activity around Libbey Park. “I could see sensors that are triggered when a kid goes down the slide, for example, or when someone walks in a certain area,” Kersnar said.

“If you haven’t sent in your personal donation, now is the time to do so,” said Councilwoman Carol Smith, who attended the meeting and called Libbey Bowl a “world-class venue.” The city of Ojai and the Ojai Music Festival have already pledged two-thirds of the $3.3 million needed to rebuild the decaying facility in downtown Ojai. “Remember, they want the last million to come from the public, whether you have $10 or $1,000 to give,” said Smith.

Libbey Bowl amphitheater has been serving the community since it was built in the 1950s and is currently used by as many as 30 nonprofit groups for more than 50 events each year. It is estimated that 1,000 performances of plays, concerts and other civic events, such as OMF, have been staged at the bowl since 1957.

Designed by Austen Pierpont and Roy Wilson, Ojai Festival Bowl, renamed Libbey Bowl in the 1970s, cost $12,000 to build the stage and shell section back in 1957. In recent years, spot repairs have been unable to keep up with the steady deterioration of the largely wooden structure. Termite damage, wood rot and other forms of decay have added safety issues to the list of concerns about the bowl’s endurance.

Last year, the city hired David Bury & Company Architects, Ltd. for the concept designs of the bowl, which received glowing reviews in January 2009 during a historic special joint meeting of all major Ojai commissions and councils.

Bury has designed a number of other Ojai projects, such as the pergola, that merge historical designs with modern considerations. New laws and structural requirements, such as building codes and handicap accessibility, have been incorporated into the bowl’s redesign. Sustainability being a city policy, Bury is aware of green materials and has used appropriate technology throughout the design as the budget allows.

Bury’s plans have moderately increased the shell height and depth of the bowl while lowering the stage floor a bit. Currently, the shell slopes low at the back of the stage, restricting its use. Ramps and doorways that accommodate a variety of set and human concerns have also been incorporated into the plans. Storage, cable conduit and equipment posts will be added to improve sound and lighting.

To learn about volunteering for or making contributions to the Libbey Bowl reconstruction, call 646-3117 or visit the web site at LibbeyBowl.org.

Former president forming Ojai Ventura International Festival

By Linda Harmon
The Ojai Film Festival is a local tradition and its organizers take issue with the actions taken by David Shor, actions they say are capitalizing on their name and hard-won reputation.

“We are going to have to get a lawyer,” said Steve Grumette, the Ojai Film Festival’s vice president, “because it appears that he has appropriated our property.”

Shor, last year’s president and chairman of the board, resigned last month leaving behind bad feelings and a $90,000 deficit that Grumette and remaining board members, President Herb Hemming and Secretary-Treasurer Vickie Baldwin, had to address.

Now Shor has caused new confusion around area film festivals. Historically there have been two, Ojai’s own Ojai Film Festival and the Ventura-based Ventura Film Festival. Last week Shor sent out a press release for a new Ojai-Ventura International Film Festival to take place only a week later than the Ventura Festival in 2011, with similar events and using a logo very similar to the one used by the Ojai Film Festival last year.

On first glance the release appears to be coming from the Ojai Film Festival, but on closer examination, at the bottom of the page in small type, it gives new contact information listing a Santa Barbara address and a web address of ojaiventurafilmfestival

.com.

“That web site was originally our web site,” said Grumette, referring to the one listed by Shor. “You could get to our web site from there by entering ojaifilmfestival.com, which was OK last year.”

It is not OK this year.

“He’s creating enormous confusion,” said Grumette. “People think he’s still associated with us. And he’s not.”

The Ventura Film Society is not happy with Shor either.

“He has no affiliation with us at all,” said Jordan Older of the Ventura Film Festival. “We have trademarked the name and have written him several letters to tell him to stop using it.”

According to Grumette, it was under Shor that the Ojai Film Festival used the name, Ojai-Ventura Film Festival, in addition to Ojai Film Festival. Shor also added the additional web address, ojaiventurafilmfestival.com, to drive users to the original site. Grumette said Shor has refused to give the board the passwords he set to maintain the second web site.

They ended up taking away his access to the original site, but, according to Grumette, Shor still has a copy of the original site.

“He had access to it” said Grumette, “and now he’s set up his own site, which we don’t have access to, through Ojai-VenturaFilmfestival.com. He is showing all kinds of information about Haskell Wexler and Peter Graves that he has no right to, that information belongs to the Ojai Film Festival.”

If you Google Shor’s web site given on the press release, ojai-venturafilmfestival.com, you indeed see the home page from the 2009 Ojai-Ventura Film Festival web site which then directs you to Shor’s new  web site.

Shor also uses the same logo on his festival’s Facebook page, displaying information from previous Ojai-Ventura Film Festival events and states, “Established in 1999 as the Ojai Film Festival, the Ojai-Ventura International Film Festival, LLC is dedicated to promoting and supporting the art of the motion picture through the presentation of an annual multi-day festival.”

Shor’s press release also advertised special screenings and events March 17 through 20, 2011, including “the third annual Malcolm McDowell Celebrity Golf Tournament,” at the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa.

“We have not committed to host Shor’s event here,” said the Ojai Valley Inn’s representative Veronica Cole when contacted Monday.

Rich Fortenberry, the contact at Brooks Institute for festival events last year, was in Colorado at the Sundance Film Festival and remaining staff was not aware of any plans regarding the event.

Shor did not return e-mails and was unavailable for comment.

From the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department

Happy New Year Watchers!

Our local crime activity was relatively slow during the holiday season, which is always a good thing.  As we leave the holidays behind us, things are still slow.  However, a developing trend might put some Ojai Valley ranchers and rural property owners at risk for theft of their high $$$ equipment.

The cold wet weather we’ve been experiencing usually puts a damper on many police-related issues.  However, professional thieves steal for a living and never take a break.  These crooks often prefer to work in nasty weather.  Rain and wind help mask their activity making it difficult for anyone to catch them in the act.  We currently have some of these pros working down the Central Coast into our area stealing agricultural equipment under the cover of darkness and bad weather.

Detectives from Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura County have been monitoring an organized theft ring that has targeted pumps, generators, welders, air compressors, and spray rigs on ranch properties.  However, anything of value is fair game.  They usually break into storage containers (connex boxes, shipping containers) defeating the lock with bolt cutters.

These thieves were last reported to be working the north part of Santa Barbara County and are probably moving south.  The Ojai Valley area ranches and rural properties, especially along S.R. 150, are prime targets for this group.

This type of equipment is expensive and often difficult to replace.  I would suggest locking all containers, sheds and barns with a lock that has a hardened shackle.  This makes it very difficult to defeat with bolt-cutters.  Some locks even have modifications that shroud the shackle.  These types of locks make it nearly impossible for bolt cutters to get a grip on the shackle.

Recovering stolen property and proving who actually owns it can be very difficult for law enforcement.  I would suggest you write down the brand, model and serial number of your equipment.  These identifiers are critical in the investigative process and the return of your property.

The information you provide could solve a crime spree that spans across at least three counties.  Let’s catch these crooks!

Be Safe,

Randy

**************
This is a follow-up to yesterday’s alert.  One of our Watchers is a retired deputy sheriff and had some previous experience with similar theft rings.  He recalled the thieves used pickup trucks towing trailers (i.e. landscape, tree services, etc..) If you see something like this driving around in the middle of the night just right down a license plate if possible, the vehicle description , and the name of any business displayed.  These types of work trucks are rarely out on the road late at night.  You can then email me the info and I’ll pass it along to our detectives.

Typical user facing 43 percent hike, or $26 over next two years

By Daryl Kelley
The monthly water bill of the typical Ojai residential customer would be hiked 43 percent during  2011 and 2012, on top of a 30 percent increase two years ago, if the Golden State Water Company has its way.

“The new rates would cover the increasing costs to operate and maintain the local water system,” the company says in a press release, “and fund more than $8 million in local capital investments that are critical to providing reliable, high quality water to the area.”

About half of the new revenue would be used to operate the aging water system — some of which is about 80 years old — and half to update it, officials said.

The new rate increases would be far from the last for about 2,900 customers in the Ojai area, according to Golden State officials.

Ken Peterson, district manager for the San Dimas-based company, said Ojai customers should expect rate increases to pay for system replacement  until 2030.

“How systems are replaced depends on the need at the time,” he said. Water systems across the state and nation are dealing with the same issues of decay, he said.

“This country is dealing with infrastructure replacement,” he said. “Now it’s catching up to us.”

Golden State’s new proposal includes a 39.2 percent increase for residential customers with a 5/8-inch water meter  in 2011, then a 3.8 percent increase for inflation in 2012.

That’s an increase of  $23.27 in 2011 and an additional $3.16 in 2012, if the customer uses 1,300 cubic feet of water.

This is on top of a nearly 30 percent increase to about $59 a month in 2008 for customers with the same size meter and usage.

So the total monthly bill would be nearly $86 a month by 2012, including a hike in the basic service fee the company charges regardless of usage, which would jump from $24.15 to $33.75 a month for a 5/8-inch meter. Customers with larger meters would pay more.

About 70 percent of all residential customers, which make up the bulk of those served by Golden State, have 5/8-inch meters.

City manager Jere Kersnar said he had not yet received a copy of Golden State’s rate request. Nor has the city received a report on water quality and system maintenance, as required in a 2008 PUC ruling, he said.

“They came by and alerted us that they were filing for this new rate increase, and they said they’d provide a report,” he said.

Kersnar said he reminded the company that the water quality and maintenance report was overdue.

“They said they were still working on the master plan,” the city manager said.

The city of Ojai has no control over water rates, but it filed a protest letter in 2007 during the review of Golden State’s previous request. And the PUC, as part of its ruling, directed Golden State to provide the city with a detailed analysis of its Ojai service.

In 2007, about 100 angry customers showed up at a public hearing in Ojai. A petition signed by more than 500 upset customers was presented.

But the water company prevailed.

Even before the increases of recent years, Golden State’s rates were much higher than other local water agencies.

With the 2008 hike alone, Golden State’s rate increases in Ojai over the last two decades totaled 107 percent.

Golden State, the subsidiary of a large corporation traded on the New York Stock Exchange, has operated in Ojai under a long-standing, open-ended contract with the city. Its service cannot be discontinued since it owns the pumps and water lines that serve the community, unless local water users buy the waterworks.

And, according to Kersnar, the company has shown no interest in selling.

“That’s a huge issue,” he said. “They have resisted that to the utmost.”

Company officials have said Golden State’s rates are higher than those at nonprofit publicly run water companies because it has no taxpayer subsidies, has to pay taxes and must return a reasonable profit to investors.

The return on base water rates under the 2008 PUC ruling was 8.87 percent a year, lower than the 9.41 percent requested by Golden State but higher than the 8.80 percent requested by the PUC’s Ratepayer Advocates Office.

Under the ruling, the return on company equity was 10.2 percent, compared with a Golden State request for 11.25 percent and the ratepayer advocates’  recommendation of 10.09 percent.

U.S. Supreme Court rulings have upheld a private company’s right to a “reasonable” return on investment when operating a utility for the public, a PUC judge noted in the 2008 ruling.

At the hearings in 2007, Ojai residents and city officials asked the PUC to grant no rate increase until Golden State improved its service and water quality.

But the PUC found compelling Golden State’s argument that the steep increase was needed to upgrade the Ojai water delivery system and water quality.

Indeed, Golden State’s new request maintains that rate increases are needed to improve the quality of service, and to offset increasing costs.

“Costs have increased for items such as wholesale water, electricity, postage, liability insurance, depreciation, materials and supplies, cost of capital, general office support, labor and payroll taxes,” Golden State said in its recent press release.

In addition, costs must increase to pay for construction projects: The company said it spent $6.3 million on such capital improvements from 2000 through 2008.

The $8 million in proposed new projects include replacement of more than two miles of leaking, undersized and aging pipes, installation of a 500,000-gallon storage tank and drilling and equipping a new well, the company said.

Low-income customers may qualify for a 15 percent reduction in rates, the company said. A scale with income qualifications is available at the company’s local office at 1002-A E. Ojai Ave., across from Soule Park Golf Course. For example, households with one or two residents qualify if total income is $30,500 or less.

Matilija Dam, which has been scheduled for removal by the federal governement, overflowed Wednesday. The dam has received 20 inches of rain since Oct. 1. Photo by Scott Wintermute

By Daryl Kelley
For the latest storm totals, visit the OVN Weather Page

The strongest series of storms since 2005 rolled through the Ojai Valley this week, and as a final downpour hit Thursday evening, farmers and local officials said the results had been surprisingly benign — with little damage, flooding or mud slides.

The Ojai area did have six road closures by Thursday morning, but all were because of usual water flows during storms, said Gary Hart, battalion chief for the county Fire Department division that includes the Ojai Valley.

“We’re having the normal calls we have during storms,” Hart said. “Minor flooding because of water flows in roadways.”

Those temporary problems should be over by this afternoon as the fourth and final storm of the week passes, he said.

Temporary closures occurred on Highway 33 near Wheeler Gorge, on Camino Cielo, on McNell Road at Reeves Road, on Grand Avenue between McNell and McAndrew roads, on Matilija Canyon Road behind Matilija Dam and on Lockwood Valley Road at Chico Larsen.

A few buildings did experience minor flooding, Hart said.

“It’s all normal and we responded with sandbags,” Hart said of a few homes and Vons grocery at the “Y” intersection.

For farmers, the steady rains were all good news.

“We’ve had about 5 inches so far, so we don’t have to irrigate for maybe a month, I guess,” said farmer Tony Thacher. “But you know farmers like to complain. Right now we can’t pick anything. We’re itching to get back out and pick some tangerines this weekend.”

Steve Wickstrum, general manager of the valley’s largest water agency, said the four storms that began Sunday night had resulted in runoff that had only begun to fill Lake Casitas, the area’s primary source of water.

“I’ve been watching the storms, and we haven’t been slammed like some of the other areas,” Wickstrum said Thursday morning. “We’ve had some nice rains.”

By midday Thursday, however, those rains had resulted in diversions to the lake of only a few thousand acre-feet of water, said Wickstrum, who runs the Casitas Municipal Water District.

The huge Lake Casitas reservoir, which holds a maximum of 254,000 acre-feet, had risen only from about 73 percent full to 74.6 percent by noon Thursday. That’s an increase of about 4,300 acre-feet. (An acre-foot supplies two families for a year.)

“We’re at 189,531 acre feet right now,” Wickstrum said. “And we expect another 1,500 acre-feet by Friday. So it’s not the lake filler we had in 2005, but it’s not the catastrophe we had in 2005 either.”

A month of storms in 2005 filled the lake, but those rains also did a lot of damage, Wickstrum said.

“These storms have been very nice to us,” he said.

Wickstrum said he’d been tracking storms on his computer all week, but the yellows and reds that show downpours had consistently steered north or south of the Ojai Valley.

“Right now there’s a large area of heavy rain north of Santa Barbara and a squall through Thousand Oaks,” he said, awaiting what had been forecast as an intense local storm for Thursday afternoon.

Even as things stood at midday Thursday, the valley had received significant rain.

For example, Matilija Canyon had received in excess of 10 inches, while Ojai itself got more than 6 inches. Nordhoff Peak had received more than 7 inches, while the Upper Ojai’s total was about 6 inches. Casitas Dam had also received about 6 inches.

During this rainfall season, which began Oct. 1, precipitation has been about twice as much as normal, officials said. The largest rainfall months of the year are usually January and February, followed by March and December.

Officials are still hoping that the mild El Niño forecast last spring arrives.

A precursor was a 5-inch storm in Ojai last fall, which provided the wettest October in the last half century.

The Ojai Valley has received several significant rains since, but until this week, none had produced more than 2 or 3 inches.

In the winter of 2004-2005, Casitas Dam and the city of Ojai received more than 50 inches of rain and Nordhoff Peak drenched in more than 80 inches.

During the last rain year, the Ojai Valley received about 60 percent of normal rainfall, lowering the Lake Casitas, dropping groundwater levels and forcing farmers to water crops even during the wettest months.

It was the fourth extremely dry year in the last decade.

For example, only 11.55 inches fell at the Oak View measuring station last season, just 54.8 percent of the normal of 21.07 inches.

Only 12.61 inches fell at Casitas Dam, just 56.4 percent of the historic average of 22.37 inches.

Only 12.68 inches fell in Ojai, just 62.4 percent of the average of 20.33.

And at the wetter Matilija Dam station, only 16.53 inches fell, 61.1 percent of the average of 27.06 inches.

Update of zoning laws top discussion

By Sondra Murphy
Troy Becker was elected by his peers to chair the Ojai Planning Commission at Wednesday’s meeting, with Steven Foster assuming vice chair duties. Former Chair Susan Weaver stepped down as she passed the gavel to Becker for the remainder of the meeting and the light agenda facilitated much discussion about internal business of the commission and how best to spend the next several months.

City planner Katrina Rice Schmidt brought a discussion item to the agenda regarding zoning ordinance revisions that have been identified for amendment. She asked for commission direction for prioritizing the issues.

Schmidt reported that the most recent comprehensive update of the city’s zoning ordinance was adopted in 2004, with few changes since. She cited notable changes, which include an amendment to the commercial and manufacturing district development standards in 2005, adding a section regarding formula business establishments in 2007, revisions to the sign ordinance in 2008 and changes to allow outdoor displays in certain zones in 2009.

Schmidt said much of the needed changes were to create local codes that match new state regulations and a general cleaning up of language, omissions or areas of the ordinance that overlapped or clashed due to recent adoptions.

“Other areas that are probably worthy of more Planning Commission discussion are development standards for special housing, the downtown commercial overlay, and we probably need to modify our land use tables,” said Schmidt.

Commissioners briefly touched on the differences between guest houses vs. second units, animal uses, renewable energy sources, fence heights and lighting ordinance as areas they would like to update in the ordinance.

“There’s a lot of material for us to go through here,” said Foster. “It’s going to be a time-consuming process.”

“We’ve compiled ordinances, but haven’t don’t the formal drafting of the words,” Schmidt said.

“Another aspect would be some public outreach,” said Commissioner Paul Crab-tree. “We might want to invite certain civic groups or organizations to address some of these.”

Weaver pointed out that many of the revisions needed were simply to bring the city in line with other laws and so little discussion would be needed. “Probably 80 percent is primarily cleanup,” Schmidt agreed. “Staff could draft ordinances and bring it to you and if you have different ideas, you could pull and discuss them.”

Crabtree had a number of recommendations on discussion items, including multiple family dwellings, zero lot lines and front setbacks in the business districts and the Maricopa Highway area near the “Y” intersection. “It’s got the imprint of Caltrans on it and looks like a truck corridor,” he said. Crabtree also mentioned new storm water regulations were soon expected that the city would need to incorporate into its ordinance.

“All the technical materials and manuals are still under development, but we need to be cognizant of that,” city manager Jere Kersnar said. “How about if we come back to you at your first February meeting with breaking it down into chunks of the apple just to identify areas and you can tell us what order you want to take them in?”

The commission agreed to the idea, with Weaver requesting other items not referenced in Schmidt’s report being included, such as parking.

“I was excited when we had the forest master plan come through with neighborhoods and I would like to see that in the zoning ordinance too,” said Commissioner John Mirk.

“We ought to consider where we’re going to plug in those neighborhoods for planning and really have a discussion on them,” said Becker.

“It seems to me neighborhood plans should come from the top, from the general plan,” Schmidt said. “If we had it in the general plan, basically anything we did would come from that.

The Planning Commis-sion generally meets two Wednesdays a month at 7:30 p.m. in Ojai City Hall, 401 S. Ventura St. As of press time, the next meeting had not yet been scheduled.

County adopts procedural change in block grant funding application process

By Sondra Murphy
Changes in Ventura County procedures for applying for new Community Development Block Grant funds prompted the Ojai City Council to vote last week to serve as an evaluation committee to make recommendations to the county pertaining to any applications for public service organizations from Ojai.Each year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development provides funding to local communities through the CDBG program for both public service and capital projects. “The process for evaluating CDBG grant process has changed since last year,” Ojai Public Works director Mike Culver told the council. He said that previously the county would hold a hearing and then submit appropriate requests directly to cities, which would hold their own public hearings before making recommendations to the county.

Under the new system, applications will be given directly to Ventura County, who will forward them to appropriate jurisdictions for review and recommendations. Local jurisdictions are no longer required to hold public hearings regarding the allocation of funds.

The county held its initial application hearing in December and requires jurisdictional recommendations by Jan. 29. A second public hearing is scheduled by the county on March 10 to formalize the final allocations of funding, which are to be submitted to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors in May for final approval.

It is hoped the changes will streamline the process for all while continuing to allocate funding proportionally to each jurisdiction. Culver said smaller cities often have to roll over projects from year to year as funding is accumulated to initiate and complete them, such as the recent Boyd Center renovations at the Recreation Department.

“Rolling over presents a problem for the feds because they’re allocating money that’s not getting spent,” said city manager Jere Kersnar. “One of the criteria is for projects that they are ready to go.”

“The concept here is public service projects should receive the same fair share of funding that we were previously allocated within a 5 percent variance,” said Culver. He gave the council three options to adjust to the changes. The first option would involve the full council in review and recommendation of local grant requests. The second option would create an ad-hoc committee of two council members for grant prioritization. The third option was for no council involvement, allowing the county to administer without Ojai recommendation. The city recommended the second option in its report.

Help of Ojai executive director Terri Wolfe addressed the issue. “One of the key issues here is, in the past, the city of Ojai was pretty much guaranteed we would get public service money … Ojai projects were compared to Ojai projects. We are no longer in that position. Ojai projects must now compete with other projects in the county.”

Culver said the funds amounted to about $40,000 a year in the past and allocation is based on the income demographic of the community members.

Wolfe said applying projects will need to be very strong to compete for the funds. “I believe small cities and unincorporated are one group and large cities, like Ventura and Oxnard, are another, so we aren’t competing with them,” said Wolfe.

“I really think the full council should be involved in this because, although in the past the amounts of money have not been huge, they have been very important,” said Councilwoman Sue Horgan. She moved to adopt for full council involvement, which was unanimously supported, and asked that staff bring this year’s applicant list to the next meeting.

Trenches dug just in time to protect horses from flooded corral

By Nancy Gross
Friday was a pleasant day to be outdoors, and Navy volunteers from the Port Hueneme Naval Base visited Ojai to do a service project.

The Navy volunteers dug an extensive trench to get rid of standing water so that the health and comfort of rescued performance horses at The Equine Sanctuary would not be compromised during the rains.

The project was the next step after local builders installed shelters to keep the horses dry. Watkins Fence Co. made a sizeable contribution by doing the labor for free when providing roofs and fences, and Lee Rennacker donated the engineering for the drainage project.

“The fact that your guys are here doing all this digging saves us thousands and thousands of dollars,” said Equine Sanctuary founder and director Alexis Ells to one of the Navy officers. There were a few women among those working; the property, with pristine mountain views in either direction, was full of activity.

The volunteers helped with trench digging, or with clearing the horse corral of stones. “Rocks are a horse’s nemesis. They destroy their feet,” Ells said.

Mike Case from New York has been a Seabee for just over two years. Seabees are the Navy’s construction battalion; they build bases, roadways, and air strips, along with other military construction projects.

Case teased that he would like to go AWOL and “move up here. It gets us out of the classroom.”

Case was digging beside his buddy, Gerald Chandler, from San Diego, who said, “It’s good to be out here away from the base, to do some work.” He said that otherwise they would be having weapons training in class. “We’re going to Afghanistan. I’m not worried too much about it, though. We’re pretty safe over there.”

Xavier Spencer, from Panama City, Fla., said he’s been in the service for 11 months. “It’ll be a year in February. I’m going to Afghanistan in August. It’ll be fun. I’ve lived in Germany. My dad is military. He retired five months ago from the Air Force.

“It’s a nice place out here. I want to climb some of those mountains I’m seeing,” Spencer said.

Ells said the Navy has sent volunteers in the past to help TES, which has been in Ojai for 10 years. “But we are in constant need of volunteers,” Ells said.

“These famous horses, these athletes, when they’re injured, they’re not wanted by the industry anymore. This place is not just about the horses, it is also about the educational experience that teaches that life is not disposable.”

The rescued and rehabilitated horses have been racehorses, polo horses and other types of show event horses. If they can no longer perform and are seen as a burden and financial drain, they would typically be slaughtered, and their meat sold on the black market. “We have nine horses here now, and 22 up in Santa Ynez. They are our good will ambassadors for therapy, for foster kids, for developmentally disabled kids, for schools who visit.

“It’s just like with people. They have to be hand walked because of their injuries or their muscles will get stiff. They have to be fed and cared for in every way. This is a seven-day, 24-hour-a-day operation.”

Ells said most of their volunteers come from out of the area, and this leaves the sanctuary in a tight spot when weather makes it hard to drive. “It always surprises me that National Geogra-phic has featured us, but we need to have more needs met locally. I would like to see more volunteers from Ojai, people who love horses, people who want to make a difference.”

Of Rennacker she said, “He and his wife and daughters have been longtime volunteers. He took so much time to figure out the way the gutters would perform with different amounts of rainfall, and to design the grading, trenches and French drains. It was a major project.”

Some Navy helpers left partway through the day because not enough shovels had been supplied. Ells believes these were from among the Navy Fleet, and that the Seabees were the ones that stayed to the very end of the work.

“I was so grateful for all of them.” Ells said that several years ago she was contacted by the Navy Chaplain’s Office to see if sailors could come out to TES to do work as a part of helping them deal with deployment stress.

For more information, visit theequinesanctuary.org, call 453-4567 or e-mail theequinesanctuary@gmail

.com.

Preservation Commission grants status, owners may
get tax reduction to help with restoration, renovation

By Sondra Murphy

Ojai has a new historic landmark. Last week, the Ojai City Council unanimously approved the status for property owned by Robert and Tiese Quinn, located at the northwest corner or El Toro and Foothill roads. It is now Historic Landmark No. 16.

“Under the Mills Act Ordinance, owners of landmarks may enter into agreement to reduce taxes in order to put those funds into restoration, renovation and rehabilitation of the property,” city manager Jere Kersnar told the council. “The Historic Preservation Commission added not only maintenance of the exterior, but interior as well to maintain the historic condition of the property in general.”

Known as the George Washington Smith “Spec House A,” the owners applied for landmark designation status and a historic landmark property agreement with the city of Ojai, which was reviewed by the Ojai Historic Preservation Commission in December. Included with the application was a historic resources analysis report prepared by San Buenaventura Research Associates, which claimed the main residence and land of the subject property is significant because it meets several criteria of Section 4-8.07 of the Cultural and Historic Preservation Law, as follows.

• The property is significant for the role it played as one of the three speculation houses in the initial development of the Arbolada, which was part of Edward Drummond Libbey’s vision for the beautification of the residential development of the Ojai community.

• The property is significant for its identification with Libbey, who made important contributions to the economic and cultural development of Ojai and was one of the final projects that transformed the architectural image of Ojai to Mission and Spanish Revival theme.

• The main residence embodies the distinguishing characteristics of the rural Spanish architecture of the 1920s.

• The main residence is identified as the work of master architect George Washington Smith, whose work influenced the development of the community and creating an architectural theme that would harmonize with the natural beauty of the Ojai Valley.

• The main residence embodies elements of the medieval architecture of rural Spain as it was interpreted by Smith.

• The main residence has retained its integrity of location, design, materials and workmanship. Additions made to the residence were done using a compatible design, materials and workmanship.

Interior and exterior features were identified in the report. The OHPC toured the site last month and recommended to the city additional features that should be preserved and protected. Included on this list are tile floor, wall tiles, wrought iron stair railing, wood-beamed ceiling, wooden stairway grill and a built-in bookcase in the living room.

Exterior features recommended for preservation inclusion by the commission are Spanish clay tile roofs, tile vents, multi-paned wood casement windows, French doors, decorative grills, decorative Spanish tile and heavy-troweled stucco finish. Of landscape features, OHPC also recommended for preservation the tiled fountain and surrounding brick walkway and stone wall. Exteriors may use any of the three spec. house color palette combinations originally determined by Smith.

With landmark status, the property is subject to the Ojai Municipal Title 4, Chapter 8, Cultural and Historic Preservation law. Any proposed modification to the property will require review for compliance with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation.

The status allows for certain property tax reduction in exchange for the owner’s commitment toward restoration, preservation and maintenance.  The ordinance authorizes local governments to enter into contracts with owners of historic landmark properties.

With their application, the Quinns submitted a proposed preservation and rehabilitation time line plan for expected maintenance of the property and are required to maintain all significant historic interior and exterior features as identified in the conditions of agreement.

Kersnar reported that property tax for the property will be re-evaluated by the Ventura County Assessor’s Office on the income approach to value, rather than market approach to value typically used. Property taxes may be reduced by as much as 60 percent, saving the owners as much as $11,200. “The city’s share of the loss would be 12.79 percent, or $1,422 per year,” Kersnar said.

Rain moves annual event
from Libbey Park to Chaparral

By Sondra Murphy

Where can one find herself shaking hands with Julie Tumamait and Julie Christensen? At an Ojai event that celebrates cultural diversity in all its forms.

The dramatic weather did little to daunt the Ojai Valley Youth Foundation’s annual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In fact, moving the event into Chaparral Auditorium allowed keynote speaker Toni-Mokjaetji Humber to incorporate images via PowerPoint into her address.

Colorfully adorned with artwork from local students, the hall was rocking previous to Humber’s time from Gill Sotu’s music. Sotu is an Ojai MLK regular and uses powerful music with audience participation to connect with the diverse audiences who attend the event. Sotu’s verses of “We shall” and “Overcome” were echoed by the crowd, on its feet and clapping in time before guitarist D-Flox ended the set with some impressive footwork of his own. “We always look forward to coming here,” said D-Flox as he stepped down from the stage. “This is the whole essence of what Gill Sotu does: unity. The power of music to change things, we live it.”

Humber was introduced by Gus Hoffman, who contacted her to appear last year. But when Barack Obama won the presidency, Humber had to decline the invitation, but agreed to show this year when Hoffman again asked her to speak.

Before beginning her address, Humber convinced the crowd to join hands. “I always start my classes in a circle,” said the professor of ethnic and women’s studies at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. “It’s powerful for me … I started it after 9-11. It’s a check-in time and I find it is a connection between people.”

Humber spoke about King’s involvement in the civil rights movement by reviewing the climate he grew up in and events that led to his leadership role in the movement. “He brought a voice,” said Humber, “a strategy for protest.” She drew a connection between the civil rights movement and her own life, talking of her family. “My parents were products of the rural South,” said Humber. “They were what’s known as the ‘new negro’ moving to the urban areas.” She grew up in Watts then moved into the suburbs of Southern California, “… when I learned what the N-word means and how it pertains,” she said.

Reviewing indignities of the imagery of African Americans during King’s lifetime, Humber explained that the man “led a comfy life in a segregated world. He lived a

middle-class life, was a P.K. — a preacher’s kid. He did not have to get involved.”

Humber reviewed the events that became the catalyst for King to get drawn in to the civil rights movement, such as the famous Brown v. the Board of Education decision mandating integration in schools. Humber listed names of others who were working for equality. Charles Houston, who was the first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review and, as a lawyer, played a significant role in dismantling the laws allowing segregation; Linda Brown, the girl who sued the Board of Education in Kansas to attend a school in her own neighborhood; Rosa Parks whose arrest for refusing to give up her bus seat in 1955 Alabama prompted King’s involvement in the ensuing boycott; and Emmett Till, the 15-year-old who was brutally beaten to death over allegedly whistling at a white woman.

“This began indignation that got international attention,” said Humber. Quoting King’s “Letter for Birming-ham Jail,” Humber said King declared the world is “in dire need of creative extremists” akin to Jesus Christ, who he called “an extremist for love, truth and goodness.”

Humber also made mention of the many contributions Africans have made to humanity, recommending Imhotep, Ivan Van Serima, Gaspar Yanga, Vincente Guerrero, as well as Ruby Bridges and Harriet Tubman as people whose efforts and writings people should become familiar with in the quest for equality.

Before leaving, Humber presented Hoffman with a bracelet inscribed with, “Leaders inspire leaders.” Hoffman has been on the OVYF MLK Day Committee for six years and a co-chair with Mackenzie Russell for the past three years.

“It’s been good,” said Hoffman, a high school senior. “I might come help one more year.” He also said he wants to be involved in humanitarian efforts as he moves toward his college career.

The MLK Day Committee has met weekly for the past four months in preparation for the big day. Other student committee members this year were Emily Cohen, Andie Mendoza, Rocio Garcia, Noemi Hernandez, Zelda Grove and Matt Russell, plus the Oak View Teen Center volunteers. Adult committee members were Kate Hoffman, Lanny Kaufer, Rondia Kaufer and Kate Russell. OVYF staff Meg Wall and Laura Charles also participated in this year’s efforts.

The following is a press release from the
Ventura County Sheriff’s Department:

Nature of Incident: Stranded Hikers

Location: Potrero John Trail, Los Padres National Forest, Ventura County

Date & Time: 1-18-10 / 2:00 p.m.

Unit Responsible: Ventura County Sheriff’s Department / Aviation-SAR Unit

(V)ictim City of Residence Age

John Beckett, 60, Ojai

Dylan Beckett, 17, Ventura

Jonathan Fulthorpe, 17, Ventura

Narrative:

On 1-16-10, Jonathan Fulthorpe and Dylan Beckett went hiking and camping on the Potrero John Trail.  They had planned to camp until Tuesday, 1-19-10, at which time they would hike out and be picked up by Dylan’s grandfather, John Beckett.

Today, 1-18-10, John Beckett decided that the camping trip should be cut short due to the incoming weather conditions.  He drove to the trailhead and hiked up the trail to the camp.  Once there, he told Dylan and Jonathan that staying the extra day was a bad idea and they should pack up and leave right away.  Dylan and Jonathan agreed and broke down camp immediately.

On the hike out of the canyon, the trail crossed the river.  The river had risen, but the group decided to cross anyway.  All three of them were swept downstream in the river and separated.  Jonathan managed to get out of the river after several attempts, but could not locate John or Dylan.  He hiked out of the canyon and flagged down a passing Caltrans vehicle.  The Caltrans employee called the Sheriff’s Department and reported the incident.  The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department sent it’s rescue helicopter, Copter 6, and a patrol deputy to the location.

Meanwhile, after several attempts, John and Dylan managed to get out of the river too.  Shortly after getting out, a major mudslide roared through the canyon and wiped out the trail.  In addition, large amounts of debris clogged the canyon and blocked any attempt for them to hike out.  They decided to hike east and over a ridge to the next canyon in an attempt to get to Highway 33, which was still about one mile away.

Copter 6 arrived on scene and began a search of the canyon.  They located the campground and the freshly used fire pit.  Then, after a brief search, located a sleeping bag where the trail was washed away.  Copter 6 continued their search and located Dylan on a ridge. The helicopter was able to hover next to the ridge top and load Dylan on board.  Dylan then directed the helicopter to his grandfather, John, who was in the bottom of the canyon east of Potrero John.  Both Dylan and John were flown to a landing area near the trailhead where they were evaluated and released. The hikers were all tired and cold, but none of them were injured in the incident.

The Sheriff’s Department would like to remind everyone that participating in outdoor activities during times of severe weather is a bad idea.  Flash floods, mudslides and debris runoff from recent burn areas create huge dangers.  Please use caution and avoid these danger areas.

Officer Preparing Release: Sr. Dep. Shane Matthews

Building in Haiti where three girls were rescued by SDF Search Teams.

We received this update today from our Search Teams in Haiti via cell phone:

Sunday was a very successful search day for Los Angeles County Task Force (CA-TF2), with a total of five rescues.

On Sunday the BLUE TEAM (Bill Monahan & Hunter, Jasmine Segura & Cadillac and Jason Vasquez & Maverick) rescued a woman from the rubble of her hotel. The appreciation shown by locals for the Search Teams and their Task Force was overwhelming. As soon as the woman was pulled from the wreckage, Haitians gathered in the street and began chanting, “U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A….”

After this the teams helped dig out three more women from under three stories of another collapsed building. Two of the women, 19 and 20-year old sisters, were located when they called out to rescuers, but the third woman, a 31-year old, was deeper in the rubble. With the electronic listening devices signaling that there may be someone below, Search Dogs Cadillac, Maverick and Hunter were sent in and all showed interest in the same area, confirming the findings of the listening devices.

During the rescue, Task Force members crawled into tight spaces to reach the area where the Search Dogs had shown interest and found the third woman still lying in bed. She was pinned to her mattress by the ceiling of her bedroom, just inches from crushing her. When handler Jasmine Segura was able to get close enough, she could see the woman waving to her and heard her say, “Thank you,” in English. Rescuers cut out the mattress that the woman was lying on and were able to safely slide her out.

During Sunday’s shift, L.A. County RED TEAM (Ron Horetski & Pearl, Ron Weckbacher & Dawson and Gary Durian & Baxter) assisted the Task Force rescue squad in extricating a 50-year old woman from a collapsed building. She was successfully brought to safety, dehydrated, but with only slight injuries.

The Blue Team arrived back at the Base of Operations at 9:30 a.m. just as the Red Team got back to work. The teams have not been told when they will sent home, and are prepared to stay in Haiti as long as it takes.

SDF Executive Director Debra Tosch comments: “The rescues in Haiti underscore the critical importance of Canine Search Teams in finding survivors in the aftermath of major disasters. This is our mission, and we’re honored to be part of the Haiti rescue effort in conjunction with the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and the L.A. Country Task Force.”

All of SDF’s Search have been standing by, ready to deploy to Haiti when called upon by their Task Force. Our Orange County and Sacramento teams were activated for deployment shortly after the earthquake struck, and were at March and Travis Air Force Bases since then waiting to depart. As of Monday morning, they were de-mobilizing and will be going home today.

Please share this with friends and family who may want to follow the Search Teams on facebook or twitter:

For the newest video footage of SDF’s Search Teams, please visit our website atwww.searchdogfoundation.org.

A series of significant big-time winter storms could leave as much as 8 inches of rain on the valley’s floor, and up to 20 inches of rain in some local mountain areas between tonight at Friday, according to a National Weather Service forecast issued Sunday morning.

CLICK for the latest weather information.

NWS STATEMENT:

SEVERAL STORMS WILL AFFECT THE REGION THIS WEEK...BRINGING HEAVY
TO EXCESSIVE RAINS AND MOUNTAIN SNOWS AND A POTENTIAL FOR FLASH
FLOODING AND DEBRIS FLOW.

PERIODS OF GUSTY WINDS AND LARGE SURF WILL ALSO CAUSE PROBLEMS
ACROSS THE SOUTHLAND THIS WEEK.

A VERY POWERFUL WEST TO EAST JET STREAM SAGGING SOUTHWARD THROUGH
THE PACIFIC WILL ALLOW A SERIES OF STRONG STORM SYSTEMS TO TRACK
INTO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WHILE MAINTAINING A RICH SOURCE OF
SUBTROPICAL MOISTURE.

SIGNIFICANT AND POSSIBLY EXCESSIVE RAINFALL WILL OCCUR OVER
SOUTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA DURING THE UPCOMING WEEK. LIGHT RAIN
WILL LIKELY DEVELOP NORTH OF POINT CONCEPTION TODAY...THEN RAIN WILL
SPREAD SOUTHWARD INTO VENTURA AND LOS ANGELES COUNTIES TONIGHT.
RAIN COVERAGE AND INTENSITY IS EXPECTED TO INCREASE ACROSS THE
REGION MONDAY...WITH RAIN HEAVY AT TIMES MONDAY AFTERNOON INTO
MONDAY NIGHT. THERE WILL ALSO BE SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS MONDAY
AFTERNOON AND EVENING. RAIN WILL BEGIN TO TAPER OFF BY LATE MONDAY
NIGHT OR EARLY TUESDAY. THIS FIRST STORM SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO BRING
1 TO 3 INCHES OF RAIN TO MOST COASTAL AND VALLEY AREAS FROM TONIGHT
THROUGH MONDAY NIGHT...WITH 3 TO 5 INCHES ACROSS FOOTHILL AND
MOUNTAIN AREAS. LOCAL AMOUNTS UP TO 6 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE ACROSS
FAVORED SOUTH FACING SLOPES. THE STATION BURN AREA IS EXPECTED TO
RECEIVE 3 TO 6 INCHES OF RAIN WITH THIS FIRST STORM SYSTEM...WITH
THE HEAVIEST RAINFALL EXPECTED MONDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING. PEAK
RAINFALL RATES BETWEEN 0.75 INCHES AND 1 INCH PER HOUR ARE POSSIBLE
MONDAY AFTERNOON INTO MONDAY EVENING...WITH LOCAL RATES UP TO 1.25
INCHES PER HOUR ACROSS FAVORED SOUTH FACING SLOPES...INCLUDING THE
STATION AND MORRIS BURN AREAS...AND NEAR THUNDERSTORMS.

VERY STRONG TO DAMAGING SOUTH WINDS WILL LIKELY AFFECT SAN LUIS
OBISPO COUNTY...MUCH OF SANTA BARBARA COUNTY AND THE ANTELOPE VALLEY
MONDAY INTO MONDAY EVENING...AND HIGH WIND WATCHES ARE IN EFFECT FOR
THOSE AREAS. DAMAGING WIND GUSTS TO 70 MPH ARE POSSIBLE IN THE
MOUNTAINS. WIDESPREAD WIND ADVISORIES WILL LIKELY BE NEEDED IN
MANY LOWER ELEVATION LOCATIONS OF VENTURA AND LOS ANGELES COUNTIES
AS WINDS COULD GUSTS BETWEEN 30 AND 45 MPH. PLEASE REFER TO
(LAXNPWLOX) FOR ADDITIONAL WIND INFORMATION.

IN THE MOUNTAINS OF LOS ANGELES AND VENTURA COUNTIES...THE POTENTIAL
FOR HEAVY SNOW AND DAMAGING WINDS HAS PROMPTED THE ISSUANCE OF A
WINTER STORM WATCH FOR LATE TONIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY. SNOW LEVELS
WILL START OUT AROUND 7000 FEET TONIGHT AND MONDAY...THEN LOWER TO
BETWEEN 5000 AND 5500 FEET MONDAY NIGHT AND TUESDAY. THE POTENTIAL
EXISTS FOR 1 TO 3 FEET OF SNOW ABOVE 7000 FEET...AND 8 TO 12 INCHES
OF SNOW ABOVE 6000 FEET. PLEASE REFER TO (LAXWSWLOX) FOR DETAILED
INFORMATION ON THE POTENTIALLY SEVERE WINTER WEATHER.

ANOTHER BUT WEAKER STORM SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO AFFECT THE REGION ON
TUESDAY. THE THIRD AND MOST LIKELY STRONGEST STORM SYSTEM IS
EXPECTED WEDNESDAY INTO THURSDAY. A COLD AND UNSTABLE AIR MASS WILL
CONTINUE TO KEEP A THREAT OF SHOWERS INTO AT LEAST FRIDAY. SNOW
LEVELS WILL GENERALLY RANGE FROM 4000 TO 5000 FEET WEDNESDAY THROUGH
FRIDAY. FOR THE ENTIRE WEEK...THERE IS THE POTENTIAL FOR RAINFALL
TOTALS OF 4 TO 8 INCHES IN COASTAL AND VALLEY AREAS...AND 8 TO 16
INCHES IN THE FOOTHILLS AND MOUNTAINS. LOCAL RAINFALL AMOUNTS OVER
20 INCHES ARE QUITE POSSIBLE ACROSS FAVORED SOUTH FACING COASTAL
SLOPES. THIS WILL LIKELY BE THE WETTEST WEEK SINCE EARLY 2005.
ADDITIONAL HEAVY SNOW TOTALS ARE EXPECTED IN THE MOUNTAINS WEDNESDAY
THROUGH FRIDAY.

THE LARGE AMOUNT OF EXPECTED PRECIPITATION...AS WELL AS THE
POTENTIAL FOR HIGH INTENSITY RAINFALL...WILL BRING A SIGNIFICANT
THREAT OF FLASH FLOODING AND DEBRIS FLOWS...ESPECIALLY TO THE RECENT
BURN AREAS. SINCE THERE WILL BE THE POTENTIAL FOR HIGH INTENSITY
RAINFALL...THERE WILL ALSO BE A THREAT OF URBAN AND SMALL STREAM
FLOODING AND NUMEROUS ROCKSLIDES...ESPECIALLY LATER IN THE WEEK AS
SOILS BECOME MORE SATURATED. IF THE STRONG STORM MATERIALIZES FOR
THE WEDNESDAY/THURSDAY TIME FRAME...THERE COULD ALSO BE SOME MAIN
STEM RIVER FLOODING CONCERNS.

DANGEROUS WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED ACROSS OUR COASTAL WATERS
THIS WEEK. PERIODS OF GALE FORCE WINDS...HIGH SURF
CONDITIONS...DANGEROUS RIP CURRENTS...COASTAL FLOODING...AND EVEN
WATERSPOUTS WILL ALL BE POSSIBLE. FOR FURTHER MARINE
INFORMATION...PLEASE REFER TO THE LATEST MARINE WEATHER STATEMENT
AND COASTAL FLOOD STATEMENT.

RESIDENTS OF SOUTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA ARE URGED TO STAY TUNED FOR THE
LATEST INFORMATION ON THESE POTENTIALLY STRONG STORM SYSTEMS. LISTEN
TO NOAA WEATHER RADIO OR YOUR FAVORITE MEDIA SOURCE...OR VISIT OUR
WEBSITE AT WEATHER.GOV/LOSANGELES FOR THE LATEST UPDATES OF
FORECASTS AND WARNINGS.

Ojai-based National Disaster Search Dog Foundation rescue teams are on scene in earthquake-ravaged Haiti

MONDAY UPDATE: Search Team Makes More Rescues

At 1:15pm local time, an SDF Search Team in Port-au-Prince located three girls, trapped alive since Tuesday in the rubble of Haiti’s devastating earthquake.

Bill Monahan and his Border Collie, Hunter, were searching a neighborhood near the Presidential Palace, concentrating on a large bowl-shaped area of rubble which was all that remained of a 4-story building.

After criss-crossing the area, Hunter pin-pointed the survivors’ scent under 4 feet of broken concrete and did his “bark alert” to let Bill know where the victims were. Bill spoke with the survivors, then passed them bottles of water tied to the end of a stick. As they reached for the water one of the girls said, “Thank you.” Highly trained rescue crews from California Task Force 2 are now working to extricate the girls from the wreckage and provide first aid.

Bill and Hunter continue to search, as do the 6 other SDF teams on the ground in Haiti:

California Task Force 2 – Los Angeles County

. Gary Durian & Baxter – L.A. County Fire

. Ron Horetski & Pearl – L.A. County Fire

. Bill Monahan & Hunter – L.A. County Fire

. Jasmine Segura & Cadillac – L.A. County Fire

. Jason Vasquez & Maverick – L.A. County Fire

. Ron Weckbacher & Dawson – Civilian

Florida Task Force 1

. Julie Padelford-Jansen and Dakota

At Search Dog Foundation headquarters in Ojai, CA, SDF Founder Wilma Melville received the news with silent gratitude. “This moment is what SDF Search Teams train for—week in and week out—throughout their careers together. When one SDF team succeeds, ALL of our teams succeed. Our thoughts are with our teams in Haiti, who continue to comb the rubble into the night. Their perseverance, skill, and strength in the face of extreme challenges make us all proud, and give us hope.”

Captain Jayd Swendseid of CA-TF2 confirmed earlier today that the 72-member team Task Force with 70,000 lbs of rescue equipment is actively looking for victims around-the-clock. “The teams are working in 12-hour shifts so they have time to rest and recuperate. Yesterday the team put in a long and exhausting day. Roads are closed and there is a lot of debris that is making transportation difficult, but the team is managing to get to buildings and make rescues. Morale is good and supplies are sufficient so far.”

The teams of CA-TF 2 are now assigned to one of two squads to enable round the clock searching. The Red Squad (Dawson, Pearl, and Maverick) is in rotation with the Blue squad (Hunter, Baxter and Cadillac). The squads connected briefly with SDF Team Julie Padelford-Jansen and Dakota—deployed as part of Florida Task Force 2—before Julie and Dakota were assigned to search a different neighborhood.

SDF Executive Director Debra Tosch: “All SDF handlers are experts in reading their canines, pacing them throughout their shift to ensure the dogs are kept safe, healthy, happy and motivated. The canines are literally the Task Force’s most precious tool in the hunt for survivors: their well-being is mission-critical.”

SDF is grateful to all of our supporters around the country who are truly PART OF THE SEARCH, having made this rescue possible.

For up to the minute updates on SDF’s Search Teams in Haiti and at home, join our Facebook fan page and follow us on Twitter:

The Ojai Valley News welcomes your thoughts on news and feature stories. Please use these links to access current and archived articles and comments.

Governing body forced to close infant center

By Linda Harmon
Cuts to education were again the elephant in the room at Tuesday night’s Ojai Unified School District’s board meeting. Even though the budget was barely discussed its effect was felt as the board voted to close the district-run A Place to Grow Infant Center, effective June 30.

Cuts to education were again the elephant in the room at Tuesday night’s Ojai Unified School District’s board meeting. Even though the budget was barely discussed its effect was felt as the board voted to close the district-run A Place to Grow Infant Center, effective June 30.

“At the December meet-ing I articulated the issues that brought us here,” said superintendent Henry Bangser. “It is one of the hardest things to do as an administrator, to close an effective program … The reason is our declining resource base and our need to do anything we can do to stretch our resources. Closing the center allows us to focus on our preschool expansion.”

According to Bangser, “in an optimal world,” he would keep the center open and have early childhood education available to everyone as an entrance to kindergarten.

Supporters of the center hit the same note, but asked that the center be given a chance to become self-supporting.

“I believe a cost-effective program is possible,” said Jean Smith, an educator with a background in early childhood development and a parent of former students. “Whatever you vote, I hope you learn from the experience of having an early childhood program.”

Mary Mashburn, an Infant Center parent, also asked that the center be spared and, if not, that special arrangements be made so that students now in the program and younger than 3 next fall, can be accepted into the expanded preschool program.

“Let these children who have already made friends and are secure with the staff be integrated into the program,” said Mashburn, whose 1.5-year-old son is in the center two days a week. “Where else am I going to put him? … This is a great preschool.”

Director of the Infant Center, Bonnie Patton, closed out the public comment.

“It’s been a long time, four and a half years now. I want to thank you for your patience and support,” said Patton. “I have children in my program from out of the district, we bring children into the school district … We don’t have to stay in this building. If you do close us, we’d like to see our 2-year-olds accepted into the new program.”

While Pauline Mercado, board member, noted she considered the center part of the district’s “vision,” the majority of the board expressed regret but spoke in support of closure.

“I have been continually moved by the discussion both inside the meetings and outside of them,” said Board Member Rikki Horne, recommending closure. “I remember a year ago talking about this and discussions of it becoming independent of the district. I still encourage it be pursued outside of the district.”

“I have been very supportive of the Infant Center all along the way … The issue I see as the problem is budget cuts,” said Board Member Linda Taylor. “I don’t think we can continue with all our staffing cuts. We can’t even have summer school for our kids who are struggling. If making it revenue neutral were possible, I think it would have already happened.”

“Although inspired by Pauline’s comments I don’t think we have the where-with-all to support the program,” said Board President Kathy Smith. “I don’t think the issue of the 2-year-olds is a board decision. I think the administration has the flexibility to make a decision about letting the 2-year-olds into the program along the way … We all appreciate Bonnie and the contributions she has made to the valley. It is a gem and I think it should be allowed to continue somewhere, somehow, maybe in a church.”

The board voted 4 to 1 for closure, with Mercado voting no.

With the votes concluded, the board received “the best possible report” on the annual districtwide audit from Kevin Brejnak of Nigro, Nigro, and White Certified Public Accountants. Brejnak’s company gave an unqualified report on the 2008-2009 school year for Ojai Unified and the Valley Oak Charter.

In the superintendent’s report, Bangser laid out plans for the upcoming district teacher in-service later this month, focusing on communication and correlation of math programs in grades kindergarten through 12 that will allow teachers to “learn from each other.” The day will be spent with grades divided into four subgroups, with a math expert at each level, going from an elementary level to high school level classrooms, to learn respective teaching methods and content.

“At the end of the day they will get back together to discuss what they’ve learned from each other,” said Bangser, who added Ojai’s relatively smaller size made that possible. “That’s a great advantage we have over Ventura Unified.”

By Lenny Roberts
yes its our dad! he apparently found a beautiful tree and sat under it and passed away….. thank you to all our friends and family for love and concerns and support!!!!!! love jenny

In a short posting on the original news report, Jenny Newell, daughter of Walt and Bonnie Lu Dohrn, confirmed the skeletal remains found near Cherry Valley over the weekend are those of her father, who disappeared July 5, 2009 after visiting friends in the desert community.

The remains, discovered by a group of boys riding off-road motorcycles Sunday afternoon, were identified Tuesday by dental records following an autopsy by the Riverside County Medical Examiner’s office.

Riverside Sheriff’s Investigator Robert Pierson said there was no evidence of foul play, adding there was no estimate of  when or how Dohrn died.

Since July, Niles Dohrn has made several trip to the area in search of his father. He said Thursday the discovery was made about a mile-and-a-half from where the his father was last seen. “We were so close,” Dohrn said.

Dohrn described his father as his very best friend.

“He will be missed like crazy. Everyone loved him. I appreciate all the help and support from the people of Ojai and to the detectives in Cherry Valley. The people who live there are super sweet. They were just great. And special thanks to the search party who came from Ojai.”

So many applicants, so little time

By Sondra Murphy

Tuesday’s meeting of the Ojai City Council was a bit anti-climactic. After voting 3-2 last month to appoint a replacement for the exiting Joe DeVito, the council reversed its decision Tuesday night and voted 3-1 in favor of holding a special election.

Finding a council member replacement has been a focus of the city since DeVito’s October announcement of his resignation effective Dec. 31. DeVito’s term would have naturally expired in 2010. His successor will therefore only fill the position through the next general election and so will need to run as a candidate on the November ballot to have a chance of continuing on the council.

Councilwomen Carol Smith and Betsy Clapp voted in the minority back in December, both supporting an election to fill the position. DeVito and Council Members Sue Horgan and Steve Olsen voted in favor of appointment, citing the time line and important issues needing the council’s immediate attention, such as fiscal concerns, Skate Park construction and Libbey Bowl renovation.

The council members acknowledged that the approximate cost of including a special election on the June primary ballot, estimated at $6,000, was not a lot compared with an individual special election, which would likely be between $30,000 and $36,000.

A June election means that a new council member would not be sworn in until July or August for a seat that will expire within a few months.

Since the decision for appointment, six city residents have applied. Ojai Unified School District board member Pauline Mercado submitted her application late Tuesday afternoon, joining Paul Blatz, Demitri Corbin, Mike Lenehan, Leonard Klaif and John Mirk. Blatz and Klaif are both attorneys active in the local community, while Corbin, Lenehan and Mirk serve on other city commissions.

Smith, who had voted for election, believed that the council should go through with the appointment process out of respect for the applicants. Mayor Olsen had spent time and energy developing the process to be used but was willing to discuss a change in how the position should be filled.

But it was Horgan who moved to reconsider. “We now have six very well-qualified people,” she said. “I want to discuss with my colleagues whether the city has been served well and if the applicants have been served fairly. Unfortunately because we didn’t put a time line on when the applications were due, not every applicant has had a chance to talk to us.”

“I don’t see how we can back pedal at this point,” Smith said. “I feel we really have no choice but to go through with it.”

Olsen said that he has had many discussions with constituents since the appointment decision and felt swayed by their arguments in favor of election.

The council listened to public comment. Ojai Valley Municipal Advisory Council Member Jerry Kaplan spoke in favor of appointment. “I come before you as one who believes in the election process,” he said. “We’re dealing with the ideal vs. the practical. This council has many important issues to deal with now, not six months from now, not nine months from now … By not appointing somebody now you are losing 20 percent of the mental input plus the expertise, plus the potential of having a split vote.”

Like most of the speakers, Ojai Valley Chamber of Commerce CEO Scott Eicher said the members continued to support letting the voters decide DeVito’s replacement. “The chamber urges you to proceed with a special election,” he said.

“But what about the people who showed up to speak,” asked Smith. “It’s like you show up and have the rug pulled out from under you. I’d like to hear from the applicants.”

“I disagree,” said Olsen. “I think this decision from the very beginning has been the council’s decision.” He said he would allow the applicants to speak following a decision about reconsidering, which was then unanimously supported by the council.

Among the applicants, only Corbin chose to speak, stating that he applied in order to have some cohesion in the months leading up to the November election. “I jumped into this fray because I knew that there were important issues and to finish what has been started from someone who knew the history,” he said. “To go through an election process will take me away from other work that I am doing for the city.”

Following public comments and council discussion, the members voted in favor of putting the item on a ballot. Smith cast the dissenting vote.

Horgan then moved for staff to come back to the Jan. 26 meeting with the necessary resolutions.

City attorney Monte Widders offered legal opinion about several technical questions, including split votes and quorum count. “If you deadlock, then no action is taken,” he said and added that even on a four-member council, three is considered a quorum for discussing business items. He also said the time line has been met for inclusion on the June ballot, but time was of the essence.

City Clerk Carlon Strobel said documents would need to be submitted to the county by Feb. 1 and the nomination period for June primary election inclusion would be Feb. 13 through March 12. She will return to the next meeting with more information about the time line and ballot process. That meeting is scheduled for Jan. 26 at 7:30 p.m. at Ojai City Hall, 401 S. Ventura St.

By Scott Wintermute
At around 12:30 Friday afternoon a late model Chevrolet Corvette Z06 was destroyed in a dramatic crash and ensuing fire near Mile Marker 30 on Maricopa Highway. Despite the presence of a rescue helicopter the driver of the $70,000 sports car was transported by ambulance to Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura as a precautionary measure. He apparently avoided major injuries, and was responsive and answering questions when CHP officers arrived.

Authorities became concerned when the man indicated that there was a gun in the car, kept in a lockbox in the trunk.

All indications are that the accident happened at a very high rate of speed as the car became airborne and rolled several times before coming to a rest and burning to a pile of scrap that could hardly be identified as a car.

The Corvette Z06 is an lighter, tighter and faster version of the famed muscle car, capable of reaching speeds just under 200 miles per hour. It appears that the driver was unable to keep the 505 horsepower vehicle on the ground. He lost control heading northbound after coming out of a sweeping turn and wrecked on the eastern side of the road.

Defense attorneys want second opinion

By Daryl Kelley
A psychologist has found a 15-year-old murder suspect from Mira Monte competent to stand trial, but defense attorneys are now seeking a trial to determine if Alex Medina is mentally capable of assisting in his own defense.

Medina has pleaded  not guilty to charges of  killing 16-year-old Seth Scarminach, a Chaparral High School student, at a teen party in Meiners Oaks last April.

A Superior Court judge on Friday continued Medina’s competency hearing for a week after defense lawyer Robyn Bramson requested a full competency trial March 5.

Prosecutor Bill Haney countered with a request that the judge simply continue the hearing until next Friday so attorneys for both sides could study the issues. Judge Edward Brodie granted that request.

“I’m not entirely sure what her issues are,” said Haney in an interview.

But previously, Bramson had asked that Brodie appoint two psychologists to examine Medina. The judge ruled last month that the defense was entitled to just one evaluation.

But after Santa Barbara psychologist John Lewis concluded in a six-page report that Medina was competent to stand trial, Bramson requested a full trial on the issue.

Haney said she is legally entitled to such a hearing if she persists in her motion after arguments on Friday.

Bramson could not be reached for comment after the hearing.

But previously, Scott Wippert, co-counsel for the defense, said his legal team had requested evaluation of  Medina’s competency because there is a question about whether the youthful defendant is capable of assisting in his own defense.

“If an attorney has a doubt of a client’s competency to stand trial, he has to bring it to the attention of the court,” Wippert said.

Wippert would not discuss what led him and his colleague, Bramson, to petition the court for an evaluation. But he said there are unusual factors when a 14-year-old is charged as an adult and tried in adult court, as is the case with Medina.

“In the case of a 14-year-old, there could be many different issues,” Wippert said. “It could range from a developmental disorder to mental issues. I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to get into any details. But there are some differences when it’s a juvenile charged in adult court. That’s why we asked the judge to appoint experts.”

The Medina case is the second in the last year in which the same Studio City defense team has declared a doubt about the competency of a young defendant charged with murder as an adult. A judge declared Brandon McInerney, an Oxnard junior high school student accused of killing a gay classmate, competent to stand trial after an evaluation requested by Wippert’s law firm.

Two doctors evaluated McInerny, but Brodie ordered Medina evaluated by just one, as the judge said is required by law.

Prosecutors allege that Medina, who investigators say was an associate of an Ojai street gang, commit- ted a gang-related offense. He faces a charge of homicide with the use of a knife, and committing a crime for the benefit of a criminal street gang.
That gang-related charge makes the potential penalties more severe. The maximum sentence that could be sought is 25 years to life in prison. Medina  is not eligible for the more-severe sentence of life without the possibility of parole because of his age, prosecutors have said.

According to autopsy results, Scarminach died of multiple stab wounds shortly before 2 a.m. on April 26 during an unsupervised party at a house in Meiners Oaks.

The alleged gang involvement, along with the heinous nature of the crime and the young age of the victim and alleged perpetrator, prompted a community outcry, culminating in a town hall meeting in June attended by about 350 people.

Hearings geared toward an early disposition of the case have led nowhere.

Fullenwider sentenced for DUI, child endangerment

By Daryl Kelley

An Ojai woman pleaded guilty Friday to driving a school bus filled with students while intoxicated, and was sentenced to a month in jail and four years of probation.

Kim Fullenwider, 53, was also ordered to pay $3,326 in fines and restitution after admitting that she endangered 21 children on her Ojai Unified School District bus by driving with a blood-alcohol level in excess of .04 percent. That is the legal limit for an operator of a commercial vehicle in California.

Fullenwider’s actual blood-alcohol level was between .07 and .08, according to a breath test conducted by the CHP after her school bus and another vehicle collided at about 7:15 a.m. Sept. 30, 2009.

The rear of the bus was struck at a slow speed as Fullenwider made a U-turn at Baldwin and Los Encinos roads. Officers decided the accident was her fault and that she had been drinking. No one was injured.

A bus driver for the Ojai district for 16 years, Fullenwider resigned her position two days after the Sept. 30 accident. Her driving record was unblemished previously, district officials said.

“She’s extraordinarily unlikely to get another job driving any type of passenger vehicle, nor does she intend to seek one,” said her attorney, Jay Leiderman

“She feels absolutely awful,” Leiderman said. “But her plea and her almost immediate surrender of her job is, we’re hopeful, a reasonable way to accept responsibility for this.”

Before the accident, Fullenwider had driven buses for 36 years and had never had even a traffic ticket, her attorney said.

But she does not dispute that she was intoxicated when she took the wheel to take kids to school that early Wednesday morning last year, he said.

She’d drunk an uncertain amount of beer the night before, he said. “It was enough to have her in excess of .04 in the morning.”

Fullenwider’s sentence was the result of a plea agreement under which she pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors – driving a commercial vehicle while intoxicated and endangering the health of a child – while a third misdemeanor was dropped.

Fullenwider was directed to begin serving her sentence Feb. 5.

By Sondra Murphy

On Tuesday, Ojai City Council members will be deliberating on applicants for the vacancy created by the resignation of Joe DeVito last month.

As of press time, five men had applied for the position, four of whom have previously been featured individually in the OVN: Paul Blatz, Demitri Corbin, Leonard Klaif and Mike Lenehan. Ojai Planning Commissioner John Mirk submitted his application Wednesday evening, and so is featured in today’s issue.

On Dec. 8, the Ojai City Council voted 3-2 in favor of appointing a replacement for the position vacated by Joe DeVito, whose term would have naturally expired in November of this year. At that time, it was the council’s hope that they would have enough qualified applicants from which to appoint the replacement on Jan. 12, but they would also be within the appointment time line if a choice was made at the Jan. 26 council meeting.

With DeVito gone, who voted with the majority for appointment, there is a possibility that the seat will go to special election. The council has not yet established dates for such an election. If embedded in the June primary ballot, the city has estimated the cost to be about $6,000. As an independent ballot, the cost to the city could be as high as $36,000.

“The choices are there, it’s now up to the council to decide what to do,” said city manager Jere Kersnar on Wednesday. The council meeting will be held at Ojai City Hall, 401 S. Ventura St., Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

Following are the applicants, listed alphabetically.

Paul Blatz, age 58

Occupation: attorney

Education: George Washington University, B.S.; Ventura College of Law, J.D.

26-year Ojai resident

Affiliations: Rotary Club of Ojai-West; Ojai Valley Chamber of Commerce; Ojai Valley Living Treasures board; Ojai Performing Arts Theater Foundation; Ojai Pergola Committee; California and Ventura County bar associations; and Ventura County Superior Court Judge Pro-Tem

Concerns: Assuring fiscal responsibility while protecting the character of Ojai through preservation of open spaces, addressing traffic impacts and supporting youth programs.

“I felt the council, in terms of who they appoint, should have as many applicants as possible. And I truly believe that my presence on the council would help assure the sustainability of the community.”

•••

Demitri Corbin, age 48

Occupation: Professional actor

Education: Illinois State University, B.S. in theater; Chautauqua Professional Actor’s Studio

Eight-year Ojai resident

Affiliations: Ojai Arts Commission; Virginia Avenue Project; Peachtree Theater Company; Cardboard Fairytale Theater; Ojai Playwrights Conference; Ojai-Ventura Film Festival; Theater 150; Ojai Shakespeare Festival; Ojai Performing Arts Theater Foundation; Ojai Valley Youth Foundation; and Ojai Library After School Homework Lab

Concerns: Better utilization of the city’s nonprofit status in applying for public and private funding for artistic and educational projects to help promote tourism to Ojai.

“I want to be on City Council because I think I would bring insight into the arts community when decisions are made. All of these things lend to the profile that Ojai has as an artists community.”

•••

Leonard Klaif, age 61

Occupation: criminal attorney

Education: University of Iowa College of Law, J.D; State University of New York at Buffalo, B.A. in economics; Institute of Psycho-Structural Balancing, massage technician certificate

17-year Ojai resident

Affiliations: Ojai Art Center; Theater 150; Ojai Film Society; California Appellate Project; California State Bar; California Appellate Defense Council, South Bay and Ventura chapters; and Los Angeles County Juvenile Bar Association

Concerns: Fostering the arts, supporting local businesses and protecting the valley’s beauty and open spaces.

“I believe that I can make a valuable contribution as a member of the City Council. I am familiar with the issues as I regularly attend council meetings … We have incredibly interesting, smart, caring people in our valley and the city needs to better harness this most valuable resource.”

•••

Mike Lenehan, age 49

Occupation: federal investigator

Education: University of California at Santa Barbara, B.A. in law and society; Santa Barbara City College, A.A. in law and society; U.S. Army Command and General Staff College graduate

Nine-year Ojai resident

Affiliations: Ojai Parks & Recreation Commission; U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, retired; Ojai American Legion; Veterans of Foreign Wars, Ojai; Knights of Columbus, Ventura; Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association; Emerald Society of Federal Law Enforcement Agencies; Santa Barbara Irish Festival; and Nordhoff High and Villanova Preparatory schools, coach

Concerns: Promoting youth recreation programs while offering a conservative perspective to the collective decisions made by the city.

“I have a common person perspective that I think appeals to people who are in a like situation.”

•••

John Mirk, age 58

Occupation: IT support technician

Education: William Marsh Rice University, B.A. in architecture

16-year Ojai resident

Affiliations: Ojai Planning Commission; Housing Element Task Force; Ojai Public Art Review Committee; Libbey Park Public Art Selection Committee; Ojai Raptor Center; Theater 150; Patagonia Environmental Grants Committee; Nordhoff High School music department; Volunteers in Service to America; and Channel Islands Bike Club

Concerns: Affordable housing and developing standards and programs to enhance the city’s future while maintaining Ojai’s special character.

“I’ve enjoyed my service on the Planning Commission and am ready for new challenges. I consider service on the City Council to be one of the most demanding duties in our town, and see the chance to be directly responsible for the well-being of Ojai as one of the most rewarding opportunities in public service.”

Longtime Ojai Studio Artists member known as experimental expressionist

By Nancy Gross
Abstract expressionist Alberta Fins did not want services held for her after she passed away from stomach cancer on Dec. 17. But friends and admirers cannot stifle the desire to honor her for her work and her wonderful personality.

“She was such a natural artist. It came from her response to the world around her,” said friend and fellow Ojai Studio Artist, Karen Lewis, who paints landscapes and portraits somewhere between dreamy realism and hyperrealism.

Lewis added, “She was a longtime member of OSA and she was a good friend. She really had a unique art capacity. Her contributions to art are much more experimental, expressing herself with spontaneity, really trying to be ahead of the curve. She was not a figurative artist. She painted from emotions.”

Fins said of her own work that it was rarely sold in Ojai, but rather it would go straight from her studio into museum collections.

Donna Granata, of the Focus on the Masters program said, “I’ve always loved her work, which is so challenging for people to deal with because it is so dark. But it has a very sophisticated flavor. The most seasoned art lover would appreciate the work that went into it.”

Focus on the Masters is a nonprofit project that archives information about extraordinary local artists. Interviews, biographies and museum quality photographs of the artists and their work are collected and stored to support the artist and the art community. Additionally, the resources may be used for lectures and other kinds of educational outreach. A committee of leading art professionals including curators, gallery owners and participating artists, chooses artists for inclusion in FOTM.

Granata continued to describe Fins’ output, saying, “She could get pent-up emotions out by the physicality of making the work.” Fins is remembered for her superb sense of humor, but private challenges like the loss of her husband, and her own illness, were translated into her projects, which incorporated fabrics, cellophanes and canvases, where Fins would sometimes pour active chemicals, causing the images to deteriorate.

Fins tended not to speak about the sorrowful parts of her life, but she could not escape the difficulties. Granata photographed Fins peering out of a curtain while in a gallery containing her canvases, because this seemed the perfect metaphorical shot.

“She literally spilt herself into these canvases, which was very public,” but yet they offer a window into “what was private, behind the scenes,” Granata said. “I knew her very well, I had a tremendous affection for her.

“One of the big goals that we have at Focus on the Masters is to help people understand more challenging work and different subject matter,” Granata asserted.

Some of Fins’ works are referred to as assemblages; they use painting only as a starting point, and they extend beyond two dimensions. Granata believes Fins’ technique evolved when she was experimenting with ways to transfer images onto silks. As chemical reactions caused things to start rippling and bubbling, she found satisfaction and catharsis in what resulted.

Some of her training is grounded in the methods of print making, and Fins was a member of the Los Angeles Printmaking Society. She shared her love of printmaking with mixed media virtuoso, Linda Taylor, who said “I adored her. She just worked away — she had her own unique individual vision she was true to. She was in our Studio Artists from the very beginning. She was very dedicated to art.”

Taylor also said that while Fins was exhibited in many places, she did not brag, and “she supported her less well-off artist friends by purchasing their work.”

Fins was born in 1931, and a with move from New Jersey to California she began her formal study of art at Pasadena City College, Valley College and the University of California at Los Angeles.

Lewis also remarked that Fins was sensitive and troubled by political realities. “She was almost a news junkie. She had to watch the news and she’d lament and comment on the world situation in her art.”

In a 1991 Los Angeles Times article by Josef Woodard, Fins said, “I think art is what keeps me normal. I really have a sense of humor. I’m an up person and I do a lot of laughing. I think I have that side of me because I’m able to express the other side in the studio.”

Gayel Childress, another fellow OSA member, responded about Fins’ passing by saying, “What a loss, what a hole for our art community. She was an artists’ artist and I just loved her spirit. She twinkled inside.

“She had such serious art, when I met her I expected a very serious person, but she was so much fun. As a beginning artist, new to the art world, I visited her house, which was like a museum.

“Yet, she cherished a small whimsical piece, and seeing that in Alberta let me know my whimsy was OK. She kind of validated my quirkiness without her knowing she did. You never know when you are going to touch someone.”

John Mirk

Planner joins four others seeking city appointment

By Sondra Murphy

The city of Ojai has received a fifth application for the open council seat. Ojai Planning Commissioner John Mirk submitted his application Wednesday. His name joins those of Paul Blatz, Demitri Corbin, Leonard Klaif and Mike Lenehan.

Mirk is an IT support technician at Patagonia and has lived in Ojai for 16 years. He is married to book editor Marquita Flemming and they have two children, Dan and Sarah, now grown. Mirk is also a registered architect in California, having a bachelor’s in architecture from William Marsh Rice University.

“I’ve enjoyed my service on the Planning Commission and am ready for new challenges,” said Mirk. “I consider service on the City Council to be one of the most demanding duties in our town and see the chance to be directly responsible for the well-being of Ojai as one of the most rewarding opportunities in public service.”

In addition to serving on the Planning Commission for 12 years, Mirk is on the board of directors of the Ojai Raptor Center and was treasurer at Theater 150 in 2003 and 2004. Theater is one of his hobbies. “For the past 10 years, I have been the technical director for the Nordhoff music department spring musicals,” Mirk said. “Working with Dr. Marty Babayco, I designed the sets for everything from ‘42nd Street’ to ‘The Pirates of Penzance,’ then helped the students and parents build the sets.”

Mirk also is the Planning Commission’s representative to the Housing Element Task Force, and is a member of the Public Art Review Committee and the Libbey Bowl Public Art selection committee. He is also one of seven representatives to the Environmental Grants Committee that allocates a portion of Patagonia’s “1-percent for the Planet” funds to nonprofit environmental groups and is on Patagonia’s Environmental Internship Committee that provides up to one month’s paid leave for employees to work with nonprofit groups.

He is frequently seen cruising the valley on his bicycle. “I am an avid bike rider,” said Mirk. “I am a member of the Channel Islands Bike Club and edit the club newsletter. I commute to Patagonia twice a week by bike and, on the weekends, I can often be found riding up the Dennison Grade or over Casitas Pass.”

He credits his two “notorious” 15-year-old Siberian huskies, Milo and Tasha, with facilitating the meeting of many Ojai residents. “In their youth, they were wont to escape our fenced-in back yard and wander the streets of Ojai,” Mirk said. “One of our early introductions to our Ojai neighbors — the lady at the Christian Science Reading Room, and avocado farmer up on Gridley Road, and our own Ojai Valley News carrier — came when people called or stopped by to apprise us of the whereabouts of our dogs at one time or another.”

Mirk sees housing as an important issue to Ojai.

“Having spent the past year as the Planning Commission’s representative to the Housing Element Task Force I am acutely aware of the increasing demand for affordable housing in Ojai and the need to maintain viable jobs within the city,” he said.

He has other ideas for improving Ojai, as well. “I believe that as a city we need to set standards and develop programs which will enhance our future while maintaining the essential qualities that make Ojai a unique and special community,” said Mirk. “The year ahead will present many challenges. Our citizens comprise a tremendously talented community, with a fierce dedication to preserving the essence of Ojai. It is incumbent upon the council to work together so we can effectively focus on addressing the needs of our city.”

For more information about the City Council appointment and information on all five candidates, see related story.

Kersnar hopes to protect $3M in surplus cash

By Daryl Kelley
For Ojai, the new year is sure to herald an era of strict limits on municipal government, as revenues continue to fall and city services are likely to be cut.

A sharp decline in hotel and sales taxes has eliminated a once-robust budget surplus and the city is likely to dip into reserves before the end of this fiscal year on June 30, city manager Jere Kersnar said this week in a stark analysis of Ojai’s financial health.

“How to balance our budget will be the overwhelming issue in the coming year,” Kersnar said in an interview.

“We’re just starting to get the numbers, and they’re not good,” he said. “There’s a significant drop in revenue, so we’re going to have to look at cuts. And no one knows how long this is going to last.”

During the next few months, the City Council will face tough decisions about whether to use the city’s emergency fund to maintain services at current levels, or to balance its budget through cuts, Kersnar said.

“We have just over $3 million (in reserve), so we’re OK,” he said, “but good fiscal management says you shouldn’t go into your next year depending on your savings to balance your budget.”

As city analysts prepare a budget update this month, Kersnar said it should become clear how much the faltering economy has curtailed city revenue. But he said preliminary figures for the six months ending Dec. 31 already show a sharp decline.

“It is a significant drop,” he said. “It’s a lot in percentage terms.”

The council has already cut back spending by about $400,000, from a projected $8.4 million, for the 2009-2010 budget cycle, Kersnar said. But more cuts are needed to balance the city ledger next year, he said.

Since nearly one-third of the city’s general fund budget goes to police services, Ojai’s contract with the Sheriff’s Department will be analyzed, Kersnar said. “But they tell us we’re pretty much at the low end of the service level as it is right now,” he said. The city’s $75,000 contribution to place a deputy at Nordhoff High School might also be in question for the next school year, he said.

City staffing, 25 full-time employees, will also be eyed for reduction, he said. But the staff is already lean. One area in which a reduction might occur is elimination of the position of redevelopment manager, because the agency’s director, Kathleen McCann, retired last week.

In recent years, Ojai had been in a relatively good financial position because hotel bed taxes make up an unusually large portion of the city budget, about one-third. And local hotels, primarily the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa, have done relatively well until the last year, he said. Now, bed taxes are down sharply.

Many large businesses, stung by criticism of excess spending on conferences in these tough economic times, don’t want to risk the public relations damage a stay at a five-star resort could cause, Kersnar said.

“The biggest dip — in hotel tax  — seems to be a decline in business traffic,” he said. “Groups are not coming to the Ojai Valley Inn. Lots of businesses, even though they could afford it, have cut back.”

Sales taxes from local shops have also dropped, he said, but Ojai has been hurt less than many other cities, because it has no huge major retailers. Only about 15 percent of Ojai’s revenue comes from sales.

Not only have hotel and sales taxes plummeted, but housing prices have also reached levels not seen for nearly a decade. But the hit in property taxes has been modest, Kersnar said.

That’s because even with lower prices and widespread lower appraisals by the county assessor’s office, the turnover of houses tends to increase the tax base, since it brings dwellings that were taxed low under Proposition 13 up to current value.

Another big issue facing the city is change on the City Council itself. Three of its five seats are on the ballot in November, and the council will decide next Tuesday whether to appoint a replacement for Joe DeVito, who retired with a year left in his term last week.

If the remaining four members cannot decide on a replacement, the DeVito seat would be filled in an election — either the June statewide primary or the November general election.

“My sense is that it will end up in an election,” Kersnar said.

Indeed, the council split 3-to-2 in deciding last month to replace DeVito by appointment. And now there are only four votes left on the council. “I don’t sense there is a majority for appointment,” Kersnar said.

In December, Sue Horgan and Steve Olsen voted for appointment, while Betsy Clapp and Carol Smith favored filling the seat by election.

Regardless of its composition, the council will be faced with major issues in 2010.

First, it is set to conclude its lengthy ruminations about a new $350,000 skateboard park by awarding a construction contract at its Jan. 26 meeting. Four builders have been pre-qualified to do the job and have submitted bids, Kersnar said. The city has donated $100,000 to the project with the bulk raised through community donations.

The council will also monitor progress toward the $3.5 million reconstruction of Libbey Bowl, to which the city has contributed $750,000 and about $150,000 in services, the city manager said.

“These projects are there and they will proceed,” Kersnar said, although backers have yet to raise the final $1.5 million needed for the bowl rehabilitation.

Other construction projects are also expected to move forward in the coming year.

In March, the city plans to spend $350,000 to $400,000 in federal stimulus money on street resurfacing. Another pot of stimulus money could also yield a similar amount for street repair, Kersnar said.

In addition, the city has received word that it will get $900,000 in stimulus money to replace its two aging trolleys.

“It’s just a matter of getting all the state approvals,” Kersnar said. “People talk about federal delay, but the major problem is getting the money approved by the state.”

Still, some long-planned projects won’t happen this year. For example, the extension of Fulton Street to Bryant Street to reduce congestion out of the city’s industrial park is on a back burner. This 10-year effort has finally met environmental requirements and the city now owns the land, but there is no construction money, Kersnar said.

Another variable is how the state’s yawning $20-billion budget deficit over the next 18 months is going to affect Ojai, Kersnar said.

Although this city depends less on state funds than most, it could still be hit with cuts, he said.

Historically, in tough economic times, the state has balanced its budget by withdrawing tax money from local governments that it has pledged to pass through. These so-called SB 90 dollars are supposed to pay for programs the state has required local governments to provide without reliable funding.

Ojai could lose about $50,000 this way, Kersnar said.

Another $100,000 in state law enforcement grants could also go away, he said.

But the largest potential hit is in state attempts to capture redevelopment money from local governments. If the state is not blocked in court, Ojai would have to write a check for $592,000 to Sacramento in May, which is more than half of the $1 million the city receives in redevelopment property tax each year.

Courts struck down the state’s attempt to take local redevelopment money last year, but state officials have tried to change law to patch legal loopholes, Kersnar said.

“But our experts say what they’re doing is still unconstitutional,” he said.

Also near the top of the council agenda is the question of how it should meet state mandates to provide more affordable housing. One possible answer is to grant amnesty to those who have allowed illegal dwellings on their property if they will bring those substandard dwellings up to city code.

A city report determined that there are more than 300 illegal dwellings in the city. But the city has suspended discussions on that issue until after an environmental report on the city’s overall housing plan is complete in the next few months.

“We haven’t figured out how to do the (amnesty) plan,” Kersnar said.

At issue overall is how the city can address a state quota that requires it to provide 465 new affordable dwellings, despite a shortage of bare land and the traffic and smog problems that growth would bring to this narrow valley served by two-lane highways.

The council must also deal with a second bench mark plan within the first few months of 2010 — how to extend the life of its Redevelopment Agency.

The council, acting as the city’s Redevelopment Agency board, must focus on how it can continue to refurbish the city’s core as the agency approaches a cap on how much it can collect in property taxes.

Since its founding in 1972, the Redevelopment Agency has captured about $20 million in property tax that would otherwise have gone to other government entities. But, with soaring property values during the last decade, the agency is now approaching a $23.2-million cap on how much it can collect.

That means that by 2012, the agency could be effectively out of the redevelopment business, and the city would be hard-pressed to find another source for the $1 million a year the agency collects.

A top redevelopment lawyer has said the city may extend Redevelopment Agency collections, however. That’s because Ojai’s collections cap may apply only to its original redevelopment zone, its aging core, and not to two newer, smaller redevelopment zones for east and west Ojai Avenue and Bryant Street, the lawyer said.

The County of Ventura has challenged this move, and negotiations are under way to try reach a compromise that would allow Ojai to amend its plan and still collect millions more dollars during the next 30 years, while passing some along to the county.

Kersnar said he thinks a compromise could be reached by spring.

Even as the city and the county squabble over who would get extra taxes from new development, Kersnar said that for the first time in years there are no pending new home construction projects before the city, other than a long-standing plan to replace several cottages on Mallory Way with new condos.

Several small projects approved over the years still have not been built, but there’s nothing new on the horizon, he said.

“One thing that’s truly fascinating,” he said, “is that we have nothing residential in the pipeline.”

City, school board to resume talks for Channel 10 control

By Sondra Murphy

Last season’s mystery of Channel 10 ended with a cliffhanger and local cable television subscribers have yet to learn the outcome.

Time Warner Cable customers are still waiting for the public access station to air more comprehensive content about the Ojai Valley. Despite station management and funding logistics being a topic of much debate and effort last year by the Ojai City Council and staff, sparse offerings continue to be aired, consisting primarily of City Council and Planning Commission meetings with occasional calendar items.

Ojai Unified School District was meeting last spring with the city to hammer out a memo of understanding enabling its Nordhoff High School Media Arts Academy to manage Channel 10 when OUSD superintendent Tim Baird tendered his resignation. Baird’s departure and the search for and selection of current superintendent Henry Bangser, coupled with focus on Skate Park negotiations between the city and School District, sidelined further progress.

“I received a request from the School District to sit back down at the table with them,” said city Public Works director Mike Culver. “It kind of got put on hold with the new superintendent coming in, but now they’re ready to talk about it.” Culver expected he and city manager Jere Kersnar would meet with OUSD this month.

“Mike and Jere and I and a couple of leaders from the district, particularly Dan Musick and Greg Bayless from the high school, are going to be getting together in the next week or two to talk about some options for moving the issue forward,” said Bangser. “I have a few ideas and thoughts from people in the district and I want to see if they mesh with what the people over in the city want to help us accomplish.”

Bangser cited the Skate Park negotiations, infant center closure and educational issues for part of the break in talks, as well as time needed for him to learn the history of local public access efforts. “We haven’t dropped it. We’re getting up to it now in early 2010.”

Assembly Bill 2987, the 2006 Digital Infrastructure and Competition Act, proposed to equalize competition among cable providers by allowing them all to franchise with the state. Intending to open up access to various media providers by altering franchise regulations, cable providers such as Time Warner, which provides cable to Ojai, were able to reduce the number of local cable stations they facilitated.

AB 2987 also opened up the prospect for the city to assume management of Channel 10 and receive additional funds for the effort.

The City Council voted in 2008 to take on management of Channel 10 and its equipment, which would otherwise have gone dark Jan. 1, 2009.

After slow progress and hesitancy over assuming broadcast duties and responsibilities, a second reading of an ordinance adding a new chapter to the Ojai Municipal Code received unanimous support by the Ojai City Council in February 2009. The ordinance addresses state video franchises pursuant to Assembly Bill 2987, the Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act of 2006 as it relates to Channel 10.

The city has long gotten 5 percent of Time Warner’s revenues from customers in the city limits, which Culver estimated to be $88,000 annually that goes into the general fund. The council voted unanimously to pass the ordinance in February and, while supportive of taking over Channel 10, they still wanted assurances of the risks associated with any agreement between the city and OUSD.

Since March, the city has been collecting the extra amount from a percentage of Time Warner’s Ojai franchise profits into a special fund. “What we’ve gotten so far is $14,579,” said Kersnar. “It varies. We get paid quarterly, so it looks like we’re getting about $5,000 per quarter.” The amount is approximately 1 percent more than the city previously received and is figured by calculating the number of Time Warner Cable subscribers in the city of Ojai.

In November 2008, Culver formed a community task team of interested parties to work on a plan. That team consists of representatives from the City Council, city staff, the School District, Ministerial Association, and Ojai Valley News, as well as individuals experienced in emergency preparedness, technology and public access TV production. Once the station is capable of airing more comprehensive programming, the committee hopes to explore methods of collecting revenues for the unincorporated areas of the Ojai Valley, since these customers also have access to Channel 10.

Culver also convinced Time Warner to turn over to the city equipment to run the station, which is now housed at Public Works. The problem is there is no staff to accept and air content from the community at large, a crucial element in the concept of public access television.

Public access television must focus on three areas: public information, education and government (P.E.G.). With the city covering the government portion, the task team considered the other two components to Channel 10’s broadcasts of enabling community members to create and submit content.

In November 2008, Ojai Unified School District offered to run the station through its Media Arts Academy in exchange for the then-estimated $17,600 to begin the effort and had hoped to begin in January 2009.

That offer was supported by task team members, but negotiations between the city and OUSD stalled over operational logistics, as well as plans that were not detailed enough to satisfy the City Council.

Council members favorably viewed the later proposal submitted by Baird in February. In the proposal, Baird outlined a curriculum design for station management to be incorporated into the Media Arts Academy in order to provide eight hours of daily programming and allow for community involvement in several areas. Besides an advisory board of local media specialists, OUSD’s proposal encourages community submissions.

Again the community awaits an agreement between the two public organizations governed by procedural law and advised by often-conflicting legal representation. And so, like any engrossing mystery, the case of Channel 10 is to be continued.

Friends unite to stop home foreclosure

By Nancy Gross
On Saturday, beginning at 8 a.m., the parking lot of the New Wine Fellowship on Church Road will again be sudsy with love and service. A fund-raising car wash, like the one held last spring for the grieving Scarminach family, is being staged to help Frances Fraser hang onto her house. Fraser has been a gracious presence in Oak View and Ojai for many decades.

“She helps with everything. She’s losing her house to foreclosure,” said Sharyn Mathews, who is one of the organizers of the event. Mathews was also instrumental in making last year’s car wash benefit for the Scarminach family so successful, with thousands of dollars contributed by valley residents and businesses.

“It’s just a heart kind of thing. I remember when I went to Ventura High School and she was one of the security officers there, like a lunch cop. And she’s always been at H & R Block when I do my taxes,” Mathews said.

Another helper at last spring’s car wash, Claudia Decker, is assisting again. She said that Fraser “goes up and down the street and helps all the neighbors. She just had an operation, and she’s still helping others.”

And sure enough, when Fraser’s warm voice returns a phone call she missed, she says, “I have a friend who’s in a wheelchair and I was sort of watching her out in the yard while her husband did yard work.”

Fraser has lived in her house at 104 Grapevine for 50 years. “My son was just a baby when we moved here. I grew up on Burnham Road, on another part of the same property. I’ve always lived here since.

“I’m on Social Security. I do work at H & R Block during tax season,” Fraser said.

Danny Miller, pastor at New Wine Fellowship, said, “Her monthly mortgage is not terribly high. But she has been behind several of her mortgage payments.” He said there was some fraud to her bank account that brought about her current crisis.

“I just heard that the bank is holding off (on the foreclosure) until March. We’re trying to raise as much as we can to be a blessing to her,” Miller said. “She’s been part of the church for a couple of years, and she’s been active in the community.” Fraser has helped with food distribution at the First Baptist Church, and many people knew her as the scorekeeper for softball in the valley.

The Fraser family has long been integrated into the community, both giving and receiving. Daniel Fraser, one of Fraser’s sons and a well-loved softball player and manager, died in a car accident in 2002. “When my son died the Rec. Department and men’s softball put on a big tournament at Sarzotti Park.”

Fraser is waiting for more information from her bank, but hopes that several thousand dollars would allow her to get out of foreclosure. She could then return to making her monthly payments in the peace of the home she’s lived in for so long.

The event will commence Saturday at 8 a.m. at New Wine Fellowship, 441 Church Road, rain or shine. If you want to donate but cannot attend, call Mathews at 223-4314, or contact the church.

Sally Field joins Ojai’s Ted Danson and
Mary Steenburgen for this year’s event

By Sondra Murphy

Continuing a tradition of star-studded performances, the 13th annual Ojai Playwrights Conference winter benefit is set for this month at Matilija Auditor-ium.

The original evening of theater will be created and directed by Michael Morris and OPC artistic director and producer Robert Egan.

Demonstrating the clout the conference has cultivated over the years, prestigious actors will again participate in the “Hearts on Fire” winter benefit that will honor four-time Tony Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally with the 2010 OPC Award.

Born in 1939, McNally produced his first play in 1964 at the age of 25. Although several early comedies such as “Next” (1969) and “The Ritz” (1975) won McNally significant praise, it was not until later in his career that he would become internationally renowned with works such as “Frankie and Johnny at the Claire de Lune” (1987) for which he wrote the screen adaptation which starred Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer.

McNally has won four Tony awards and been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for “A Perfect Ganesh.” Besides “Frankie and Johnny,” he is known for writing “Love! Valour! Compassion!,” television scripts and the book for the musicals, “The Full Monty,” “Ragtime” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”

“Terrence is one of America’s greatest living playwrights. So many awards, so much output, and so many extraordinary characters brought to life in his poignant plays,” said Egan. “McNally participated in the Ojai Playwrights Conference several years ago, and developed one of his plays here,” he added. “He said it was one of the best developmental experiences of his life.”

Featured actors this year are two-time Oscar and three-time Emmy winner Sally Field (“Places in the Heart,” “Norma Rae,” “Brothers & Sisters”); Golden Globe winner Sandra Oh (“Grey’s Anatomy,” “Sideways”); Emmy and Golden Globe winner Ted Danson (“Cheers,” “Becker”); and Oscar and Golden Globe winner Mary Steenburgen (“Melvin and Howard,” “Parenthood”). They will be in the cast for a one-night-only performance titled “Hearts on Fire.”

Also performing at the benefit are Emmy-winning actress Dana Delany (“China Beach,” “Desperate Housewives”); Emmy nominated and Tony winner John Glover (“Smallville,” “Love! Valour! Compassion!”); Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Jane Kaczmarek (“Malcolm in the Middle,” “Raising the Bar”); Golden Globe winning songwriter Amanda McBroom (“The Rose”); Zachary Quinto (“Heroes,” “Star Trek 2009”); Steven Weber (“Brothers & Sisters,” “Dracula: Dead and Loving It”) and Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Noah Wyle (“E.R.,” “The Librarian” series), and other talent still to be announced.

Egan promises an evening of heart-breaking, heart-lifting and heart-throbbing performances of an eclectic mix of works by some of America’s greatest playwrights, including McNally.

Egan has a history of bringing together major talent in Ojai for once-in-a-lifetime performances. “The OPC has become one of the most acclaimed new play and development programs in the country and these stars want to support our efforts,” said Egan. “We are the only one whose primary mission is to develop plays and writers whose focus is on the major social, political and ethical issues of our day.”

“Hearts on Fire” is set for Jan. 30 at 5:30 p.m. The actors rehearse the morning before the benefit readings and infuse adult humor into the performance, garnering a self-imposed PG rating in past years.

Ticket options are $85 for “Hearts on Fire” only, or $225 for the reading, plus the post-show dinner and live auction at St. Thomas Aquinas Hall. The auction will feature trips abroad, a set visit to “Desperate Housewives” courtesy of Delany, theater packages, and romantic getaways for Valentine’s Day. Many of this year’s performers will serve as auctioneers.

Award-winning chef Michael Hollingsworth, a favorite among political and artistic celebrities, is organizing the dinner.

VIP packages for eight cost $2,000 for preferred seating, dinner and a group photo with the cast. A limited number of back row tickets will be available for $70. Tickets may be purchased at ojaiplays.org or by calling 640-0400.

Proceeds benefit the Ojai Playwrights Conference, which takes place each summer as a means to foster creative technique in established and emerging playwrights, as well as develop and advance unproduced plays. More than 500 submissions were received this year and selections will be announced in spring.

The 13th annual OPC New Works Festival, scheduled for Aug. 10 through 15, is a two-week, intensive, in-residence workshop which culminates in special events and performances open to the public.

We take a quick look back at the stories that
made news during the last half of 2009

July
• K’Lynn Jackson, 17, an Ojai native, just won the title of Miss California High School Rodeo Queen 2009-2010.

• A design permit review for an interior remodel of Vons, exterior upgrade of the entire center and parking lot improvements was denied by the Ojai Planning Commission.

• The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office will charge Alex Medina, the 14-year-old suspect in the April 26 murder of Seth Scarminach as an adult. If convicted, the Mira Monte teen could face life in prison.

• According to authorities, longtime Ojai resident Walter Henry Dohrn Jr., 70, disappeared from a friend’s residence in Cherry Valley Sunday, about 150 miles east of Ojai in Riverside County.

• Sergio Aragones, who brings smiles to millions, will have his first solo exhibit at the Ojai Valley Museum.

• According to OUSD Board President Linda Taylor, the board has selected Dr. Henry Stephen Bangser as its new superintendent.

• Between May 1 and June 30, unknown suspect(s) placed “skimmers” on credit card readers on the gas pumps at Valero Gas stations in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

• Otto Heino, the soft-spoken potter who was one of Ojai’s and the world’s most revered artists, died after a short illness. He was 94 and still actively working.

• The federal government failed to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on an appellate court decision which found that the government seized Casitas Municipal Water District property by forcing it to provide water for endangered steelhead trout.

• Ojai has earned a shot at becoming America’s “Best Tennis Town.”

• A 14-year-old Mira Monte resident, Alex Medina, pleaded not guilty to murdering a 16-year-old Chaparral High School student at an unsupervised teen party in April. Medina faces a charge of homicide with the use of a knife, and committing a crime for the benefit of a criminal street gang.

August
• The city expects to receive at least $850,000 in federal stimulus money for road paving and two new trolleys in the next few months, and may pick up $110,000 a year for three years from Washington for a school resource officer at Nordhoff High School.

• Ojai Valley Youth Foundation’s executive director Joanna Iwata was presented with an Inspiration Award from the National Teen Leadership Program on Aug. 2.

• Evan Graham, who lives in Ojai and will be a junior at Ojai Valley School in the fall, turned 16, accomplished his first five solo flights and set a world record.

• The Ojai City Council denied this week an appeal by the Ojai Unified School District that sought to delay approval of the design of a new, permanent skate park until district concerns had been addressed.

• After a federal agency failed to launch a rescue effort last month, at least 54 juvenile steelhead trout died in dry pools in the upper Ventura River near the $9-million Robles fish ladder, built to save endangered fish from extinction.

• The parking lot and the room were packed for the Ojai Valley Municipal Advisory Council meeting. The recurring questions of the evening were “Where are the people who initiated this review and these changes to the Scenic Resources Protection Overlay Zone, and isn’t enough bureaucratic intervention enough?” as far as architects, builders, graders and agriculture in the valley having to comply with already very strict codes and standards?

• Members of the Ojai Valley community who came together for the final Heal the Community meeting, or town hall on gang violence, were treated to a positive and constructive evening. “There was a lot of emotion at the last meeting,” said Police Chief Dunn. “People yelling out from the audience about ‘running them out of town,’ saying, ‘Why can’t you do more?’ ‘They’re illegals’ — I’d like to remind people that we have to operate within the guidelines set forth in the U.S. and California constitutions. We cannot operate like the Gestapo and run people out of town, nor would we.”

• After quizzing operators of Sea Fresh Seafood extensively, Ojai city planners moved toward approval of an expansion.

• The effects of the state’s budget crisis keep washing over California communities, prompting the OUSD to chop five days off the coming school year, reduce teacher salaries and begin to plan a cut in bus transportation.

• Ojai resident and Oscar-winning screenwriter Roger Avary, who earlier pleaded not guilty to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, resulting in a late-night car crash in Ojai on January 12, 2008, entered guilty pleas this week in Ventura County Superior Court.

• The Ojai Valley News won first place, third place and honorable mention awards from the National Newspaper Association.

• St. Joseph’s Health and Retirement Center and the Ojai community lost one of its treasures Thursday morning when cancer took the life of Brother Hugo Stippler, age 86.

September
• Ojai Valley citrus farmers, threatened by the discovery of a potentially disastrous infestation of a plant-eating, tree-jumping lice in Southern California, are asking local residents to not bring any fruit or trees purchased elsewhere into the valley.

• Ventura County fire crews worked to contain a brushfire that broke out near Lake Casitas, when a motorcycle crashed into the hillside.

• The U.S. Tennis Association’s Best Tennis Town contest yielded a second-place award for Ojai, a $50,000 prize, during the U.S. Open.

• Members of the local peace group, Living Peace in Ojai, plan on combining a celebration of International Peace Day with events that focus on “diversity, conflict and community.”

• “Micah’s March” was held for 14-month-old Micah Marshall, who has spinal muscular atrophy.

• Jenny Newell, Niles Dohrn and wife Tara, Jennel Dohrn and Walt Dohrn Jr. hope that a fund-raising event held at the restaurant named in honor of their mother, Bonnie Dohrn, can help them continue efforts to find their father, Walter Dohrn, who has been missing since July 5.

• A Pennsylvania-based private school operator, Nobel Learning Communities Inc. of West Chester, Pa., announced the purchase of Laurel Springs School for $12 million.

• Approximately 200 people attended Monday’s Municipal Advisory Council meeting and the MAC arrived at a unanimous decision against expanding the Ojai Valley Scenic Resource Protection Overlay Zone.

• Ventura County Environmental Health Division received confirmation from the State Department of Public Health that one wild bird collected by EHD vector control technicians the third week of September 2009 tested positive for the West Nile virus.

• Fire investigators are trying to determine the cause of an early-morning fire that destroyed a home at 411 Grand Ave. and caused extensive damage to the attic of a neighboring residence.

• Oscar-winning screenwriter and Ojai Valley resident Roger Avary was sentenced to one year in jail and five years probation for gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated.

• A traffic collision occurred involving a pickup truck and an Ojai Unified School District bus on Baldwin Road at Los Encinos Road. Kim Fullenwider, age 53 of Ojai, was driving the bus.

October
• The Erickson-Brosius family is still sorting out their lives after a quick-moving fire engulfed and destroyed their Grand Avenue residence.

•  Ojai Valley Community Hospital unveiled its new Emergency Room during a ribbon-cutting ceremony before about 200 supporters.

• Former tennis great Jack Kramer honored Ojai with a $25,000 posthumous donation to the Tennis Club.

• The American Red Cross of Ventura County recognizes Kathy Hartley’s gracious outreach and public concern, naming her Philanthropist of the Year.

• A large black bear made its way into town, climbing a tree near the corner of Signal and Aliso streets. After spending 20 hours up the pine tree it was a hard, final fall for the bear, when DFG wardens tranquilized and then euthanized it, to the dismay and outrage of many Ojai residents.

• Longtime Ojai City Council member and current Mayor Joe DeVito submitted his resignation.

• Just beginning a new rainfall year, the Ojai Valley experienced its second wettest October in the last half century, relieving farmers of irrigation costs.

• A 49-year-old Oak View woman, Laura Hanson, was killed in a single-vehicle crash off Highway 33 near Casitas Springs.

• Peter Graves, the silver-haired 6-foot-2 pilot from the classic comedy, “Airplane,” will be among the luminaries the Ojai-Ventura Film Festival will bring to town the first week of November.

• A dramatic fire broke out Monday afternoon at one of Ojai’s historic landmarks, the Theodore Woolsey House on East Ojai Avenue, injuring one Ventura County firefighter.

• Oscar-winning screenwriter and Ojai Valley resident Roger Avary was booked into Ventura County Jail on Monday to begin serving a one-year sentence for felony manslaughter, and was immediately placed in a work-furlough program.

• According to the Ojai Valley Community Hospital, visits by swine flu patients to the Emergency Room are steadily increasing.

November
• Hundreds of Ojai teenagers volunteered their innermost thoughts and a talented troupe of students and the Ojai Valley Youth Foundation brought those feelings to the stage in “Teens Talk … Will You Listen?” at Matilija High School Auditorium

• The next chapter in the Ojai Skate Park chronicles is complete. On Tuesday, the Ojai Unified School District board approved the city’s plans for downtown skate park construction, but not without some adjustments.

• At the Ojai Ventura Film Festival, the Best Documentary Short honored Ojai and Rich Reid for the film “Watershed Revolution.”

• Help of Ojai’s 2009 annual meeting combined efficiency with a warm sense of community, and under Terri Wolfe’s leadership, Help is in the black. County Supervisor Steve Bennett attended and spoke about Ojai’s high unemployment rate, and growing need for services.

• Organizers of last weekend’s Mentor Madness Poker Run and Car and Motorcycle Show are happy that the event was a success. “Approximately $7,000 was raised and there were a little over 100 poker run participants,” said Heal the Community co-founder Dusty Fernandez.

• In the ongoing efforts to raise $3 million for the Libbey Bowl restoration project, a new idea has emerged. The Ojai City Council staff brought a request to consider renaming the bowl in exchange for a $1 million donation.

• The Sheriff’s Gang Unit arrested Rutilio Huerta for the gang-related attempted murder of Joshua Powers that occurred in the city of Ojai on New Year’s Eve.

• The Ojai Film Society honored its 2009 Steenburgen Film Studies Scholarship winner on Sunday, and honoree and Brooks Institute student Sean Broadbent’s short film “Une Vie Merveilleuse” was screened.

• The Ojai Valley Youth Foundation has restructured, eliminating three positions, including that of executive director Joanna Iwata, and bringing in board member Dan Burrell to oversee operations.

• The Casitas Municipal Water District has requested that a federal agency seeking to restore endangered southern steelhead trout in the Ventura River to sustainable levels provide more solid information and be more precise and realistic in its goals.

• Peter Strauss recently made a decision not to run for Congress representing our 24th District. He was approached in June and met in Washington with Democratic Party officials and White House political directors.

• Darlene Mansfield, whose husband was “the whistling telephone man in this valley” put out a reprint of the 1954 Ojai Valley Directory.

• Almost 11 months after a near-fatal stabbing incident on Waite Street, 19-year-old Fidel Duran has pleaded guilty to multiple felonies.

• Ojai Police detectives warn Ojai Valley residents of an increase in reported vehicle burglaries and thefts from vehicles.

• Following a summer in which at least 54 steelhead trout died in dry pools in the upper Ventura River, federal officials who failed to launch a rescue effort are now devising a strategy that could save the endangered fish when they face death.

December
• A Superior Court judge this week ordered the mental evaluation of Alex Medina after defense lawyers said they had doubts about the youth’s ability to assist in his own defense. A competency hearing to discuss the evaluation was set for Jan. 8.

• Effective Dec. 1, Walter A. Einhart Jr. has been named editor and publisher of the Ojai Valley News.

• Sergio Ramos was sentenced this morning to 27 years in state prison for a shooting he committed in Oak View in 2008. Ramos, an Ojai gang member, has been in custody since his arrest in June of 2008.

• Two men died when their single-engine Piper Tomahawk crashed at 24 Krotona Road.

• Chairman and President David Shor announced his departure from the Ojai-Ventura Film Festival, and that of six other board members.

• Ojai City Councilwoman and former Mayor Sue Horgan announced Tuesday that she has entered the race for Ventura County Treasurer and Tax Collector.

• Lanie Springer, longtime champion of philanthropy and community service, died of pancreatic cancer.

• Actor and Ojai Arts Commissioner Demitri Corbin has thrown his hat into the ring for a City Council opening.

• Detectives from the Ojai sub-station and the Sheriff’s Gang Unit concluded a two-month investigation into a vehicle burglary ring with the arrest of five suspects.

• Parks & Recreation Commissioner Mike Lenehan submitted his application for a City Council seat.

We take a quick look back at the stories that
made news during the first six months of 2009

January
• The rumors are true: as of yesterday, texting while driving will be an illegal infraction in the state of California. The state Legislature and Gov. Schwar-zenegger signed the no-texting ban into law for the new year.

• Fresno resident Jerry Powers said his 27-year-old son, Oak View resident Joshua Ray Powers, was left for dead in the 200 block of Waite Street at 1:30 a.m. News Year’s Day after being stabbed 17 times.

• With a Meiners Oaks church refusing to lease Ventura river-bottom land, government agencies have been forced to back away from their top choice for disposal of a 20-foot-high mound of silt as part of the Matilija Dam removal project. Members of the Church of the Living Christ rejected a lease with Ventura County and the U.S. government that would have allowed 2.1 million cubic yards of slurried silt to be piped from behind the aging dam to a 74-acre site at the base of a bluff next to Rice Road.

• Ojai Planning Commission approved proposed general standards for outdoor merchandise displays drawn up by a committee of merchants and city representatives. Such displays have historically been prohibited in the city.

• After an extensive two-month search, Dave Neville, Help’s board chairperson, and director Kelly Randall, head of the executive director search committee, announced the hiring of Terri Wolfe as Help’s new executive director.

“I plan to provide ongoing and consistent leadership for the staff and volunteers so they can focus on the things they’re really good at,” said Wolfe. “After working with other not-for-profits around the country, I wanted to come back and do it in this community.”

• Seven drums, each carrying 300 to 400 gallons of diesel fuel, spilled from a large truck on Highway 33 at mile marker 40.84 before dawn after the truck ran off the highway. According to reports, 1,000 gallons spilled into Adobe Creek and 700 gallons spilled into the soil near the creek.

February
• Local cable TV subscribers may have noticed the programming on Channel 10 has dwindled to city meetings and a sparse bulletin. Starting in January, the city of Ojai took over the running of public access television.

• Gus Hoffman, a 17-year-old Nordhoff High School junior, has done something most students and many actors can only dream of, he’s co-starred in an original movie that will be broadcast into hundreds of thousands of living rooms across the nation on TNT.

• Once again a litany of economic woes topped the Ojai Unified School Board meeting. Superintendent Tim Baird outlined the grim economic picture he was given over three days of statewide meetings.

• Help of Ojai received an early Valentine’s Day gift from a former volunteer who remembered the organization in her will.

June Greiving left a bequest of $125,000 to Help.

March
• City Council members are bracing themselves for an emotion-fueled evening. At issue is the long-standing debate over the city’s enforcement — or lack thereof — of the merchandise display laws that have been on the books for years.

The topic, which has been on the City Council’s agenda for the past several sessions, threatens to turn into a bit of a brouhaha at Tuesday’s gathering as a result of the sudden issuing of several unexpected official “notices of violation” to local retailers last week, mainly along the Arcade, for such infractions as having a sign outside a shop or a small table or rack of goods on display.

• The Ojai Unified School District board voted to notify 74 teachers of impending layoffs, the teachers’ dreaded “pink slips.”

Positions scheduled to be noticed for layoffs include 32 elementary teachers, 31 secondary teachers, and 13 district positions such as English language support, elementary music and physical education.

• After several months spent examining neighborhood safety concerns at El Roblar Drive and Poli Avenue, the Ojai Valley Municipal Advisory Council decided against recommending stop signs or no parking zones along the little business district.

• Food For Thought, which last year received a grant for a pilot project called Up and Down the Waste Stream, has received a two-year $80,000 anonymous grant to continue greening our schools with its Green and Healthy Schools Program.

• A Mira Monte woman who refused to allow gypsy moth spraying on her property has complained to authorities about what she considers “strong-arm tactics” by a Ventura County biologist who urged her to reconsider that decision.

• The Ventura County Sheriff Gang Unit, assisted by several local and federal agencies, served 12 search warrants in two counties, as part of an ongoing investigation into a criminal street gang. The search warrants resulted in the seizure of nine handguns, methamphetamine, stolen motorcycles, prescription pills, and dangerous weapons.

• Appraising Libbey Bowl as a significant treasure to the community, the Ojai City Council voted unanimously to commit $500,000 in development funds to the next phase in its reconstruction.

• Serving court warrants, police-escorted state crews entered 27 Ojai area properties without permission to spray trees and shrubs with an organic pesticide to halt the spread of a tree-killing moth, a move some homeowners declared an outrage.

Officials said they’ve now treated all 577 properties within a designated spray zone in Mira Monte and Meiners Oaks just as caterpillars have hatched from larvae on their way to becoming gypsy moths.

• Landscaper Scot Olson was working in a yard in the 800 Block of Thomas Street in Oak View where he looked over at the pool and saw a toddler floating on the surface. He then pulled the floating child from the pool and began rescue breathing. A woman came running to the pool and dove in to retrieve another child from the bottom. Both girls had regained consciousness prior to the arrival of emergency medical services.  The children were transported to local area hospitals where they were treated and later released to their parents.

April
• The Ojai Valley Land Conservancy has completed its four-month search for a new executive director by signing a contract with Greg Gamble.

Gamble said he is excited about his new job and about becoming integrated with the Ojai community.

• A long-anticipated meeting between residents of the Ojai Valley and the Federal Emergency Management Agency took place at Matilija Auditorium, drawing about 200 people out in the rain to hear the latest developments on floodplain remapping efforts and levee certification processes.

• A long-anticipated meeting between residents of the Ojai Valley and the Federal Emergency Management Agency took place at Matilija Auditorium, drawing about 200 people out in the rain to hear the latest developments on floodplain remapping efforts and levee certification processes.

Ventura County 1st District Supervisor Steve Bennett served as moderator of the meeting in reviewing FEMA’s methods and answering questions from the community. Bennett said that FEMA has been working for the past 18 months on remapping the floodplains of this county, prompted by a 2005 federal mandate, and has just begun efforts in the Ojai Valley.

In addition, a recent letter was circulated by the county Board of Supervisors to those living near the Live Oak Acres Levee stating it would not meet new FEMA standards being enforced. The change is expected to rezone the neighborhoods into a floodplain, increasing meeting attendance from those in that neighborhood. Residents from other floodplain designations, such as those in Casitas Springs and the East End, were also present.

• A polite yet unhappy crowd faced the budget-weary OUSD board during the three-and-a-half hour public portion of the board meeting. The evening covered more budget cuts and city plans for the proposed skate park renovation.

• The Ojai City Council was faced with a debate as it considered a request from the Ojai Unified School District to help pay the cost for the school resource officer at Nordhoff High School.

Due to state-level cutbacks, funding for the police position will be short about $31,000 for the remainder of the school year. City staff recommended that the city cover the remainder of the officer’s salary for this year, as well as authorize application for a federal grant to cover the expense for three more years.

• Not all Ojai Valley banks are lining up for their share of nearly $1 billion in total national Troubled Asset Relief Program, or T.A.R.P. money.

“We haven’t taken any bailout money,” said Martha Dowden of Los Padres Bank, “at least not any I know about.”

“Too many strings when you take that money,” joined in Dowden’s colleague, Tom Farmer. “You take that money and when you have your stockholders meeting you’ve got someone from the government there.”

• As the rainfall season winds down, authorities report that the Ojai Valley has experienced another year of sub-par precipitation, lowering the Lake Casitas reservoir, dropping groundwater levels and forcing farmers to water crops even during the wettest months.

The county Watershed Protection District reported local rainfall totals since Oct. 1 at between 54 percent and 62 percent of normal as the Ojai Valley had its fourth extremely dry year in the last decade.

• A 16-year-old Chaparral High School student was stabbed to death at an unsupervised teen party early Sunday, and a 14-year-old Mira Monte resident was arrested that evening on suspicion of murder in what authorities described as a gang-related homicide.

In the Ojai Valley’s first slaying in 11 years, Seth Scarminach died in the driveway of a Meiners Oaks home from stab wounds to his neck and chest shortly before 2 a.m., authorities said.

Scarminach, a Meiners Oaks resident, had also been the victim of an armed robbery in Oak View earlier this year, police confirmed.

Sheriff’s investigators would not elaborate on why they described the killing as gang related except to say that the suspect was an associate of an Ojai-based Latino gang.

• Dan Salas of Ventura County Fire Department station 20 in Upper Ojai helped fight a structure fire on the corner of El Roblar and Encinal in Meiners Oaks around 10:30 a.m. Thursday. County firefighting crews from Ventura County, Ventura City, Fillmore and Santa Paula responded to the blaze and helped to knock down the flames. There were no injuries and while a neighboring house sustained only smoke damage and a few broken windows, the building appeared to be a total loss and multiple vehicles on the property were damaged by smoke and fire.

• The next round of battles against increased diesel truck traffic through Ojai is coming.

If approved, Ozena Valley Ranch Mine could bring 200 gravel trucks a day through the Ojai Valley on Highway 33, doubling their current allowance.

The Ventura County Planning Division has scheduled an environmental impact report-scoping meeting for May 6 at 6 p.m. in Chaparral Auditorium, 414 E. Ojai Ave.

• As the rainfall season winds down, authorities report that the Ojai Valley has experienced another year of sub-par precipitation, lowering the Lake Casitas reservoir, dropping groundwater levels and forcing farmers to water crops even during the wettest months.

Three businesses drop affiliations with national chains

By Nancy Gross

As many in Ojai try to promote shopping local, three businesses have made it easier to keep the cash flowing in town, rather than through corporate pockets. Without any coercion Radio Shack has become Ojai Electronics and Hobby, Union 76 has become Ojai Gas, and Best Western Casa Ojai is now simply, Casa Ojai.

In fairness to Dottie Berry of Ojai Electronics and Hobby, her independently owned Radio Shack franchise was always called Ojai Electronics, for 23 years, though it had a Radio Shack sign, and it was listed in the Ojai Valley Directory’s yellow pages as Radio Shack-Ojai Elec-tronics.

“Radio Shack wants to make all the little independents run like a corporate Radio Shack store, and the fixtures they want in the store are expensive. They don’t want to pay for them. The profit margin was not there to continue to operate,” Berry said.

She added that Radio Shack wants the small franchises to follow certain protocol with customers as part of using their name and carrying their products. She said, “They want you to ask for every customer’s name and address, even if it’s offensive. They want you to keep certain checklists. I guess sometimes these franchises get too demanding about the numbers, the corporate image.”

She thinks Radio Shack may be phasing out small franchises but said, “You can’t put a corporate store in a small community. There’s not enough volume.”

Berry had the opportunity in September to move down one store in the building she was in; she dropped the franchise at the same time. The new store is a little smaller, “but we have better visibility. There is more signage on the way. I’m going into carrying some hobby items.” She moved to the location vacated by The Trunk, and now has one window facing onto Matilija Street.

Berry said clients have reacted positively to the change. “People let me know what they want. We do a lot of special orders for people. If we can get it, we will, and they appreciate that.” On a day-to-day basis, the hot sellers at the store are accessories like headphones and phone chargers.

One shopper this week at Ojai Electronics and Hobby was Dr. Dee Weisman’s husband, George — who asked good humouredly to be identified that way. He is visiting town, and had found the old Radio Shack store vacated, but noticed the sign for the new shop. “I didn’t know it was the same people, but I certainly didn’t want to run all the way to Ventura to get a universal remote.”

He offered Berry good wishes, and said he thought she had made a good decision. “I think it allows her to diversify, so that she’s able to shop and get better deals. She can get different items for her customers, and is not limited to the merchandise of the franchise.” He took interest in one of the hobby items she has on display; a remote operated helicopter.

“I think this is the best thing I ever did for the Ojai Valley people. I talked to a lot of people, people were waiting for me to do this,” said Neil Abasi, owner of Ojai Gas at the “Y” intersection, The station appears to be a busier place these days.

“I’m branded. We have the lowest price in town, lower than Shell in Oak View. We’re cheaper than Circle K, Valero, Chevron. I try to keep it that way. The more volume the store gets, the better the price we can offer.

“76 was squeezing me out,” Abasi said. He said he offers the same Conoco Phillips gasoline, “the same gas, the same invoice. If I had stayed with 76 I would have lost everything.”

Ojai Gas has a new mechanic, Jim Murphy, who specializes in engine repair, engine performance, electrical, brakes and smog. “I was 20 years with McConca Motors, which was bought out by Pontiac, Buick, GMC. Let us try to beat other prices. We will work with you.”

“The more people come, it’ll be cheaper. We work on volume,” Abasi said. “We’re more than happy to help people who are out of jobs. We’ll do our best.”

Abasi has a colleague who runs a Union 76 in San Luis Obispo who did not want his name mentioned, but who said he might do the same thing. He said, regarding Abasi, “He did the right thing. We’re making no money. The oil companies make all the money. They squeeze our margin to the limit. We can’t operate our businesses. We can’t even pay our bills.”

Geoff Wells of Casa Ojai said it was not bottom line finances that led to the decision to leave Best Western. “I don’t think financially there is going to be a positive for us as an ownership, it’s more or less that we might be a little bit negatively impacted because die hard Best Westerners will want to get their points and will stay in Ventura,” said Wells.

“However, as a counter for that we are offering rewards incentives to Best Western cardholders and to all other kinds of rewards cards holders. We were trying to fit into the small town, rather than make a buck,” Wells said.

“Best Western is the largest hotel franchise in the world. That mixed with Ojai, especially in today’s climate, doesn’t make sense. We’re building on our small town charm. We really didn’t have to do this.

“Casa Ojai was built by my father-in-law, Ben Larner, in the 80s, and it is still held in a family partnership. We plan to only improve upon it, as well as our other hotel, Su Nido.

“It’s truly a family business rather than an investment. We have no plans to sell it. This encourages us to continue to offer the best room for the best price that we can. We’re revamping our own brand, making our own brand.”

Casa Ojai is AAA three-diamond certified, as well as green certified by three different agencies, Green Leaf, Green Suites and California Green Lodging. The rating accounts for detergents used and energy savings. “We are trying to go paperless for office conservation. Best Western didn’t have a green program. We fought them on this. They are dragging their feet on certain things.”

Wells also said, “With the renovations going on next door, hopefully the East End will shape up as not just a place to sleep and leave. People have noticed our new wall and new sign out front and said, ‘Good for you, good luck.’ Hopefully they’ll see more and better changes to come.”

Former candidate joins Klaif, Blatz
and Corbin for appointment consideration

By Sondra Murphy

The City of Ojai has received another application for the open council seat. Parks & Recreation Commissioner Mike Lenehan submitted his application last week, the fourth application submitted to the city. Paul Blatz, Demitri Corbin and Leonard Klaif have also applied since Dec. 8, when the Ojai City Council voted 3-2 in favor of appointing a replacement for the position vacated by Joe DeVito, whose term would have naturally expired in 2010.

Lenehan has lived in Ojai since 2001 and many people know him as a coach for both Villanova Preparatory and Nordhoff High schools’ football programs. He is married to Marilyn and has five children. They are Tara, 21, Cian, 19, Rory, 17, Ciara, 10 and Kyla, 8.

“I am pretty pleased with the city council,” said Lenehan. “They all know me though the parks commission or from running for city council.”

Lenehan ran for council in 2008. “I came in a very strong fifth,” he laughed. But he also is proud that most of his votes came from word of mouth. “I spent $162 dollars on the campaign for 50 stickers and 15 signs,” he said.

Lenehan grew up in the Carpinteria and Summerland areas and volunteered in youth athletics relocating to Ojai, was a founding member of the Santa Barbara Irish Festival committee and worked with the parks and recreation commission there, as well. “I was amazed at what Ojai did in terms of recreation with such a small community, small staff and small budget,” Lenehan said. “You get so much more bang for your buck in Ojai.” His appreciation for the recreation offerings led to his interest in serving on Ojai’s Parks & Recreation Commission.

He has been involved with the skate park committee and is the PRC representative for the Libbey Bowl reconstruction committee. He also is a member of or is affiliated with the Ojai American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Ojai, Knights of Columbus, Ventura, Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association and is a founding member of the Emerald Society of Federal law Enforcement Agencies.

A 27-year veteran with the Army, Lenehan is retiring this month as a lieutenant colonel. His military service has encompassed both active and reserve status and has taken him many places, including Korea, Indonesia, Australia and Iraq. He was a primary plans officer in Iraq, assessing the impact of kinetic and non-kinetic operations. “I would get the ‘ground truth’ information on how each operation was going to affect the civilian population on the ground,” he explained. “I would deal with all the guys I knew who held the real estate around the area: the ground truth.”

He was last in Iraq in September of 2006. “After 27 years, I have nothing left to prove and I wanted to be here for my son’s senior year,” he said of his retirement. “My family made a lot of sacrifices and bore the brunt of my career.”

Lenehan is a federal investigator and has worked for three different agencies in that capacity. He estimates that he volunteers about 30 hours a week coaching football each season. Not surprisingly, all his children are athletes and have been outstanding contributors on teams from basketball, volleyball, football, track and hockey to softball.

“I can provide the working class perspective of a community-minded person who takes his kids to school, works 40 hours a week, volunteers, then brings that ground truth to the job,” he said. “I live in a 900-square-foot home with one bathroom and raised five kids in it. I have a common person perspective that I think appeals to people who are in a like situation.”

Besides his occupational and life experiences, Lenehan has degrees from Santa Barbara City College and University of California Santa Barbara, with an AA and BA in Law and Society. He is also a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.

Finding a councilmember replacement has been a focus of the city since longtime council member DeVito’s October announcement of his resignation effective Dec. 31. His successor will therefore only fill the position until next December, so will need to run as a candidate on the November ballot to have a chance of continuing on the council.

If appointed, Lenehan said he is unlikely to run again in November. “I don’t think it would be fair to run in 2010, but I might run in 2012,” he said. “I am more conservative, but at the same time, I’ll volunteer to go pick up your kid and teach him something.”

The Ojai City Council hopes to appoint DeVito’s successor at the Jan. 12 meeting. The OVN will report any subsequent applicants for the council seat as they apply.

Press release from Sgt. Bill Schierman
VENTURA COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT

Narrative: Detectives from the Ojai sub-station and the Sheriff’s Gang Unit concluded a two-month investigation into a vehicle burglary ring with the arrest of five suspects.  Investigators believe the group is responsible for at least 30 vehicle burglaries stretching from West Ventura to the City of Ojai.

In October and November, the City of Ojai began experiencing a rash of vehicle burglaries within the city limits.  Detectives found that a credit card taken in one of the burglaries was used at an ATM in West Ventura.  Detectives obtained a photograph of the individual who used the stolen credit card and on November 30^th they identified him as Lee Peyton.  Peyton was currently on parole for robbery.

Gang investigators set up a surveillance of Peyton and were able to identify several residences and individuals that he associated with.  Investigators also developed other leads that identified Ricardo Gutierrez, Kristen Baker, and Reyes Estrada as being involved in the burglaries.

In December, investigators set up a surveillance of Reyes Estrada and Kristen Baker.  On 12-12-2009, investigators watched Estrada and Baker purchase gasoline at a station in Ventura.  Investigators later obtained records of that transaction and found they used a stolen credit card from an unreported vehicle burglary in the City of Ventura.  Investigators were able to contact the victim in that case who told investigators her purse was stolen from a friend’s car in a downtown Ventura parking lot.

On 12-15-2009, investigators served search warrants at five locations in the Ojai Valley and the City of Oxnard. During a search of Benjamin Kennedy’s residence located in the 400 block of El Roblar, investigators recovered 4 purses that were later identified as being stolen from vehicle burglaries. Investigators also arrested Lee Peyton for violating his parole terms.

On 12-23-2009, investigators arrested Benjamin Kennedy for possession of stolen property.  Later that night, investigators located Kristen Baker and Reyes Estrada in a home in the 200 block of West Flint, Ventura.  During a subsequent search, investigators recovered stolen credit cards and a driver’s license that were taken from a burglary that occurred in Ventura. Both Estrada and Baker were arrested for burglary and booked into the Ventura County Jail.

On 12-24-2009, investigators had obtained enough evidence to arrest Ricardo Gutierrez for his participation in the burglaries.

Although investigators were only able to recover a small amount of the property taken in the various burglaries, they did collect enough evidence to link the suspects to at least 30 vehicle burglaries.  Investigators believe that a majority of the stolen property was sold to various individuals.  Investigators are continuing their effort to recover more stolen property.

Investigators are planning to arrest Peyton for numerous counts of vehicle burglary as soon as he is finished serving his time in state prison for violation of his parole terms.

Most of the reported vehicle burglaries involve purses or other valuables that were left in plain sight.  Investigators believe that the suspects targeted areas that had a high likelihood of purses being left in cars.  These included popular hiking spots, parking areas around nightclubs, and other areas where women were likely to leave purses in a car.

Demitri Corbin

Arts commissioner latest to apply for vacated position

By Sondra Murphy

Actor and Ojai Arts Commissioner Demitri Corbin has thrown his hat into the ring for a City Council opening. Corbin joins attorneys Paul Blatz and Leonard Klaif on the list of official applicants.

Finding a council member replacement has been a focus of the city since Joe DeVito announced his retirement in October. On Dec. 8, the Ojai City Council voted 3-2 in favor of appointing a replacement for the position vacated by DeVito, who submitted his resignation effective Dec. 31. DeVito’s term would have naturally expired in 2010. His successor will therefore only fill the position until next December, and so will need to run as a candidate on the November ballot to have a chance of continuing on the council.

Corbin is an eight-year resident of Ojai and a professional actor. His work teaching theater brought him to the city, but its rich artistic community compelled him to move here. “I was volunteering with a youth theater program,” said Corbin. “The Virginia Avenue Project comes up here every year, so I came here with that and then decided to stay.”

A Chicago native, Corbin founded Peachtree Theater Company, a nonprofit organization that brings theater education to schools throughout Ventura County, which led to the creation of Cardboard Fairytale Theater workshops for fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students. Before moving to Ventura County, Corbin volunteered to work with at-risk youth in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

As a resident, he continued teaching performing arts and estimates he has taught about 6,000 youngsters since at many schools and organizations in the Ojai Valley, including Oak Grove, Montessori, San Antonio Elementary, Summit Elementary and Valley Oaks Charter schools. “In the two years since the arts grant program has been re-instated, 100 percent of the applications have been for educational outreach programs,” said Corbin. “As an arts educator I am aware of the vital role the education sector plays in the local economy and how Ojai’s innovative arts programs impact education throughout the county. As council member I will bring insight to the education sector and how the city can be of better service.”

Corbin has also served as a volunteer, board member, instructor and advisor to the Ojai Playwrights Conference, Ojai Film Festival, Theater 150, Ojai Shakespeare Festival and Ojai Performing Arts Theater Foundation. “Their representation is crucial to any plans to build tourism,” he said. “Serving as a council member I will lobby to increase the Arts Commission’s capacity to apply for public and private funding by utilizing the city’s nonprofit status.”

He said his decision to apply for the council seat followed careful consideration after the city’s agreeing to help promote tourism to Ojai. “I want to be on City Council because I think I would bring insight into the arts community when decisions are made,” Corbin said. “All of these things lend to the profile that Ojai has as an artists’ community.”

He addressed the subject further in his letter. “Along with my fellow commissioners I have successfully lobbied to reinstate the city’s arts grant funding and improved the city’s relationship with the performing arts community with a monthly meeting program. I feel strongly that as the chamber of commerce works to build tourism that Ojai’s vibrant arts community is essential to plans for branding Ojai as a tourist destination.”

Corbin believes filling the position from within will most benefit the city, especially because of ongoing projects like the Ojai Skate Park and Libbey Bowl reconstruction efforts. “I feel that appointing someone within the city government will give continuity to immediate agenda items and make way for a smooth transition to a newly elected official.”

He brings other ideas, as well. “My Arts Commission appointment came about because of my publication of the ‘2007 Men of Ojai Calendar.’ The ‘2010 Men of Ojai Calendar’ is the most complete arts event calendar with the dates of every important Ojai arts event available at the time of publication,” said Corbin. “Along with my fellow commissioners, I have been working to get an events calendar on the city web site for the past year. An events calendar on the city web site is a must for boosting tourism.”

The OVN will report on any additional applicants for the council seat as they submit papers to the city.

Project funded by $30K grant

By Linda Harmon

Starting in January non-native trees that have invaded the Libbey Park creek ecosystem and riparian corridor will be removed and replaced with clusters of new native trees. The tree plans are part of a Community Wetland Restoration Project funded by a $30,000 grant written by local biologist Brian Holly. Holly, who works for Ojai’s environmental consulting firm Bio Research Consultants, is a chair of the Ojai Valley Green Coalition Watershed Committee. He is in charge of the watershed project restoring 1.4 acres, at an estimated cost of $50,500.

“I’m ordering plants now,” said Holly, who has already worked with area volunteers and members of C.R.E.W. to clear the area of non-native underbrush since acquiring the grant in June. “Tom Bostrom is writing a tree protection plan that will lay out the protective measures for native trees and will identify the trees that need to be removed because they are invasive and spreading seeds downstream.”

Although the tree protection and removal plan is not finished, Holly wanted to get the word out that he expects it to include the removal of Canary Island date palms, Mexican fan palms, and a few ash trees. Holly also wants the public to know that there are plans for the larger non-natives that can be boxed for transplanting.

“They can be used in other areas,” said Holly, “whether at someone’s house or at another area offsite, that won’t affect the watershed. And we will be able to pay for a lot of the removal expense because some can be sold. It’s a win-win because we are not destroying trees that may be seen as favorable to someone else but are still protecting the watershed.”

Holly has already received permission from nearby landowners for access to the site. Holly needed it to bring in heavy equipment to box the larger trees for removal.

“Also, I hope people will be happy to hear that any other trees that need to be removed or trimmed,” said Holly, “will have their wood recycled and used for building materials or utilized for bio-mulch.”

According to Holly, the project will have a biologist on site at all times during the removal process. The Ventura County Watershed Protection District and the Department of Fish and Game have already given their approval, and Holly is in ongoing meetings with city representatives as the plan and the project proceeds.

“We want to protect the overall tree canopy,” said Holly. “For every non-native tree we remove, we plan on replanting two or three native trees clustered around where the non-native was removed. We will plant sycamores, black walnuts, and oak trees and if we can get a hold of them, some big leaf maples.”

Besides replanting trees in the area the project also includes propagating willows and planting them on the creek banks to protect the area from future erosion.

Holly plans on going ahead with planting weekends planned for mid-January. Anyone interested in volunteering can contact Holly at Brian@biorc

.com or call the OVGC at 653-8445. If you’d like to donate a tree contact Bostrom at ojaitrees.com. The Wetland Restoration Project is explained in greater depth on the OVGC web site, OVGC.org and is featured at the Ojai Valley Museum exhibit “Go Green, Ojai!” That exhibit will continue until Feb. 17 and is open Thursday and Friday, 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. The museum is located at 130 W. Ojai Ave.

Husband Jackie with Lanie Jo Springer as she is honored for her years of service to the Ojai Valley by the Ventura County Board of Supervisors in October, 2008. Photo by David LaBelle

Lanie Jo Springer succumbs to cancer

By Sondra Murphy
If there is a name that exemplifies the spirit of the Ojai Valley, it is Lanie Springer. A longtime champion of philanthropy and community service, Springer died on Saturday of pancreatic cancer.

She was a proactive member of the community with a welcoming smile and seemed tireless in her efforts. “Lanie was a one-of-a-kind person whose no-nonsense approach to any problem was refreshing,” said Al Buczkowski, Oak View Civic Council member and former Oak View honorary mayor. “She will be missed.”

In October of 2008, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors presented a resolution to Springer honoring her five decades of service to the community of Oak View and the Ojai Valley. Springer’s husband, Jackie, and many friends from the area were there in celebration of her achievement. “Few others can match Lanie’s extraordinary career of service to her community and her sterling example of dedicated citizenship,” the resolution read.

“This is very overwhelming,” Springer said before the event. “You don’t do this because you want to be rewarded. Community service means a lot to me.”

Springer served for many years as chair of the Highway 33 Improvement Committee, chair of the Ojai Valley Municipal Advisory Council, and was named Oak View honorary mayor, Citizen of the Year and to the Oak View Hall of Fame. Her impact on the valley was far-reaching.

Besides OVCC, Highway 33 Committee and OVMAC, during which she contributed to the Ojai Valley Area Plan, Springer also served on the Oak View American Legion Auxiliary, the Eight and Forty American Legion Society, as grand marshal of the 2007 Oak View Memorial Day parade and was on the board of Oak View Women’s Club for more than 40 years.

Springer served as president of the OVWC in 1969 and 1970, sold raffle tickets at conventions and was the president’s aide of the Tierra Adorada District, the region under which the club functioned. “She was just a very valiant lady,” said Barbara Smith, OVWC member and past president. “She was in on the ground floor of getting the first stop light in Oak View at the post office. We did an old-fashioned sit-in and blocked traffic in the ‘70s.” Springer was later on the Casitas Springs Bypass Committee.

The number of groups Springer contributed to is staggering. She served as extraordinary minister of the Old Mission, executive secretary for Omaha Woodmen Life Insuranc