Bennett Disagrees With Governor's Ruling

Spaces at the new senior mobile home park on Maricopa Highway will not be sold, according to Ojai Valley Estates manager, Jill Saldana.

By Daryl Kelley
County Supervisor Steve Bennett, who helped lead a campaign to close a loophole that allows moderate-income residents to be priced out of mobile home parks, said this week that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s veto of a reform bill does not end a statewide effort to change a flawed law.
“We’ll try again next year,” Bennett said. “There will be an effort, but I don’t know what would get the governor to change his mind. His veto certainly indicates he’s more responsive to pressure from park owners than park residents.”
Bennett described the governor’s veto of a bill that sailed through the legislature as devastating to mobile home residents who’d counted on low space rents to stretch retirement savings and low or moderate incomes.
“There are thousands of people who are going to get hurt by this,” he said. “You are going to see an enormous transfer of wealth from park residents, including low income, to park owners.”
All 13 mobile home parks in the Ojai Valley — and many hundreds of mobile home owners — -could eventually be affected by a 1995 state law that allows park owners to subdivide their properties and sell off each coach space.
The law generally protects low-income park residents as long as they don’t move and want to sell their homes. But it allows space rents of moderate-income residents to rise to market levels over four years, although they otherwise may not be forced out to sell their space.
An income of $51,600 a year or more is considered moderate income in Ventura County. The standard for a single person is about half that amount.
The owner of one local park, Ojai Oaks Mobile Home Park in Mira Monte, has begun the process of selling spaces to the highest bidder. In Ventura County, four park owners have applied, as have more than 30 statewide.
“With this veto,” Bennett said, “it will grow fast now.”
There are about 5,000 mobile home parks in California.
The effect of park owners selling spaces, instead of renting them under local rent controls, will be to transfer the ongoing value of the space from the renter to the park owner, Bennett said. So instead of renters being able to sell their coaches for a substantial amount, based on low rent for their spaces, they will have little left to sell, he said.
“A coach that could have sold for $75,000, will now sell for $5,000 or $10,000,” the supervisor said. “And that goes for low-income residents, as well, when they need to move into a care facility. The low-income protection for their space goes away when they move. So it’s a huge transfer of wealth.”
The bill Schwarzenegger vetoed last Friday would have preserved rent control protections for all park residents, not just those with low incomes. And it would have given 300 cities and counties that oversee rents in mobile home parks a veto over conversions.
In explaining his veto, Schwarzenegger said in a statement that rent controls for park residents who are low-income remain in place, because they are guaranteed by existing state law.
“While the bill’s intent is to preserve low-income housing, it also extends rent control in certain circumstances to mobile home owners in much of the state no matter what their income level,” he said. “It is unclear what state interest is served by the extension of rent control to those who do not have an economic disadvantage.”
The governor said he understood the position of senior citizens who’d contacted his office about the issue.
“I understand the importance of having stability in your living situation,” he said. “This need for stability was eloquently expressed by many seniors throughout California who have written to me on both sides of this bill.”
Some park residents opposed the reform bill, the governor noted. And representatives of a statewide park owners association have said that many residents like the law as it is, because it allows them to buy their spaces, improve their coaches and take advantage of equity gains like other homeowners.
An attorney for Ojai Oaks Mobile Home Park, for example, has said that 30 to 40 of the 125 renters at that Mira Monte park want to buy their spaces.
Schwarzenegger urged lawmakers to try again next year “to find a solution that provides true balance for all the stakeholders involved.”
But Bennett said Schwarzenegger’s argument was unconvincing, and that he didn’t yet see how either side could compromise on the key issue of dispute: whether to keep local rent-control ordinances in place.
As things stand, those local laws are replaced by a state law once a park owner notifies the local government that a subdivision will take place and a single space is sold.
Bennett maintains that the state law provides little protection, even to low-income residents, because there is no state agency to enforce it and residents would have to sue park owners to force them to follow the law. Most simply don’t have the assets to do that, he said.
When Bennett began his campaign to reform state law in the spring he told park residents that indications were that the governor favored the position of park owners. But over the summer, he said, Schwarzenegger received thousands of letters and e-mails from concerned residents, including perhaps 500 from Ojai Valley residents.
“The lobbying effort at least caused him to indicate that he had an open mind,” Bennett said. Now, coach owners must do it all over again, and try to find a way to gain some leverage with the governor, he said.
“But the bottom line is that park owners will not compromise the one issue, rent control, that we must have,” Bennett said. “So this veto is devastating.”

Planners To Get Fine-Tuned Chain Proposal

Fast-food outlets, big box stores ruled out in designated downtown areas

By Nao Braverman
After a joint workshop between City Council members and Planning Commissioners on Sept. 19, Ojai’s city staff considered the comments of their constituents and drafted yet a third proposed city ordinance, intended to protect Ojai from the proliferation of chain stores.
The new draft, to be presented at tonight’s Planning Commission meeting, bans formula fast-food chains and so-called big boxes of more than 10,000 square feet, citywide, which would keep out even the smallest Wal-Mart or Costco and, of course, the formerly proposed Subway sandwich shop. It also adds additional restrictions to the size and frontage of businesses within Ojai’s already existing Downtown Commercial Land Use Designation, a portion of Ojai’s central downtown commercial area, slightly smaller than the proposed Historic Preservation District.
Though the new ordinance does allow formula businesses other than fast food to open in the city, their approval is contingent on a conditional use permit which requires public notification and a public hearing, thus providing an opportunity for the frequently requested public input from local residents on each and every chain opening within the city.
The new ordinance does, however, loosen its definition of formula business used in previous ordinance drafts from one that maintains 10 or more locations and employs two or more of the following characteristics: standardized merchandise or menu, standardized facade, standardized decor or color scheme, uniform apparel, standardized sign, trademark or service mark, to one that maintains 10 or more locations and employs three or more of the former characteristics. This modification was made to accommodate chain service businesses which local residents rely on. When city staff was asked to make a distinction between formula service and formula retail businesses at previous meetings, city attorneys cautioned that it would be considered discrimination to do so and thus could be deemed unconstitutional. But they recently discovered that by increasing the number of required standardized characteristics in the chain store definition from two to three, many service-oriented businesses would drop out of the formula business category all together. Most chain insurance companies, for example, may have 10 or more outlets, but like many other services-oriented businesses, do not share decor, facades or uniform apparel with other locations.
The new ordinance provides additional protection to the central downtown area by restricting formula businesses of more than 2,000 square feet and more than 25 feet of frontage from the city’s Downtown Commercial Land Use Designation which includes the north side of Ojai Avenue from Ventura Street to Montgomery Street, including the former Texaco station, and the Arcade Plaza as well as the Ojai Playhouse and Fitzgerald Plaza on the south side of Ojai Avenue.
Under these restrictions, if the owner of Starr Market decided to sell its business to Ralphs, the chain grocery would not be allowed to open without changing its sign, name or uniforms to fit Ojai’s small-town character since the current Starr Market building is larger than the 10,000-square-foot ordinance restriction for formula retail. This might prompt Planning Commissioners to consider a more lenient size restriction in order to accommodate grocery stores, city manager Jere Kersnar speculated.
“I don’t know if it will, but we will look at those considerations at the upcoming meeting,” he said.
Also to be considered is that technically the new ordinance would allow a Starbucks to open within the Arcade Plaza as long as it decided to give up one of its standardized features, maintain the Mission Revival-style architecture of the rest of the Arcade, paint the storefront Benjamin Moore Navajo White, and discard their traditional awning and green lettering.
They would, however, still be subjected to a review, where the public could rightfully bash or extol its pecuniary plans.
“We think this ordinance is reflective of what the council and commission wanted,” said Kersnar.
The Planning Commission meeting begins at 7:30 this evening at the City Hall Council Chambers.

Skate Park Wheels Slowly Grind Forward

Back from a Monday knee injury that required 14 stitches, Justin Wright flies through the air. Wright, 13, said he was injured on a part of the Ojai Skate Park track in need of major repairs.

By Nao Braverman
After meeting diligently since May, and setting up the groundwork to begin fund raising, members of the Ojai Skate Park Task Force are ready to begin collecting some cash.
“Our current skate park is bad,” said Judy Gabriel, local parent and member of the task force. “My son came home today with a split elbow and there is a hole the kids are falling into.”
A crew of task force members came to the City Council meeting Tuesday night to ask for some guidance and a more solid affirmation of commitment from the city.
With the dilapidated skate park on its last legs, and a new permanent park in the mind of local skaters and on the city’s back burner for years, a task force comprised of youth skaters, veteran skaters, Rotarians, local parents, and council representative Steve Olsen, was formed.
Essentially commissioned by the city in February, the Task Force met weekly to design a future permanent park, determine what materials should be used, devise a plan to keep it safe and maintained, and come up with a cost estimate for construction.
Eight months later, with the long, hard, nonlucrative efforts of Task Force members, the planning has been completed, even with a newly formed, state recognized nonprofit organization called Sk8 Ojai, to collect funds.
But one thing missing was affirmation from the city, which Task Force members feel has left them hanging.
At a prior meeting city manager Jere Kersnar said that city staff had been holding off on giving any direction to Task Force members because they were waiting on a decision from the board of Ojai Unified School District. The school board, owners of the property slated for the new permanent park, were reluctant to commit to extending the current lease any further, he told council members. The school board property, currently has a 15-year lease with the existing temporary park, where Task Force members have planned for the new park to be built.
Kersnar said he was concerned about putting public funds into a project that had only a 15-year life span but did not give a definitive direction to Task Force members.
With a great deal of preliminary work behind them, Task Force members wanted some response from the city Tuesday evening. Without knowing whether the city agreed to build the new skate park on the school board property, whether they would have to find another location, whether their current lease with the school board property was secure, or whether the city could give them any financial backing, they could not begin to collect funds and progress to further planning, said Task Force member Sage Intner.
“How much time and effort are you willing to give?” she asked.
Olsen wanted to know if the current skate park’s lease with the school board was ironclad for the next 15 years.
City attorney Monte Widders said he was not sure, nor could Paulette Whiting, filling in for Kersnar, answer the question.
Mayor Carol Smith said she was willing to support the construction of a permanent park at the temporary park’s current location, even with only 15 sure years ahead.
“I’m willing to be optimistic and say 15 years is a lot,” she said. “I think their refusal to renew the lease is just prudent business practice. Who knows, they might decide to renew it 15 years down the line.”
Other council members agreed to support the Task Force and chided city staff for not following through on the skate park issue.
“I see this as our park and our responsibility,” said Councilwoman Sue Horgan. “I am not happy with staff’s work on this. It is their responsibility to follow the direction that I think the council has already given them, and I don’t think they’ve done that.”
Horgan made a motion for staff to return on the second meeting in November with a report on a lease agreement, some long-term financing options for the park, and to report on existing maintenance at the temporary skate park. The motion passed unanimously with some applause from Task Force members.

Oscar-winning Actress Returns To Ojai

Mary Steenburgen says move back to Ojai made sense, even if just part-time

By Nao Braverman
bell of Arkansas and Academy Award-winning actress, moved to Ojai in the early 1980s to escape the anonymity of Hollywood.
Born to Nell, a school board secretary, and Maurice Steenburgen, a freight-train conductor, she set out to New York to study acting, and worked her way into the theater industry. But it was more than her big brown eyes and smokey Southern drawl that landed her several roles in hollywood. Her classic beauty may have played a role in casting her as in “Back to the Future III” as a quaint western lady, who won the affections of mad scientist, Doc. But she also had a knack for finding the subtle humor in every character and putting it to its best use.
Such is evident in her role as an eccentric and frustrated amateur singer in “The Butcher’s Wife” and her Academy Award-winning role in “Melvin and Howard.” There, playing Melvin’s poor and discontented housewife, who nurtures an inconsolable passion for dancing in Las Vegas, she made her big break.
Having been raised in a warm, close-knit Southern town, Steenburgen found, several years into her career, that she yearned for a more intimate community once again, most importantly for her two children, Lilly and Charlie McDowell.
“Ojai made sense to me, in comparison to L.A. where your comings and goings were anonymous,” she said. “I wanted Lilly and Charlie to have a community of people.”
And that is exactly what Ojai provided for her and her children who made lifelong friendships during their 12 years living in the East End, the last of which they commuted between the small town and their home in West Los Angeles.
But with her children grown and her husband, Ted Danson, working often in the city, Steenburgen decided to go back to Los Angeles, and sold their place.
Then, about two years ago, she and Danson decided to buy a home in the East End again, suddenly realizing that it fit the life they wanted to carve out for themselves.
“I have so many friends there,” she said. “I love the land, the people, and the community spirit. I love how people are trying to keep it protected. I’m proud of the community that has kept its heart and integrity, away from big chains, and prides itself on environmental awareness. I also realized that Ted wanted the same thing.”
Though work has been busier than ever, which is never considered a bad thing in Steenburgen’s field, she and Danson always make time to host charity events and donate money to causes they feel strongly about, namely environmental issues such as the American Oceans Campaign, and benefits for Oak Grove School.
Always generous friends, the comedic couple even hosted Larry David, producer of Seinfeld, and the notoriously off-beat sketch comedy show, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” for a summer getaway. Though certainly a most entertaining lodger, she and Danson almost regretted taking him in, she jokes, because after the smallest household event, David would pull out his little spiral-bound notebook and start writing it into his improvised sketch comedy act.
“Half the show has been making fun of Ted,” she laughed. Not to leave Steenburgen out, she also made appearance on David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” last weekend, dodging lascivious advances by a limo driver. David, later in the show, playing himself as usual, planned to be buried in a graveyard next to Danson and Steenburgen, before he and Danson start bickering.
“That’s just his version of me,” Steenburgen laughed. “It’s not me, and It’s not the mansion I live in, that appeared on show.”
She recently finished filming ‘Numb,’” where she plays a psychiatrist to the protagonist played by Matthew Perry who suffers from depersonalization disorder. Once again in a role with a comic twist, her character is strangely turned on by the patient’s condition and has an affair with him. The film was awarded and sold out at the Ojai Film Festival over last weekend.
After spending a day in Ojai to attend the film’s West Coast premiere, she is off to shoot her upcoming film “Step Brothers” by Judd Apatow, the writer and director of “Knocked Up” and “Superbad.”
On an aberrantly clear day in Los Angeles she and Danson often dream of being in their small-town get-away in the valley.
“We tell each other things like ‘I wonder what it’s like in Ojai today, I bet it’s so pretty and green in Ojai,’”she said.

Human Skull Left Outside Police Station

Part-time employee finds skeletal remains

By Lenny Roberts
The Ventura County Medical Examiner’s office has confirmed that the skull discovered Friday morning outside the Ojai Police Station on Ventura Street is that of an Asian male.
Senior Deputy Medical Examiner Craig Stevens said the skull, covered in yellow lacquer, appears to be that of a man between 20 and 50 years old, and that the man may have died sometime anywhere between three years and an unknown number of decades ago.
Eric Buschow, the senior deputy assigned to the case, said the skull was packaged and brought into the police station by an employee.
“From time to time, people come across skeletal remains,” Buschow said. “What’s unusual about this is that it appears that someone put it next to the Police Station. We’re not sure why they did what they did or possessed it in the first place.
“Typically, if someone finds something, they would notify us and we would pick it up. In this case, because it was left there, it raises a lot of questions.”
Stevens said the skull will be sent to a state laboratory in Sacramento for DNA testing.
Anyone with information about this skull is asked to call Buschow at 494-8226.

Drought Leaves Ojai High, Dry

Rainfall year ends Sept. 30 with 7.84 inches, worst total since 1877. Chart at right shows the annual rainfall deviation from average at Matilija Canyon from 1868 to 2007.

By Daryl Kelley
Despite a rare splash of September rain, the Ojai Valley experienced its driest year in recent history as a new rainfall season began this week. Indeed, precipitation for 2006-2007 may have matched the lowest ever.
“It could be the driest year in recorded history,” said Ron Merckling, spokesman for Casitas Municipal Water District. “Matilija Dam received 7.84 inches, which means this year was a virtual tie with the previous record of 7.83 inches set in 1877.”
That compares with an average annual rainfall of about 25 inches at Casitas Dam. The lowest previous rainfall in recent history was in 1960-1961, when 8.77 inches fell. Not even during the drought of 1986-1991 did rainfall drop below 9.46 inches in a year.
As a result, Oak View-based Casitas diverted no water from the Ventura River into its huge reservoir this year, Merkling said.
In just the last two years, and despite an average rainfall year in 2006, water stored behind Casitas Dam has dropped from nearly 251,000 acre-feet to about 211,000, records show. Casitas Reservoir is still about 83 percent full, but that’s down from 90 percent in the spring. And Merckling noted that declines accelerate sharply if dry years repeat.
Lake Casitas was only about half full after the six-year drought.
New data also shows, Merckling said, that the drought and a late-summer heat wave prompted local farmers to buy far more water from Casitas than in the previous year — 42 percent more in August and 40 percent more in September.
That was partly the result of groundwater basins not being refilled with saturating rains, which caused some wells to run dry, forcing the purchase of more reservoir water, he said.
“Groundwater has been depleted much more this year than in normal conditions,” Merckling said.
Such conditions prompted Casitas to begin new water conservation programs in the spring, including a $150 rebate for old, water-wasting washing machines and toilets. That program is still under way, Merckling said, and all Ojai Valley residents qualify, even those who do not buy water from Casitas.
“We could use a lot more requests,” he said.
Another conservation program, a survey of water use by farmers, found startling results.
A survey team from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo evaluated the irrigation practices of 35 local farmers and found a need for improvement.
The so-called “distribution uniformity”evaluations, found that local farmers’ irrigation by drip and micro-sprinkler systems were only about 66 percent effective, compared with a statewide average of 85 percent effectiveness, Merckling said.
“A low distribution uniformity means that fields were watered unevenly and most likely produced lower crop yields,” Merckling said.
Common problems, he said, were that farmers did not water often enough, and that they watered for too long when they did.
“They often applied more water per cycle than the soil could store,” he said. “And about half watered too infrequently.” Ojai Valley soils are often rocky and shallow, he said.
About three-fourths of the participating farmers made immediate changes as a result of the survey, Merckling said.
Meanwhile, local water agencies have accelerated their efforts to work together on water conservation, he said. They will meet to discuss those plans next Wednesday, he said.
“There’s a lot more coming on water conservation,” he said. “We’re concerned about the potential for a prolonged drought.”

Ojai Bullying Case Set For Court

School district defends actions as parents sue over classroom book

By Sondra Murphy
A legal case against Ojai Unified School District involving the use of a book that addresses bullying has returned to Ventura County Superior Court. An Oct. 22 trial date is scheduled for “Luttrull v. Ojai Unified School District.”
In an ironic turn, plaintiffs alleged harassing behavior by school district employees toward parents and their children after they complained about the book.
The suit centers around Jodee Blanco’s memoir titled “Please Stop Laughing at Me” assigned to San Antonio Elementary School fifth-grade students. Some parents objected to the frank language, feeling it was inappropriate for elementary students.
OUSD superintendent Tim Baird said that the district met with the concerned parents and removed the book from its elementary curriculum. Unhappy with subsequent actions by district staff and the OUSD board, three parents subsequently filed a lawsuit of miscellaneous complaints on behalf of their daughters and one parent.
Originally filed in September 2005, the case was moved to the Federal Ninth District Court in Los Angeles early in 2006 to address eight federal causes of action. OUSD attorney, Jonathan Light, filed motions to dismiss several causes of action based on Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 which states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of gender, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
Some plaintiff’s complaints were filed on the basis of Title IX violations because only fifth-grade girls were assigned the book.
The legislative history of Title IX suits have hinged on “deliberate indifference” towards student or parent complaints and most of the plaintiff’s causes of action attempt to illustrate examples of such indifference by teachers, administrators and board members.
Two federal judges from different phases in the lawsuit cited undisputed facts about OUSD’s handling of the complaints at issue – specifically when staff met with parents or students and removed the book from curriculum – as adequate measures by district staff to show that claims of deliberate indifference were not supported.
Light said all eight of the federal causes of action were thrown out during this phase in proceedings, leaving one county cause of action remaining. The core issues in those dismissed are: sex discrimination, harassment and retaliation as to minor plaintiffs, harassment and retaliation as to plaintiffs (parents of the minors in question), civil rights violations as to minor plaintiffs, civil rights violations to plaintiffs (parents), intentional infliction of emotional distress as to minor plaintiffs, negligence as to plaintiff (parent), and civil conspiracy as to all plaintiffs.
The seventh cause of action, “negligence as to minor plaintiffs,” remains for the county to hear. “It is now entirely a county case,” said Light, adding that the federal decisions simplify the proceedings.
Besides nine causes of action being reduced to one, Light said the list of school district defendants has been reduced from four teachers, a specified school board member and two administrators to teacher Linda McMichael, principal John LeSuer, Baird and the Ojai Unified School District. The plaintiffs have also reduced from three to two former San Antonio Elementary fifth-grade students represented by Betty Craven and Rosalyn Luttrull and Jeff Luttrull, M.D.
In his Jan. 8 decision, United States District Judge Andrew J. Guilford wrote, “This action arose from a school teacher’s well-meaning, yet ill conceived attempt to create harmony on a schoolyard playground by introducing a book with adult content to fifth-grade girls. Unfortunately, this school teacher’s efforts mushroomed into a full-fledged controversy when the misguided actions of this well-meaning teacher were followed up by the misguided actions of well-meaning parents. This court is now asked to determine whether any of the actions of the participants in this schoolyard saga resulted in a violation of federal or state law.”

Stars Align For Ojai Film Festival

Julie Christie stars with Gordon Pinsent in the acclaimed drama, “Away from Her,” about an Alzheimer’s patient, screening Saturday. Christie, a former Ojai resident, will also be on hand for questions after a screening of the classic film “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” on Friday.

By Nao Braverman
Ojai’s eighth annual film festival, “Enriching the Human Spirit Through Film,” showcases the work of local talents and, world-renowned artists who convey positive messages through their cinematic accomplishments.
The festival, beginning Thursday and closing Sunday, will screen a series of narrative, animation, and documentary films at the Ojai Playhouse, the Ojai Art Center, Matilija Junior High School and outdoors at Libbey Bowl.
What was once primarily a series of off-beat films hosted by the Ojai Film Society has now expanded into its own nonprofit organization; an annual weekend event, 70 miles from Hollywood including seminars and workshops with industry icons.
In the midst of academy award winners, including acclaimed cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond and legendary British star, Julie Christie, the festival also highlights a documentary by Ojai’s own novice filmmaker, Lisa Snider.
Snider’s “The Price of Paradise,” illustrates the need for affordable housing amid Santa Barbara’s escalating real estate, and how it has come to affect the community. A Santa Barbara County employee at the time, Snider launched this debut piece, without any ambitions of cinematic success, but rather to awaken viewers to the dire need of affordable housing for Santa Barbara’s workforce.
Working for the city’s director of Community Development and Housing, she started filming “The Price of Paradise,” as a publicity stunt to spread awareness of the housing shortage, an issue which became closer to her heart as the project progressed. She hired on Ojai producer Mike Anderson, owner of Extra Mile Productions, and his cameraman Austen Collins, who cooperatively propelled the primarily educational piece into a more artistic venture with some creative camera work.
With a budget of less than $30,000, the Ojai crew shot the piece on high quality video in a hurried six months, and had it edited down to a polished piece three months later in time for the Santa Barbara Film Festival earlier this year, where it was promptly accepted and well received. “The Price of Paradise” screens Sunday 3 p.m at the Ojai Art Center.
Also at the festival this year, academy award winner, pop icon of the 1960s and former Ojai resident Julie Christie will attend the screening of her most recent cinematic performance in “Away From Her,” Saturday 12:30 p.m at the Ojai Art Center. The film in which Christie plays an Alzheimer’s patient who breaks her husband’s heart by transferring her affections to another man, received rave reviews.
On Friday at 5:30 p.m., Robert Altman’s unconventional 1971 western “McCabe & Mrs. Miller,” filmed by Vilmos Zsigmond, in which Christie was nominated for an Academy award for her role opposite Warren Beatty, will be screened at the Ojai Playhouse.
Zsigmond, a Hungarian-born acclaimed cinematographer who settled in Los Angeles and gained prominence through his work on “McCabe & Mrs. Miller,” will also be attending the screening with Christie.
Opening with a pizza party at the Ojai Arts Center, at 5:30 p.m., the first movie of the festival is a free screening of “In the Shadow of the Moon,” a documentary surviving crew members of every Apollo mission, is showing at 7:30 p.m. at Libbey Bowl.
The weekend festivities closes with “Why Ojai?” at Matilija Junior High School. The film is a regional piece about why the enclave has become a spiritual center and special place for locals in the valley.

Casitas Seeks New Counsel

Board votes unanimously to replace
Sawyer, notes concerns with decisions

By Daryl Kelley
Directors of the Casitas Municipal Water District voted unanimously Wednesday to recruit a new legal counsel, with board members saying later that they were concerned with their current lawyer’s recent advice on key issues.
“The board has decided to seek a new attorney in an effort to find new opinions, new perspectives and new insights,” said board President Russ Baggerly after a closed session, during which the future employment of Ventura lawyer Robert Sawyer was discussed.
“We’re finding new counsel, new energy,” Baggerly said.
The decision to invite other lawyers to apply for the job Sawyer has held for four years resulted from concern by board members about advice the district’s counsel had given them on the state’s open-meeting law and on the impact of a statewide proposition on setting water rates for farmers.
Officials said Sawyer will continue as district counsel during a transition period and perhaps be hired as a lawyer on select legal issues.
Sawyer he did not see the district’s decision to seek a new law firm as counsel 13 months into his firm’s contract as a slap in the face. Nor did district officials cite any specific reason for changing lawyers other than a desire to get the best possible representation on a variety of legal issues, he said.
“I don’t see it as a rebuke,” he said. “I have a very good working relationship with the general manager and each of the directors.”
But directors said Sawyer’s comments at an Aug. 29 hearing on hiking agricultural water rates 53 percent prompted them to consider hiring a new principal attorney for the Oak View-based water district. Sawyer said that farmers might be treated differently than other water users under Proposition 218, which generally requires all water customers to pay the full cost of water they receive.
“That was one of the watershed events for me,” said Director Pete Kaiser. “It seemed to be coming from his personal feelings rather than legal precedent. That raised some eyebrows.”
Sawyer said Thursday that his comments reflected the vagueness of Proposition 218 and a state Supreme Court interpretation of it last year.
“Any personal feelings I have about water users didn’t figure into any analysis I made,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a little difficult to figure out just what the law is. A (legislative) bill headed to the governor right now is trying to clear all of this up.”
Sawyer had also prompted concern in late April when he acknowledged that he’d given the board bad advice on whether it had to publicly declare how each director voted in a closed session when deciding to continue a lawsuit against the federal government.
By not declaring their votes, the directors violated the state open-meeting law, the Brown Act, Sawyer said at the time. And he said Thursday that the Brown Act is not one of his greatest areas of expertise.
“I take full responsibility for this as district counsel,” he said in April. “It was essentially a failure on my part to research the issue and get all of the information out.”
Keeping the information secret was challenged by the Ojai Valley News and Director Richard Handley. Sawyer then issued a public apology to the board. But Handley said he was concerned that the board had violated state law with previous undeclared votes and that he was not comfortable sitting on a board that violates the law.
“I’ve had concerns that there has been a lack of clarity on some of the issues we are facing,” Handley said Thursday. “Any lawyer who represents a special district has to be absolutely versed or expert on the Brown Act. And in our lawsuit with the federal government, it was especially critical that we had good advice. And I don’t think we had that.”
Handley said he also was concerned about Sawyer’s recent comments on water rates for farmers.
“I had a concern that he said farmers might fit into a special category (for water rates) under Prop. 218,” Handley said. “But this wasn’t a one-time concern. It was just a general sense that it would be good to have a new perspective from our legal counsel.”

Ojai Youth Foundation Chief Leaving Post

Bosson, hired at OVYF inception in 1997, returning to work with TreePeople in L.A.

By Sondra Murphy
After 10 years of working with the Ojai Valley Youth Foundation, Caryn Bosson is stepping down as executive director of the agency. Bosson offered her letter of resignation Monday, stating that she would be working for TreePeople of Los Angeles. Her last day as director is planned for Nov. 20.
“I have faith that the right person is out there to step into this really good job and take it to even the next level with all of you,” Bosson wrote in her letter. She asked the foundation board to designate a transition team and move forward with advertising the position as quickly as possible.
Bosson is the founding executive director for the youth foundation. “I was hired to head the newly formed Ojai Valley Youth Foundation in 1997 by Council Member Steve Olsen, who was mayor, and Andy Belknap, who was city manager at the time,” said Bosson. “They, along with then Police Chief Jim Barrett were the guiding lights essentially went from a very part-time staff of two to a staff of a dozen people, youth and adult. It was overnight and it was a crazy and exciting time.”
When the grant money ran out three years later, the foundation had to build up the organization all over again and focus entirely on the local community. “Brick by brick we’ve built the OVYF into an organization that impacts the life of every teenager growing up in our community, even if he or she is not directly involved,” said Bosson. She said that the foundation, today located on Church Road, is now seeing generations of teens who started with the program return as mentors. Some are even out starting nonprofit agencies of their own. “So the impact of the Youth Foundation goes far beyond Ojai.”
“The Youth Foundation would not be all it is today without Caryn Bosson,” said Olsen. “Caryn is responsible for the success of the Ojai Valley Youth Foundation. She was the first and only executive director and started it from a grass roots organization to the foundation it is today that is helping all the youth in the Ojai Community.
Nordhoff High School’s dean of curriculum, Denise Thomas, said, “Caryn has had a tremendous impact with regards to influencing the youth in our community and especially Nordhoff students as they develop into responsible, mature adults. Her influence will be felt for many years to come as the students who have been mentored by her continue to show their leadership skills in the Ojai Valley and other parts of the world.”
Nordhoff’s student success team coordinator and AVID teacher, Laurie Arnold, also focused on Bosson’s positive influence on young people. “Caryn has always been an advocate for and believer in the youth of our community. Her core belief in the importance of connecting youth and adults in our community, that belief that her voice so enthusiastically conveys, is now embedded in the community. She has changed the way we think about kids.”
“She is probably one of the most giving, non-self serving individuals I’ve had the occasion to work with,” said Ventura County Sheriff’s Department Commander and former Ojai Police Chief Gary Pentis. “It’s going to be difficult to replace her due to her competence in collaborative efforts in the Ojai Valley.”
Said Bosson, “I am particularly proud of the fact that we formed this community organization basically from scratch.” She will continue to work with OVYF as a volunteer.
After Thanksgiving, Bosson will go back to work for TreePeople, a nonprofit organization dedicated to integrated resource management that she worked for in the ‘80s. “I have remained friends with TreePeople’s founder and President Andy Lipkis all these years. He founded TreePeople when he was 18, so he’s a prime example of the capacity of young people to change the world.” The job will enable her to work primarily from home, which is important to her as her son begins junior high this year. Bosson’s weekly trips to Los Angeles will allow her to lend more support to her mother, who lives in that area.
“I have worked with so many wonderful people over the years at the Ojai Valley Youth Foundation. It’s been an honor and a pleasure,” Bosson said. “I encourage everyone who cares about kids to get involved in this organization. And if you can’t give your time, then make a generous donation, because our kids need you. I will be so brazen as to say that you can easily do so on our web site, ovyf.org.”

Toby Hemingway, Actor On Role

Ojai-trained actor takes on leading role in ‘Feast of Love"

By Nao Braverman
Toby Hemingway was first sent to drama class by a frustrated grade school teacher in England, who suggested that he needed an outlet for his energy.
Years later the young, Britain-born actor is at the brink of a budding Hollywood career.
Hemingway, who spent his high school years in Ojai at Oak Grove School, Nordhoff High School and Laurel Springs, plays alongside the acclaimed academy-award winning actor Morgan Freeman in “Feast of Love,” which premiered Wednesday in Los Angeles.
Beginning with a few high school plays, including Oak Grove’s “Time of Our Life,” Hemingway went on to work with Theater 150’s crew, and got into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York with the assistance of local acting coach Kim Maxwell-Brown.
“She really helped me get over my nervousness and gave me the confidence to follow through,” he said.
Upon graduating with a fine arts Associates degree in New York, he moved to Hollywood and landed a few small roles and in 2006 before getting a lead part in the Covenant, a science fiction thriller, playing Reid Garwin, a descendant of a superhuman family bearing gravity-defying powers.
In Feast of Love,” his most important role to date, Hemingway plays Oscar, a recovered heroin addict who falls in love with a co-worker at the coffee shop where he works. Based on a novel by Charles Baxter with the same name, the film presents an array of interconnected stories all surrounding the theme of love or love lost. Dramatizing the budding romance between a troubled Oscar and his co-barista, Alexa, has been challenging and rewarding, said Hemingway.
At age 24, Hemingway says he can relate to the character as he portrays the struggle that many young people go through in their search for meaning. He gets geared up for the tragic scenes by listening to Ryan Adams or Coldplay, anything sad, on his iPod, he said.
Despite having launched a career that has alluded the grasp of many aspiring actors, Hemingway takes his success in stride, getting accustomed to interviews and trying not to go blind from camera flashes, he said.
Already cast in a new part in “Street,” an independent flick by York Shackleton, about street kids in Portland, Ore., Hermingway is keeping busy. He is looking forward to playing his first character based on a real person and is preparing by watching various documentaries about kids that grow up on the streets.
He still visits his mother in Ojai, only an hour-and-half drive from his Hollywood apartment where he lives with his older brother, Jay.
He plans to make as much time as he can to play soccer on Ojai’s local team for the upcoming season in October, he said.

The Feast of Love trailer can be viewed HERE.

Man Arrested On Assault Charge

VENTURA COUNTY SHERIFF
MEDIA RELEASE
BOB BROOKS, Sheriff

On Tuesday, Sept. 18, at about 11 P.M., several caucasian males reportedly went to a home on Santa Ana Blvd. in Oak View and began vandalizing a vehicle parked in the driveway. When the victim, a resident of the home, confronted the group, Robert Stevens attempted to hit him with a club-type weapon. During the attack, witnesses heard several members of the group yelling “Oak View,” leading police to believe that this incident was gang related. After causing several hundred dollars worth of damage to the vehicle, the group fled the area. The victim of the assault was not injured.

The Sheriff’s Gang Unit and deputies from the Ojai Police Station focused their attention on the community of Oak View for several days following the assault to deter further disturbances. Following an investigation by the Gang Unit and Ojai Detectives, the suspect in the assault, Robert Stevens, was arrested for possession of an illegal weapon, assault with a deadly weapon, drug influence, and possession of narcotics paraphernalia. He was booked into the Ventura County Main Jail with bail set at $55,000.

As of this report, no suspects in the vandalism have been identified. Anyone with information related to this crime is encouraged to call the Ojai Police Department at 646-1414.

Ojai Joins Pursuit Of Peace

Joshua Home Edwards and Michelle Sabatiré share a moment of togetherness during the “Living Peace in Ojai” event Sunday afternoon at Libbey Bowl

By Nao Braverman
Despite tempestuous weather about 100 people attended Living Peace in Ojai’s opening night on the International Day of Peace, according Evan Austin, founder of the Ojai Peace Coalition and coordinator of the weekend’s opening ceremony.
He was pleased with the turnout, though the ceremony was hastily relocated to the Chaparral Auditorium to keep guests from getting drenched in the rain.
Attendants observed a moment of candle-lit silence before Ojai’s first Noble Peace Prize was awarded to Clive and Marion Leeman, for their dedicated efforts to promote peace and their continuous involvement in local activism.
Following the awards ceremony, The Peace Alliance presented the “Gift of Peace,” a series of monologues aimed at drawing support for the establishment of a United States Department of Peace.
Proposed by Ohio congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, the Department of Peace would propose a number of mandates including prison rehabilitation programs, human rights monitoring, and the establishment a U.S. peace academy.
A closing interspiritual gathering, service and celebration on Sunday was a huge success, said Katherine Hope, spiritual leader of the Symphony of Life Spiritual Center, who facilitated the service.
Opening with a Native American ceremony, led by Chumash elder, Julie Tumamait, the gathering was attended by a Jewish rabbi, Daniel Mehlman, Sufi practitioner, Darakshan Farber, along with Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu practitioners. “It was a beautiful interweaving of practices, faith and spirituality,” said Hope.
Religious ceremonies were interspersed with meditation, yoga, “peace sharing,” and even “science sharing” by neuroscientist Peggy La Cerra from the Center of Evolutionary Neuroscience.
Coordinators are already getting ideas for next year’s event, Austin agreed.
“It was intended that this would be an annual event and its success is just another incentive,” he said.

Kucinich’s Presidential Quest Runs Through Ojai

Elizabeth and Dennis Kucinich at the Ojai Retreat on Sunday

By Nao Braverman
Ojai received its first visit in recent memory from a legitimate presidential candidate Sunday afternoon.
U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who practices yoga every morning, follows a vegan diet, and has been an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq since its inception, has ideals that are perfectly in line with many in Ojai’s liberal community. And though his radical proposals go against the tide of decisions made by his fellow politicians, more than 100 local residents filed into a room at The Ojai Retreat on Sunday to listen to him speak, with only a week’s notice.
Instead of attacking other politicians, a perenially popular political tactic, Kucinich focuses, instead, on infusing spiritual philosophy into his rhetoric. An uncompromising anti-war candidate, Kucinich believes that peace begins within.
“When we get in tune with our interconnectedness, we become aware of our responsibilities to one another,” he told the audience. Those responsibilities include striving toward peaceful solutions to international conflicts, making amends for war crimes committed to the Iraqi people by offering reparations, and withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
Though he does not rely on attacking his competitors, he rarely seems to shy away from standing up to them or to his fellow congressmen. Leader of the opposition to the war in Iraq, he was the first presidential candidate to outspokenly criticize President Bush’s war policies when he first ran as a Democratic candidate in the 2004 elections.
“I don’t feel that I have to have the comfort of the majority when I speak,” said the congressman who stood his ground and voted against the Patriot Act despite its support from his colleagues.
Kucinich, who was elected as Cleveland’s youngest mayor nearly 30 years ago, lost support after deciding not to sell the city’s municipally owned electric system to its private competitor. Banks, financially tied to private electric companies, then refused to extend the city’s credit, plunging Cleveland into default.
Years later he was elected to the Ohio Senate on the strength of Cleveland’s expanded electric system, which now provides low-cost power to almost half of the city’s residents.
“You have to have a street sense in government because they will try to tell you that night is day,” he told the audience. “One thing I will bring to the White House is street sense. I didn’t get tricked into voting for the war in Iraq, I will not be conned.”
While his most of his speech had a spiritual undertone, Kucinich did offer concrete solutions to current issues.
In response to questions from the public about health care Kucinich said that if elected, he would propose universal Medicare that covers everyone, young and old alike. He cited a Harvard University study that showed that if overhead costs were lowered, in conjunction with a slight income tax increase, the program could afford such an expansion.
His wife, Elizabeth, also well-versed in Kucinich’s campaign proposals, joined in and added that universal health care works well in England, her home country, as well in many other parts of the world.
In support of the Kyoto Climate Change Treaty, Kucinich, were he elected, would make an effort to change America’s energy supply from oil-based energy to solar energy, and restructure the Department of Agriculture to promote sustainable agricultural practices.
To improve America’s schools, he said he would cut the bloated Pentagon budget by 15 percent to fund a universal pre-kindergarten to give all young children an early start on reading and art skills. Arts programs need to be expanded in schools, he told members of the audience.
“The arts reconnect us with what it means to be human,” he said. “And I want to make sure we have a way of doing that.”
To improve the economy Kucinich proposes to cancel the North American Free Trade Agreement and generate new jobs through the expanded, better managed health care system. He also proposes the creation of a fourth branch of government, a money branch, so that the country does not have to borrow money to put into circulation and sustain a debt-based system.
But above all his speech, “The Path to Peace for the U.S. and the World,” was focused on promoting cooperation between nations and obliterating nuclear weapons.
In 2001, Kucinich proposed a U.S. Department of Peace, a cabinet-level department of the executive branch which would promote peace domestically and internationally through nonviolent communication education and mediation programs.
David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara, chimed in applauding Kucinich for spreading a hopeful message to America’s disillusioned youth, empowering a new generation of peacekeepers.
Kucinich came to Ojai Sunday in response to an invitation from a friend of Ulrich Brugger, executive director of the Ojai Retreat, after the cancellation of a Fox news debate. Sponsored by the Ventura and Santa Barbara Committees to Elect Dennis Kucinich President 2008 and the Ojai Democratic Club, the event was well attended and overbooked.
Kucinich and his wife enjoyed a vegan squash soup and burdock root dish prepared by local cook Maria Elena Nava before the speech and later returned to enjoy refreshments with supporters at the local retreat, Glen Muse.
In the slightly more intimate setting, in the cozy fireside hearth of the retreat, Elizabeth said she was reminded of her second meeting with Kucinich where they sat by the fire, talked for hours and decided to get married.
“Just know that this campaign is really fueled by love,” she said. “And just imagine what it would be like to really have love at the White House.”
Though CNN and Wall Street Journal polls still show Kucinich’s support at a low 3 percent, Kucinich said he has seen many Americans yearning for a true change that only his campaign offers.

Woman Guilty In Theft From Elder

Denise Cabrera booking photo from Ventura County Sheriff's Department

Lenny Roberts
An Oxnard woman is facing a possible six years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty to fleecing a 74-year-old woman out of $2,211 in fraudulent credit card transactions. With respect to criminal acts, the California Penal Code considers anyone 65 or older an elder, and elder abuse can be physical, emotional or financial.
According to Theresa Pollara, Ventura County senior deputy district attorney, 29-year-old Denise Cabrera pleaded guilty Sept. 20 to one felony count of theft from an elder and four felony counts of fraudulent use of an access card.
The victim had reported that someone made 51 fraudulent transactions on her credit card after she had used it at the place of business where Cabrera was employed in July.
Senior Deputy Jim Desoto, a detective assigned to the Ojai Police Station, obtained surveillance footage showing Cabrera making fraudulent transactions at several retail establishments in Ojai, Ventura and Onxard, according to Pollara.
A subsequent search warrant executed at Cabrera’s home turned up items matching those made in the fraudulent transactions, Pollara said.
According to court records, Cabrera was arrested by the Ventura Police Department last year on a similar offense, convicted and sentenced to 180 days in jail.
Cabrera is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 18 at 1:30 p.m. in Courtroom 12.