05-03-02edtiorials.html

On April 23 the Ojai City Council voted overwhelmingly to name Ojai's newest park Cluff Vista Park. I am supportive and appreciative to the City Council for making this decision. As one of the speakers that evening, I made the following statement which I would like to share with the Ojai Valley News readers:
Don and Sheila Cluff are a couple very much like Edward Libbey and his wife, Florence. There are numerous coincidences and parallels connecting their lives. And there are some notable differences. Both families were attracted to Ojai because of its natural beauty and climate - the Libbeys arriving in 1908 and the Cluffs 25 years ago in 1977. Both families were successful in business. One of the Libbeys' enterprises was to build the El Roblar Hotel on Ojai Avenue, which today houses the Cluff's The Oaks at Ojai Spa. And both worked with local organizations to achieve the goals of making Ojai a more beautiful city. Edward Libbey worked with the Ojai Valley Men's League, a group of male civic leaders who met to discuss how to implement his various projects. And the Cluffs work with local organizations comprised of both men and women, such as the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy, Rotary International, and the Ojai Valley Chamber of Commerce.
You've probably been reminded over the years that the Libbeys gave a park, an arcade, the current post office and numerous other important gifts to Ojai. It was Edward Libbey's personal policy to meet community needs with help. For example, he even donated a fire truck when he discovered that the local volunteer firefighters were short on equipment.
The Cluffs have quietly done the same type of thing over the years. If there is a need in the community, they see that it is met. Here are some examples: They have provided complimentary accommodations for the Playwrights Conference and for the Young Americans. They offer The Oaks at Ojai for local studio artist exhibits. They have hosted innumerable receptions to help community causes such as the Ojai Film Society, and the Pergola rebuilding. They support the Ojai Independence Day Celebration and the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation. They have turned away no worthwhile local nonprofit or school which has requested Spa Day certificates for auctions.
The Cluffs also have given Ojai a park.
I wish I could have known Edward and Florence Libbey. Do you suppose Florence had a charming, dynamic personality like we know Sheila has? The history books only talk about the good deeds of her husband. We know very little about her. We do know that the Libbeys didn't have children. One wonders how she may have spent her time.
In past years, I have stood in awe of the Cluffs. They are such energetic high achievers, and Sheila a radiant person who always inspires me to eat less and exercise more. The Cluffs have worked as equal partners to be benefactors of Ojai and at the same time nurture a lovely family who supports them in their efforts.
How times have changed! The Ojai Valley Men's League has metamorphosed into the Ojai Valley Chamber of Commerce. And now women can be members. And, equally interesting, is the fact that Don Cluff has served as president of this organization for two terms.
There is a lot of local sentiment against the L.A. types who move here, tearing down farmhouses and building gated monoliths. While people have the right to do this, it undeniably contributes toward a different feeling in our community, and one that many old-timers resent.
Please don't put Don and Sheila Cluff in that category. They're true Ojai, through and through. They care about this community in the year 2002 just as generously and successfully as Edward and Florence Libbey did when they gave us a park in 1917.
It's easy to deify early pioneers and assume that today's players just don't measure up. Nonsense! The Cluffs appear to me to be every bit as deserving of the name Cluff Vista Park as the Libbeys are of their park. I congratulate the Ojai City Council for making a fine decision.
Kathy Broesamle is a member of the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy.

From the trenches
Bret Bradigan, OVN publisher

During a discussion Tuesday evening at Ventura College, the former CNN producer bemoaned the fact that broadcast journalism students today don't have any sense of fairness or balance. They don't understand their accountability to their viewers.
Another mentioned the ubiquituous voice mail systems, with their labyrinths of names and options into which you lose your sanity. The Los Angeles Times editor said even he couldn't get a real person on the phone at the downtown headquarters.
As person after person lamented the depersonalization of media, I thought, come sit at my desk for awhile. Come take a few of my calls. Accountability is not some vague concept here. It influences virtually every single editorial decision we make. Whoever we write about it is assuredly going to make trouble for us if they feel they weren't treated fairly. Sometimes they make trouble even if they were treated fairly.
Sometimes the only way we know we've been fair is that people on both sides of an issue feel they were treated unfairly.
While these grandees of mass media discussed the sorry state of journalism education, and what to do about it, I thought the solution was quite simple. Send these future journalists to me. They would quickly be disabused of their ivory tower notions. Let them experience journalism in the trenches, where you have to be fair, because it's guaranteed the people you write about will be standing in line behind you at Starr Market, or sitting next to you at the Brew Pub, or pigeonhole you at a chamber mixer, or seek you out at the gym.
In my world, as opposed to theirs, we live with the consequences of our decisions because we make those decisions about people who know where we live.
Of course, the consequences can be just as positive when you are close to your readers. We get a lot of credit when a project or program or person gets their well-deserved moment in the spotlight. We take deep satisfaction in bringing everyone's attention to the problems we face, then seeing solutions emerge from the public dialogue.
Once I hired a bright young Stanford graduate to work at the paper I ran in Kernville, and watched him chafe at the rural isolation and the constant barrage of fist-shaking rednecks. I constantly urged him to seek in his reporting the common threads of purpose that create the rich tapestry of humanity. For example, the John Birch Society member who donates his Social Security checks to the orphanage from which he came, or the Earth First! activist who designed a solar water purifier for cholera-stricken villages in Peru. I urged him to discover that the greatest stories lie at these intersections of common cause. Conflict is too easy to squander your talents on, I warned him.
Now he is a lead writer for New Jersey's largest newspaper and sure to be hired on at the New York Times before he turns 30. I've told him I fully expect that I get a prominent mention when, not if, he receives the first of what is likely to be several Pulitzers in his already-distinguished career.
If not for his stint at that rural newspaper, he would not have the context of accountability to drive his reporting deeper into the substance of meaning. While his metropolitan peers were fact-checking boring articles on zoning ordinances, he was interviewing congressmen and dissecting Forest Service land use plans. While they blithely went about their business walled off by layers of voice mail systems and receptionists and editors, he was getting heckled at community forums.
What we do at community newspapers like the Ojai Valley News will never have the glamour of front-line reporting from West Bank villages or the White House press room, but it does makes a discernible difference in the lives of our readers.
Community newspapers may be small, but what we do matters in proportion to our proximity to our readers. And we may be a mere stepping stone on the way to bigger and better things for young journalists, but they will rarely again feel the same certainty that what they do makes a difference.

© 2002 The Ojai Valley News

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