We are all at risk in grocery strike

11-3
To the editor:
The strikers outside Vons continue their protest and there seems to be no end in sight. As the weeks go by, it is a matter of great concern that some of the workers are suffering financial hardship as their savings dry up and strike funds are becoming depleted. These people are our neighbors in the Ojai Valley, and we should not sit back while they risk their livelihoods and well-being as they hold out for basic principles that affect all working families.
Members of the public may need to be reminded that the strike goes beyond immediate workers' concerns. This is the beginning of a growing national discontent with big corporations denying their workers affordable health care. Many of us with employer-based health insurance are seeing a steady rise in costs and a reduction in services covered. As the Los Angeles Times stated Saturday, Nov, 1, "If huge standard-setting corporations like the supermarket chains can get away with this, our entire health care system will suffer."
This should change in California in 2006 when new legislation comes into effect. Sen. Burton's SB2, approved by Gov. Davis on Oct. 5, would require employees and dependents of large employers to be covered, with a mix of employee and employer contributions. The legislation states that controlling health care costs can be more readily achieved if a greater share of working people and their families have health benefits so that cost shifting is minimized. Unfortunately, the bill does not go far enough. For real cost reduction and complete coverage, health insurance should be universal.
Sen. Sheila Kuehl's bill offers real health care reform in California and should be welcomed by everyone concerned about the growing health care crisis. Her bill, SB921, is still being fine-tuned in Sacramento, and hopefully will be enacted before she is termed out of office in 2006.
In the meantime, good people are suffering, when all they want is to get back to work. Members of the Ojai Democrats Club joined the strikers on the picket line outside Vons on Nov. 8 and it is hoped that more members of the public will join us there next Saturday. Bring a sign and, better still, send a check to help out the Ojai workers struggling to pay their rent or mortgages and keep their kids in school.
The strike at Vons carries on and people are suffering hardship. Those who wish to support our local Ojai families affected by the strike may send checks to the UFCW, made out to "Local 1036 Defense," and write "Ojai Fund" on the bottom line. Send checks to UFCW, 816 Camarillo Springs Road, Suite H, Camarillo, CA 93012, or to Tri-Counties Labor Foundation, P.O. Box 6928, Oxnard, CA 93031-6928. With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, your help will be greatly appreciated. (These are tax-deductible contributions.)
And remember, the next health insurance plan at risk may well be yours!

Sue Broidy
Ojai Democrats

Religion political, not spiritual

10-27
To the editor:
I have recently realized which Radical Fundamentalists are the most threatening to U.S. National Security. Surprise! They don't live in the Middle East! If I hear one more right wing radical "Repulsican" talk show creep say that the U.S. is a "Christian nation," I'm gonna go downtown and buy a gun - I'm sure I can pass the background check - and shoot my radio and TV! Thank the "Good Lord" for the NRA!
Seriously, there's a good reason "God" wasn't mentioned in the Bill of Rights, or the Constitution. Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, and others among the framers of those documents, did not believe in the Christian "God." Ours is not a Christian nation. To declare otherwise subverts the principle of freedom, and poisons the very source of democracy. The word "Creator" in the Bill of Rights refers to a generic deity, more like a principle than a person - a reasoned speculation about the nature of reality. A theory, really. Our forefathers were children of the Age of Reason, after all. They didn't see themselves "Under God," because "God" wasn't "Over" them!
It's time we all realized that the true power of religion is not spiritual, but political. And in politics, it's always "The Money, Honey," and the shifting of power. A few rule, while the rest serve. It's the Way of the World. Oftentimes, one or more rulers will send their personal servants to rape the servants of another, in attempts to win more power. Less often, the servants themselves grab power. But things don't really change. The winds just shift the sands.
Let us cherish what relative freedoms we may have, while we still can, and keep an eye out for those sands that shift toward us. With luck, perhaps the radicals will soon overstep themselves, and be caught without shelter from the smothering winds. Keep the faith! U.S. out of Iraq! Impeach Bush! Elect Kucinich!

Tom Erickson
Summit

Ojai tempts fire fate with inaction

11-3
To the editor:
Re: Editorial, "Fire in the Whole"
Having braced for an onslaught on conservative environmentalists (no, it's not an oxymoron, we're pragmatic realists, not wild-eyed evangelistic idealists), it is refreshing to read a balanced viewpoint on the forest and wildland management from the publisher of the OVN - not bad for a New York transplant commenting on a western phenomenon.
What should concern the residents of Ojai, especially the East-Enders, is the incredible density of growth in the barranca of the Dennison Grade. Given a Santa Ana wind, some traveling rouge arsonist could easily start a devastating conflagration that could not only destroy the homes along the grade in minutes, but also threaten the western expanse of the valley itself. Remember that there is nothing "natural" about nearly all Southern Californian wildfires. These firestorms are nearly always the result of the heinous arsonist.
Given the right conditions, conditions we witness yearly, a Dennison Grade fire pushed west by the "devil winds" of the Santa Anas, could overwhelm our firefighters' heroic efforts and blow through the tinderboxes of Black and Sulphur mountains. That chaparral of manzanita and scrub oak could toss countless embers into this city and unincorporated areas. As a native, I have witnessed arsonist fires that have destroyed sections of cities such as the neighborhoods of Bel Air, the Pacific Palisades and the Santa Monica Canyon, to say nothing of our own surroundings. In the past, the Ojai fires have been mainly in the outskirts. But the Dennison Grade barranca is a gun barrel pointing straight down the valley. In short, given continuous winds, we could be literally wiped out. Currently, the overgrowth behind City Hall threatens our government center. It is just waiting for the right fall wind conditions and a maniac.
This letter is not intended to be alarmist, but rather a call to action. Contact Supervisor Steve Bennett (his administrative assistant's e-mail: Kasey.Lennon@mail.co.ventura.ca.us). Call the City Council and have them thin out and manage the fire fuel behind our City Hall. Petition our representatives to fund control burns on the public and, in much of our nearby hillsides' case, private lands. Perhaps the C.R.E.W. could be funded to thin in strategic areas of our southern hillsides in concert with the burns or in their stead. To do nothing is to tempt fate and literally whistle in the wind.
The tourist town of Julian was nearly destroyed. The town of Cuyamaca no longer exists. Here, the fuse is the Dennison Grade barranca. All it needs is a match and the winds. Why should we wait?

Leland P. Hammerschmitt
Ojai

Airing it out on growth ordinance

11-3
To the editor:
Everyone in the Ojai Valley has experienced the derogation of our air quality. It is true that last week's fires made the conditions horrendous, but many of us felt the pre-fire Stage 1 smog alerts over the summer.
When asked by Councilwoman Smith about a lawsuit brought by the city of Ojai, together with the CPO, to establish maximum air quality toxin thresholds in our valley, the city attorney advised the council that there was no such lawsuit. A look at Superior Court Case No. CIV 178925 (City of Ojai and Citizens to Preserve the Ojai et al. v. County of Ventura Air Pollution Control District) shows that Monte Widders was the attorney representing the city in this lawsuit and whose signature on behalf of his clients appears on the agreement in settlement to establish a special air quality threshold for the Ojai Valley.
Why would the city attorney lie to his clients?
At the expense of the air quality and the health of the citizenry of the Ojai Valley, City Attorney Widders is promoting his own agenda. Mr. Widders' agenda is to have a growth management ordinance that fails to effectively address our worsening air quality and linked traffic congestion. Many types of construction that would add to our worsening air quality are exempt under the Growth Management Ordinance that Mr. Widders authored.
The stated purpose of the Growth Management Ordinance is to facilitate Ojai's compliance with the Federal Clean Air Act. The Growth Management Ordinance as written by the city attorney is toothless; it fails to address the true intent of the state in promoting second dwelling units.
In order to promote his agenda to the Ojai City Council Tuesday night, the city attorney took on the role of an air quality expert. But, because Mr. Widders does not hold any degree in environmental studies or the study of air pollution, he gave the City Council misleading data on the true air quality problems that we are facing and the amount of air toxins that the city of Ojai is being subjected to.
Members of the public were shocked at the misinformation that Mr. Widders and his associate environmental consultant were putting forth. Citizens to Preserve the Ojai presented documented evidence of the true nature of Ojai's noncompliance with air quality standards as shown by data from federal and state air quality agencies.
Mr. Widders and his associate spent hours talking in circles, avoiding answering council questions and, in the end, a tired and confused City Council was unable to withstand the ultimate Widders' cut.
The flashing sword of litigation came out: "the city will get sued" if they hesitated in adopting "the Widders Growth Control Ordinance." An exhausted and now-scared City Council acquiesced to the city attorney's wishes. And thus, once again, citizens of Ojai are not being represented by the elected officials but by the city staff.
As a result, prepare for worse air.

Ivor Benci-Woodward, REHS
Board Member
Citizens to Preserve the Ojai

Oak's absence opens city views

11-4
To the editor:
As sad as it was to see the demise of the oak tree in front of the Ojai Valley Museum, its passing has revealed a gem long hidden. The classic architecture of the former St. Thomas Aquinas Church - which echoes that of the Post Office Tower, the Arcade and the Pergola - has once again been revealed to everyone who passes by on Ojai Avenue. Downtown has never looked so beautiful, so inviting or so complete.
The oak should be replaced, but when that time comes, how about planting it in front of the abandoned Texaco station instead?

Howard Smith
Ojai

© 2003 The Ojai Valley News

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