Your water, your voice: Be heard at meetings
Do you care about your water rights? The city of Ventura does.
It is spending millions of dollars to gain control of Ojai Valley water rights, seeking “a preliminary and permanent injunction reducing [Ojai’s] uses of surface water and groundwater affecting the surface and/or subsurface flow of the Ventura River.”
On Jan. 12, Mayor Matt told members of the Ventura Democratic Club: “Imagine me sitting in that room being told you’re running for this district and you have to sue everybody, in other words. That gave me a pit in my stomach.”
But don’t worry too much about their expenses or about his pit because on your notice or summons, it states that the Ventura City Council is planning that you will pay for it: “The City prays for the following relief ... (5) for judgment against all persons who, presently or in the future, own an interest in real property adjacent to the Ventura River or its tributaries … (6) own real property overlying the Ventura River Watershed’s Groundwater Basins and who fail to appear in this action” (Page 74).
Ventura shakedown
Editorial cartoon by John Aaron
Thousands of Ojai Valley residents are receiving certified letters this week from the city of Ventura containing either legal summonses or notices of legal action in an irresponsible, scattershot grab for water rights.
Leading the charge is Ventura Mayor Matt LaVere. Ventura City Council members need to hear this message clearly from the thousands of Ojai Valley residents, water agencies and businesses named in the nearly 100-page letter:
Cease and desist immediately, dismiss your case, and stop harassing thousands of Ojai Valley residents who turn on a water tap.
Prevent death of the public’s right to know
Imagine if government could keep secret how people died.Imagine if the government said it knows best whose cause of death should be public and whose cause of death should be private.
Power to change prescription drug prices
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Prescription drug prices are a local, state and national issue. Many politicians have said they are reaching across party lines to solve a problem all their constituents face. However, we have too many lawmakers focused exclusively on maneuvering for re-election as their primary mission. Too many are representing big donors, lobbyists and the health and drug industry at the expense of their constituents who, too often, get little more than lip service.
Ojai Valley News Editorial: Summit Charter School to benefit Ojai Unified School District
The Ojai Unified School District Board of Education has an interesting juxtaposition on its agenda for Friday, Dec. 13, at 5:30 p.m. at Matilija Auditorium, 703 El Paseo Road, Ojai.
Agenda Item No. 6 is the school board’s resolution to deny the Summit Charter School petition for a free, public school that provides classroom-based instruction, preferably at Summit School, which has served the Upper Ojai community for 107 years. The same school board closed the school in June 2018 just six months after the Thomas Fire, as community members dealt with displacement and loss.
Taking stock as new decade dawns
As the Cave Fire raced through thousands of acres this week in Santa Barbara, we are especially thankful for the rain — Mother Nature’s mega-fire hose. As we approach the two-year anniversary of the devastating Thomas Fire, we are reminded of the ongoing wildfire threats and the continuing hardship of so many still trying to rebuild.
Putting TOT on March 3 ballot moves city forward
Ojai City Council approval Tuesday to place a ballot measure to increase the transient occupancy tax (TOT) — also known as a hotel bed tax — on the March 3 ballot could be one of the most important and beneficial decisions our city leaders have made in the last 48 years.
Transient Occupancy Tax increase belongs on ballot
Ojai has needs and aspirations of $50 million worth of infrastructure, stabilization, maintenance and upgrades over the next 30 years. For a city that ranks among the very lowest for sales tax (7.25%), and hotel tax, or transient occupancy tax (10%), — with zero cannabis tax — our city continues to fall behind even with the basics such as fire mitigation and resilience, road/sidewalk repair, Recreation Department upkeep and improvement, the city’s power production and lighting districts, Libbey Bowl, and code enforcement.
Prepare for lights out
Have you taken steps to prepare for the next evacuation? Welcome to the new normal: winds, fire events and blanket power “shutdowns” — not outages.
We are not communicating emergency information well. How many people know the emergency radio station for Ojai Valley is AM 1610?
Less than a few.
Are you ready for that knock?
You have all the time in the world to prepare, until you awaken to that loud knock at your door. It’s 11:30 p.m. and you hear there is a mandatory evacuation order. What do you take? What do you need? How long will it last? Where will you go?
Diversion cleanup clogged with red tape
On Dec. 5, 2017, Gov. Jerry Brown proclaimed a state of emergency slashing red tape, proclaiming that “statutes, rules, regulations and requirements were suspended for nonhazardous debris resulting from the Thomas Fire in areas that are subject to the jurisdiction of Agencies within the California Environmental Protection Agency and the California Natural Resources Agency; and (b) necessary restoration and rehabilitation of timberland, streams, rivers, and other waterways.”