How to resolve AdBlock issue? Ojai Valley News Election Endorsement: Starkweather, Dri for school board
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- Published: Friday, 09 October 2020 10:47
While the job of school board member has always been important, no one who ran for school board four years ago could have predicted the responsibilities they now have.
2020 is the first year Ojai Unified School District board members will be chosen by districts due to a voting rights legal challenge affecting cities and school districts across the state.
EDITORIAL on OPINION PAGE: Weirick for Ojai mayor
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- Published: Friday, 02 October 2020 08:47
Ojai Valley News endorses Councilman William Weirick for Ojai mayor.
When elections work as they should, dedicated, caring, informed citizens volunteer their time and ideas to improve he communities they call home.
That is the case this election season in Ojai and is exemplified by the two candidates running for mayor in the Nov. 3 election.
Publisher's letter: Why subscribe?
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- Published: Friday, 18 September 2020 10:00
Please subscribe to your Ojai Valley News today!
Laura Rearwin Ward, Ojai Valley News publisher
Rights, when not exercised, eventually cease to exist. Our right to a free press is written expressly in the very First Amendment, and is as fundamental to our American values as freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
When news organizations are in trouble, democracy is in trouble. Your local news source is essential because of its function to inform and defend the interests of the people. Ideological barriers are broken down when neighbors get to know each other as people. A well-informed citizenry makes better decisions and actively engages in its community.
Our Constitution entitles us to have a free press, but no one is obligated to give it to us. A recent joint study by Gallup and the Knight Foundation found that only 20 percent of people are willing to pay for news. Does that mean that 80 percent of people believe this vital freedom is not important? Have they been convinced this freedom does not have value? Do they think newspapers are financially stable? According to the study, and despite the evidence, a majority do.
Editorial: Council must address Ojai risk from fire
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- Published: Friday, 11 September 2020 09:18
As the sun rises red in the morning, while our eyes sting and more than 2.5 million acres burn across the state, devastating small communities such as Shaver Lake, the Ojai Valley News is again requesting the Ojai City Council to heed the 2-year-old advice of the Ventura County Fire Department.
At the City Council meeting of Sept. 8, the mayor and council brought no meaningful recommendations forward to address the concerns in the 2018 Ventura Fire Department letter. They must address the threat to our community from “large patches of unburned hazardous fuel (vegetation)."
EDITORIAL on Opinion page: Rethinking policing
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- Published: Thursday, 27 August 2020 17:41
Rights we take seriously:
— The right to peaceful public assembly.
— Innocent till proved guilty.
Nationwide, law enforcement is facing increasing public scrutiny due to horrific abuses of power, as exemplified by the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota on May 25, and the latest shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin on Aug. 23.
Only two months ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a ban on strangleholds. That is just the beginning of the changes needed. The Ojai Valley News calls upon the governor to make good on his call for the creation of standardized crowd-control measures. Tear gas is a chemical weapon banned in warfare by the Geneva Convention, yet permitted for use against Californians exercising their legal rights.
Secret court of LA
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- Published: Friday, 21 August 2020 12:23
Are you one of the 14,500 potential parties who missed the Aug. 17 case-management conference in the Ventura water adjudication lawsuit? (Remember the card we just got from the city of Ventura saying it is “not pursuing active litigation”?)
It turns out we were supposed to miss it, along with future proceedings related to this matter, because the “real” players attend the court in the safety of a group phone call (LACourtConnect) to which the public and media have no access.
The public is being effectively shut out under cover of COVID. A private adjudication court that clearly benefits the city of Ventura has been created. The Ojai Valley News can use your help to change that.
Editorial: Killing 15,228 trees under cover of COVID, Aug. 7
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- Published: Saturday, 08 August 2020 11:01
Ojai Valley News photo by Perry Van Houten
In late May, while Ojai residents sat at home sewing masks, the U.S. Forest Service — an agency of the Department of Agriculture — not wanting to miss an opportunity to harvest a crop (this time our national forest) before it may burn naturally, rolled out its “Reyes Peak Forest Health and Fuels Reduction Project” to cut 15,228 trees, in the name of “health.”
Editorial on OVN OPINION page: Ventura water postcard unpacked
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- Published: Friday, 17 July 2020 15:09
Was any Ojai resident comforted by the glossy postcard: “Update from the city of Ventura”?
We wanted to be. First, they “hope” (we all need hope these days) that we and our “loved ones are staying safe and healthy” — friendly… then comes a lie in bold lettering:
OVN Editorial on OPINION page: Vision for transportation equity
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- Published: Friday, 05 June 2020 11:22
Who would intentionally build a tiny four-lane highway in front of a high school and a hospital? It was part of a larger plan by Caltrans to build four lanes out to Santa Paula, Carpinteria and Ventura that the Citizens to Preserve the Ojai fought against and won in the late 1960s.
Understanding its history gives perspective on how the only four-lane stretch of road in the area came to be.
The bully next door: OVN editorial on OPINION page 5-22
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- Published: Friday, 22 May 2020 11:14
Thinking the city of Ventura is going COVID-broke and learning to love their neighbors? Not a chance! Casitas Municipal Water District is forced to lawyer-up to defend the Ojai Valley against the city of Ventura’s water grab.
In the midst of a pandemic that is wrecking local economies, the Ventura City Council is grappling with a $12 million deficit.
Pandemic Groundhog Day? 5-15 OVN Editorial
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- Published: Friday, 15 May 2020 11:55
Welcome to Day One, again. The goals of the state and county have changed without notice. When the stay-at-home order began, we were told the intention was to “flatten the curve” — that deaths were inevitable, but we could stem the overflow of hospitals and mortuaries by staying at home. The new standard for counties to move to the governor's "Stage 3" for reopening is now zero new deaths for 14 straight days.