How to resolve AdBlock issue? OP-ED in OVN on Feb. 28, 2020 OPINION PAGE: Ojai City Manager James Vega: City of Ojai response to county General Plan draft: ‘We are experiencing a climate emergency … and county government must do its fair share to deal with it’
‘We strongly recommend that the Board of Supervisors exercise leadership on behalf of the citizens of the county and take a stand in these matters, and communicate with the county staff in the strongest manner possible the city of Ojai's opposition to what we consider to be the county staff's inappropriate attempt to use administrative maneuvers to subvert policies passed by duly elected officials — your Board of Supervisors.’
By James Vega, Ojai city manager
The Ojai City Council is very concerned about air pollution and the effects of climate change on our city and its residents. We are experiencing the drastic effects of climate change, as evidenced by the Thomas Fire, water shortages, and the persistent drought. We have adopted a climate emergency resolution and have created a Climate Emergency Mobilization Committee to make recommendations to council on actions the city can take to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and remove them from the atmosphere.
Accordingly, we are submitting the following comments.
OP-ED by John Brooks, president of CFROG: Taxpayers should not have to pick up the tab for fossil-fuel industry cleanup
By John Brooks
None of us would walk out of a restaurant after eating a huge meal without paying and then expect others to clean up our mess. But that is what the state's oil companies are doing by abandoning wells and expecting taxpayers to pick up the cost.
Climate First: Replacing Oil and Gas (CFROG) was dismayed to learn that oil companies have given the state only $110 million to clean up onshore oil and gas wells when the estimated tab is closer to $6 billion.
Ventura River adjudication: Remembering the past
By Paul Jenkin, Friends of the Ventura River
The current controversy surrounding the adjudication of water rights to the Ventura River has focused on the most recent efforts by the city of Ventura to secure its water rights to the Ventura River. Many may not know that this effort has deep roots in the past.
The city of Ventura, was incorporated in 1886, but its claim to the waters of the Ventura River extend back to the establishment of Mission San Buenaventura in 1782. In addition to the Missions, the Spanish and Mexican governments also established a series of pueblos and ranchos between 1769 and 1835 in what later became the state of California.
California law recognizes water rights granted to pueblos under the Spanish and Mexican governments. Pueblo water rights are superior to all riparian and appropriative rights and cannot be forfeited by a failure to assert an interest or use of the water under that claim, including naturally occurring surface and subsurface water from the entire watershed of the stream flowing through the pueblo.
Despite the city of Ventura not being a successor to one of the eight original Spanish or Mexican pueblos, the city has periodically asserted its claim to the waters of the Ventura River based on a pueblo water-right.
In 1976, the city of Ventura attempted to assert a pueblo water right against the Casitas Municipal Water District’s right to divert water from the Ventura River at its Robles Diversion to Lake Casitas. The appropriative water rights granted to the Casitas Municipal Water District in the 1950s by the State Water Resources Control Board required Casitas to bypass the first 20 cubic feet per second of flow downstream of the Robles Diversion to protect the water rights of downstream water users, including the city of Ventura. The city claimed, however, that this provision did not fully protect its water rights under its pueblo water-rights claim.
California must get past differences on water
By Governor Gavin Newsom
Water is the lifeblood of our state. It sustains communities, wildlife and our economy—all of which make California the envy of the world.
Reliably securing this vital and limited resource into the future remains a challenge, especially with a warming and changing climate.
For more than a year, my administration has worked to find a comprehensive solution for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta—a path to immediately improve the health of these waterways, create certainty for the 35 million Californians who depend on these water sources, and maintain the economic vitality of the Central Valley.
Historically, disputes over water, or what some call “water wars,” have pitted stakeholders against one another: urban vs. rural; agriculture vs. conservation; North vs. South.
Today, my administration is proposing a path forward, one that will move past the old water binaries and set us up for a secure and prosperous water future.
Guided by science, this new framework will provide the foundation for binding voluntary agreements between government agencies and water users with partnership and oversight from environmental groups.
OP-ED by Ojai Councilman William Weirick on Feb. 7 OVN OPINION PAGE: Watershed adjudication is an existential threat to the Ojai Valley
By William Weirick, Ojai council member
After decades of acting like an environmental outlaw, the city of Ventura has decided it will be able to grab more water out of the Ventura River watershed through lawyers and judges than from an agreement among neighbors consistent with the principles of true sustainability embedded in emerging state laws and regulations. That is the backstory.
OP-ED by Stephen E. Frank ON OPINION PAGE Jan. 31: Ojai Valley Community Hospital enhances services despite trend of rural hospital closures: 2019 set a record for rural hospital closures
Submitted photoStephen E. Frank, president of the Ojai Valley Community Hospital Foundation
By Stephen E. Frank
The city of Ojai and the Ojai Valley are known for their quaint rural charm and beautiful scenery. The valley is a unique place, cherished by residents and tourists alike.
Water adjuducation -- the nuclear option
By Alasdair Coyne
Thousands of residents of the Ventura River Basin had recently to sign for a package in the mail regarding the commencement of adjudication proceedings on their groundwater supplies.
This all began in 2014 when Santa Barbara Channelkeeper (an environmental organization long involved in water-quality issues in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties), sued the city of Ventura to prevent the city’s over-pumping of water near Foster Park by Casitas Springs. The lawsuit’s goal is to ensure that enough water remains in the lower Ventura River for riparian and aquatic species, including the federally designated endangered Southern California steelhead.
Ojai water wars: The battle is launched
By Lindsay Nielson
Did you get one? No, not the Publishers Clearing House notice, but it came in a large white certified mail envelope. It was addressed to more than 10,000 Ojai area property owners. It was a 75-page lawsuit and summons to join the city of Ventura’s water war party. You’ve been served!
Adjudication is not sustainability and does not serve the public good
WILLIAM WEIRICK, Ojai City Council
As a community, we need to cut through the fog of Orwellian doublespeak being used by the city of Ventura, some water agency elected and appointed officials, and other assorted advocates or apologists for Ventura River Watershed adjudication. Adjudication is not sustainability. Adjudication does not serve the public good. It only serves the interests of lawyers and others benefitting from strife, conflict and a “slice the pie” mentality. It drains resources instead of attracting them.
We elect politicians to deliver solutions, not lawsuits
By Trevor Quirk
If you are like me, you are troubled by the water lawsuit for several reasons.
You are troubled because the city of Ventura chose to sue you.
Ventura mayor cannot sue Ojai Valley and run to represent us as supervisor
By Jeffrey Starkweather
On Jan. 12, I attended the Democratic Club of Ventura meeting at which Matt LaVere (Ventura mayor and candidate for Ventura County Supervisor, District 1 which encompasses the entire Ojai Valley) spoke and answered questions about Ventura’s recent legal actions against virtually all Ojai Valley water users. Ojai City Council member Bill Weirick asked LaVere why it was necessary to spend millions of dollars to take legal action against thousands of Ojai Valley water users to resolve the complaint by the Santa Barbara Channelkeeper that Ventura was endangering steel head trout and the ecology of the Ventura River by taking too much water from the river in the summer months.