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Feds doing council’s job

The following article first appeared in the Sunday, February 12, 1978 edition of the “OJAI VALLEY NEWS” on Page 4. It is reprinted here with their permission.

Feds doing council’s job
by
John E. Nelson, M.D.

___________________
Our
environment
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“Clean Air — Or No Growth, City Told,” a recent OVN headline proclaimed.

Thanks for the choice. But we’ll take both.

Here’s the situation as it now stands. Because Ojai’s City Council and the county board of supervisors have proved themselves shamefully unwilling to halt rampant growth and air pollution in our valley, the big-brother federal bureaucracy is going to do it for us.

The means they’ll use is through our outmoded sewage treatment plant which has long been fouling the Ventura River in violation of federal health standards. If the plant is not upgraded soon, we could be fined $15,000 a day. In order to get the job done, a large federal grant must be approved.

BUT THE FEDS seem to be more concerned about the quality of our air than our own elected officials have been. They know that an upgraded sewer plant opens the gates to new development and overpopulation with inevitably increased air pollution.

Because we have failed to meet the standards set forth in the federal Clean Air Act, our valley has been designated as a “non-attainment area” — bureaucratic jargon which means that our air is unsafe to breathe during 98% of summer days. So the federal government is saying that it’s not about to give us money to make our air even more unhealthy.

Their hand so forced, the Ojai city council responded by postponing the final decision on the all-important general plan which will set the limits of future growth. They had hoped to push through their version of the plan before March 7 when the people will have a chance to elect a more environmentally aware council. This change again underscores the importance of this crucial election in determining the future of the entire valley.

MEANWHILE, the city planning commission and the county Air Pollution Control District are pointing their fingers at each other in a pointless dispute over where the air pollution comes from. APCD officials, who live outside the valley, say we make our own. Commissioners, who live inside the valley, say it blows in from elsewhere. Both sides seem to be clouding the issue and protecting their own interests.

The APCD, which is responsible for controlling air pollution on a countywide basis, has inexplicably been playing a now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t game with Petrochem’s nitrogen oxide emissions. One wonders about their motivations for so compromising the health of the citizenry it is enjoined to protect. Perhaps they are covering the incredible mistakes of the board of supervisors in allowing Petrochem and oil drilling to exist in the first place.

The city planning commission, which now faces a mandate to halt new sources of air pollution within the valley, prefers to believe that there are no polluting industries here (ignoring the oil-drilling industry), and that “all we have is traffic and homes” (as if traffic were not the single major source of smog).

The truth is that there is too much pollution coming from both inside and outside the valley. Each side in the dispute seems to be engineering a monumental cop-out designed to relieve themselves from responsibility in dealing with the problem. Such thinking hardly seems worthy of the great challenge created by our ever-mounting smog hazard.

The solution to this problem lies in a vigorous effort from both agencies not just to keep our air from getting worse, but to clean up the already unacceptable levels of disease-producing smog. This column calls upon the APCD to increase its monitoring of Petrochem and oil-drilling sites, and to publish weekly reports on its activities. The Ojai Planning Commission must likewise do their part by halting all population growth now. The recent public outcry which resulted in the denial of an ill-conceived tract development clearly indicates that this is the will of the people.

FORTUNATELY, the voters of the City of Ojai will on March 7 have an opportunity to seat a majority of environmentally committed councilpersons who will do more than wait for Washington to tell them how to preserve our valley. The candidates have been crystallizing their stands, and our choices are becoming clear. Look for an update on this crucial election in a future column.



DR. JOHN NELSON
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Our problem: growth

The following article was first seen in the Thursday, May 24, 1962 edition of the “OJAI VALLEY NEWS” on the “OPINION PAGE” (Page A-2). It is reprinted here with their permission. It was an “EDITORIAL”, and the author is unknown.

Our problem: growth

A recent population analysis issued by the Ventura county planning staff revealed that the “Ojai planning area,” comprising Ojai, Meiners Oaks and Oak View, was growing slightly faster in the period April 1, 1961 – April 1, 1962, than the county average and about twice the rate of growth of the State of California.

Figures showed the county rate of growth as just over seven percent. This compares with an average of six percent the previous year. This is in line with recently-released statistics which told that Ventura had become the second-fastest growing county in the Los Angeles complex, second only to Orange. Its jump of over one percent in a year presages an increase year by year.

In the Ojai planning area the trend was slightly higher than the county average. We inched upwards to an eight-plus population increase this year. With plenty of land and water available, no slackening in this trend is in sight. No impenetrable barricades will be stretched across Highway 399 on the Arnaz grad or across other access, the Upper Ojai. Employees of the industries moving into the Tri-Cities, Oxnard, Thousand Oaks area will drive here some Sunday afternoon, fall in love with the valley and buy a home. Father will join the roughly 50 percent of the present commuters who live here and work elsewhere.

Another pertinent statistic came to light in the county survey. The highest rate of growth in the county was in the Simi planning area — a remarkable 27 percent increase. Second was Camarillo with 15 percent. Ojai was third at eight-plus.

A look at a county map at this point is revealing. Growth, which has been coming in the past from commuters who work in the Ventura area, will soon make a pincer movement into the valley via the Upper Ojai. Planners count on the development of the large ranches of the Casitas lake perimeter, but the Upper Ojai and even East Ojai’s proximity to the 27 percent increase of the planning area is even more startling. This is where growth is spilling over from the San Fernando valley coming this way along a Santa Susana-Simi-Moorpark — Santa Paula line.

Incidentally, great efforts are being made in Santa Paula to obtain industries. And, down the road a few miles in the Tri-Cities of El Rio, Montalvo and Saticoy, vast acreages are zoned industrial. Recently a 133 acre piece was sold to heavy industry.

Far from Ojai? Not really. From the Tri-Cities it is just as close to Ojai via Santa Paula as it is through Ventura. The same goes for Fillmore, which is due for San Fernando growth.

So here is our problem: proximity to growth. And, to a certain extent the cause of our present problems, for the valley has been growing steadily for a number of years. But the rate is accelerating — probably never to runaway proportions — but nevertheless as consistent as the rising sun. The population should inexorably double in ten years.

So, the future is already upon us. What to do about it?

The obvious answer: plan. The not-so-obvious answer: make decisions.

And, we mean make decisions now. Every decision deferred now means time that cannot be retrieved . . . . more pressure on the day when action is overdue, when action will be forced under pressure, perhaps under controversy, and always under haste, and extra expense.

Honestly now, wouldn’t our valley be a better place to live — a better planned community, if governmental bodies had been ready for growth, such as subdivisions, then years ago.

Only fast, massive, intelligent action on Ojai’s master plan, and by the county on the unincorporated sections of the valley (which are exceptionally vulnerable) can save the valley from a fate it does not want — or deserve.


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Supervisors forecast county problems as water, growth, health and homeless

The following article first appeared in the WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9, 1985 edition of the “OJAI VALLEY NEWS” on Page A-1. It is reprinted here with their permission.

Supervisors forecast county problems as water, growth, health and homeless
by
Star Smith

As is the wont of many in the first day of each new year, county supervisors Tuesday looked back on the accomplishments of the past, then peered into their crystal balls, trying to foretell the issues of the future.

THE CONSENSUS: growth, water, health care, and the homeless will be the major issues for the county in the next year or two.

The occasion for the government soul-searching was the swearing in of reelected supervisors Maggie Erickson, representing Ojai Valley, Camarillo, and Santa Paula/Fillmore; John Flynn, Oxnard and Port Hueneme; and Susan Lacey, Ventura.

All three won decisively their reelection bids in June, Erickson taking 64 percent of the District 3 vote; Lacey, nearly 80 percent in District 1; and Flynn, running unopposed in District 5. Tuesday’s ceremony before a packed house in the Government Center boardroom was primarily an upbeat occasion.

Newly chosen chair of the board, Ed Jones of Thousand Oaks, reflected on the years since 1978, when he had last been chair. In that year, Proposition 13 was approved by California voters, and it threw local governments into a belt-tightening turmoil.

But, Jones said Tuesday, Ventura County adapted to the public mandate, and has come through the toughest times, emerging into “a period of cautious optimism, or prudence.”

IN THE SIX years since Prop. 13, inflation has totaled about 70 percent, Jones said, but Ventura County has kept a tight rein on spending. In 1978, the county spent $406 per county resident; this year, that figure is $407 per capita, a miniscule increase, Jones said.

The county has also been conservative in the growth of its staff; while the ranks of county employees have grown, the percentage of county employees to county residents is actually down, he said.

But, Jones warned, local voters evidently are not completely satisfied. While Proposition 36, billed as the measure which would close Prop. 13 loopholes, was defeated statewide in November, it passed in Ventura, a sign Jones said, that the county must continue to “put our own house in order.”

One of the housekeeping chores the board will face in the coming years is planning and controlling growth, predicted Supervisor Erickson. The county will continue to grow, she said, forcing local government into a delicate balancing act. One the one hand, “industry will be coming in, homes will need to be built” to support industry, she said.

On the other hand, the county must “look at the environment,” she continued. “We must balance (the two sides)…so our children and grandchildren can enjoy” the benefits of both.

“We are blessed with natural resources: a beautiful coastline…the Los Padres mountains…oil…agricultural lands…How we use that trust is an issue the board will continue to face.”

The future looks rosier than the past, but it has not been cleaned of stumbling blocks, warned Supervisor Flynn, who reeled off a long list of issues the county will confront.

WATER WILL continue to be a burning issue for the county and the rest of Southern California, he said, but the northern half of the state will not be willing to share in a solution to the problem until the southern half takes some responsibility for its water usage and management. For Ventura County, that means continuing an aggressive conservation program and abating seawater intrusion into the Oxnard Plain aquifer, Flynn said.

The plight of the homeless “is becoming increasingly acute,” Flynn said, and it will be a county responsibility to solve or at least ease the problem locally.

The health care philosophy of the county may have to be re-thought, he said, adding that the county should think seriously about continuing to provide health care for the poor, but “move away from competition with private hospitals” for patients with means to pay.

The county also will have to wrestle with waning authority amid growing responsibility, Flynn said, as state and federal governments mandate more local programs but don’t always give control to local governments. For example, he said, solid waste disposal is a county responsibility, but the cities have the power to override county decisions on the issue.