Normally when a topic falls off the front page it earns very few comments. But this thread about the Ventura City Council race is still getting a few posts a day.

I am kicking around ideas for a youtube debate for the Ventura City Council candidates. If you would like to help but aren't affiliated with the campaign send me an e-mail.

And candidates:

Would you do it? The format would be simple. People post questions on youtube and then you can answer back with either a short video or typed response. I am sure local print media would cover the story. And being that people have to tape themselves we can avoid some of the silly questions and hiding behind fake names.

I need the pledges of at least 3 candidates to consider doing it.

I didn't get a chance to read it before heading out but what are your thoughts on the lead articles?

Also, any news about Countrywide jobs in Simi Valley?

Some people like their art picked by critics. I like more common populist art. Take Johnny Cash. I love his music and his voice, especially how when he says Jesus. You can feel the love in that word when he says it.

Simi Valley also has some populist art not made or created by students in prestigious art universities. Here is a video to introduce you to Bottle Village, a Simi Valley cultural icon.

The foundation is staffed mostly by volunteers, many of which I know personally. This isn't exactly political news but this is my blog, so it gets a spot.

Jim Dantona has officially declared his intentions to run for state senate ( CA-19).

Read about it here.

Click on continue reading for the press release.

As I understand it Audra and Tony Strickland have one young baby and another one on the way. Can anyone confirm that?

I ask because some local activists are giving her 600 baby diapers soon. Does that count as a campaign donation or a gift to a public official?

Just kidding guys. Have fun with the press conference.

If you want to see the press release click on continue reading.

The Ventura County Democratic Party is set to have their annual Labor Day BBQ on Sept. 3. 11-3 PM.

Just like past years you can meet candidates and sign up to help campaigns. I expect there will be attention to the Ventura Council races for Democratic candidates. Also, you can meet potential candidates for other offices including congress. Will Brett Wagner be there? Mary Pallant? Jill Martinez?

Click on continue reading for more details.

Do any of you guys have neighbors that don't pick up The Acorn waiting for it to turn to mush from sitting in the driveway week after week getting ran over? Do they just think it will go away? By the time it looks like cream o' wheat a new one arrives. Kind of like zombies except with pictures of squirrels.

I am trying out a new feature. Every Friday (If there is interest) I will put up an entry to discuss this week's Acorn. Here is a link if you didn't get your copy.

Some top stories with my quick reactions:

1. The Landfill Oversight Task Force is preparing to sue the city of Simi Valley.
Nothing brings people together to work out issues like litigation! No seriously, any experts on the California Cartwright Act out there?

Local Blogger Brian Mack is starting a new blog devoted to issues like the proposed landfill expansion. Feel free to visit his blog to learn more. It isn't my intention to become a Waste Management expansion blog. This issue has dominated the front page for months and I am looking forward to more electoral news.

Someone please send in some non-landfill news.

2. Countrywide Home Loans, the city's largest private employer, takes a massive loan.
If Countrywide is looking to lay off workers or down size their operations we should go out of our way to show why Simi Valley is a great location for their operations. Many people I know have worked at Countrywide and I would hate for their jobs to be shipped off.

3. The Shop Simi First Campaign is working to bring awareness to the benefits shopping local provides.
Steve Sojka is right that it is great we finally have stores like BestBuy to keep resources here.

So, what were your thoughts on today's Acorn? Feel free to mention articles I skipped.

( A video from Sheila Kuehl on the clean up efforts)

Senate Bill 990 by Sheila Kuehl would require clean up of the former Rocketdyne Santa Susan Field Lab to higher EPA standards instead of DOE standards.

The Simi Valley City Council a few weeks back signed a letter in support of the legislation that is now winding its way through the assembly.

In the state senate Tom McClintock ( AKA Mr. No) voted against it. If Tom McClintock has a problem with this bill I encourage him to speak out or introduce his own legislation. Simply voting no isn't enough on a critical issue like this one. I searched for statements from McClintock but haven't seen anything. If you see something please post it. But as it goes so far on this issue Simi Valley is represented by Sheila Kuehl being that she has been holding town hall forums and putting together youtube videos to discuss the issue.

On the assembly side there was a vote in committee on the issue but local Assembly member Smyth was either not present or abstained, I am not sure which. If you know Smyth's opinion on this one please chime in.

A reader ( Ha! Get it? Nevermind.) sent me a link to a New York Times story about trends in reading broken down by partisan affiliation.

To sum it up it says that liberals read more.

I don't trust the findings in the New York Time's because it doesn't seem like it is a research project, just one former Democratic law maker's opinion. But it doesn't really matter. The point is I am interested in what my readers are reading.

But in the interest of balance to show both sides have readers have you folks heard how much Bush reads?

I was listening to an interview with Karl Rove on the Rush Limbaugh show the other day and Rove was saying he and the president have been racing to see who could read the most books. Karl Rove says he won but both of them were around 100 books a year.

Here is an article on what has been on George W. Bush's reading list.

Inside Washington:
Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky
American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin (a biography of Robert Oppenheimer, an inventor of the atomic bomb)
Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero by David Maraniss (about the late all-star Pittsburgh Pirates right fielder)
Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power by Richard Carwardine
Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural by Ronald C. White Jr.
Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday
Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women by Geraldine Brooks
Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky (discussing how polio affected the United States in the mid-20th century)
The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth by Leigh Montville
The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky ( Note from Brian, this is a great book)
The Stranger by Albert Camus

In addition, local Democrats are starting a book club. Republicans take my tip. Hand over Harry Potter books and keep them too busy to campaign. Click on continue reading to find out more about the book club.

( A picture of a the recent townhall forum on universal healthcare submitted by a a reader)

I try not to be a gate keeper holding back political information from my readers. A newspaper must because they have limited space. If your candidate or group has a press release they want to be seen send it in.

A candidate's or cause's press releases appearance here does not mean I support it or don't support it. Only that I think my readers will be interested. For example, the only reason you don't see the perspective of Waste Management more is they don't send me very much. When they do, it will be posted.

Anyways, a Universal Health Care Advocacy group held a forum and Audra Strickland did not attend. Click on continue reading to find out more.

Brett Wagner in the past has been a candidate against Elton Gallegly in CA-24. I don't know if he is seriously running again but with his slow to start fundraising he has a big hill to climb before he gets media attention.

Back in June he sent out an e-mail that made it appear he was co-sponsoring an event with the Young Progressive Democrats of Ventura County and with Act Blue. To read about that debate click here.

He has now apologized to Act Blue.

To read the apology click on continue reading.

I am not a member of the landfill task force nor did I ask to be. I am open to hearing from all sides but I don't expect the full truth from any one source and neither should you. That includes elected officials, newspaper stories, blogs, company officials, and committee members. But that being said the more people looking at this issue assures me that hidden costs and benefits will be brought to the surface before the expansion plans are approved, modified, or denied.

I am open to posting press releases from all sides involved in the issue. E-mail them in and they will be posted.

The next meeting of the Simi Valley landfill expansion task force is set for Wed. August 22. Click on continue reading to see the meeting agenda.

They have on their agenda plans to bring the discussion to neighborhood councils and the general plan update committee. I don't know the procedure for these presentations. Does each speaker get a few minutes like they do before city council meetings?

Previous entries:
WM Charity giving
City and WM agreement
City council meeting about putting task force on agenda

A Barack Obama group is forming to organize the 24th congressional district.

They are having a meeting August 26th in Ventura but plan to organize across the county.

Click on continue reading for more details.

Someone I know was just polled for the expansion of the Simi Valley Landfill. Here are some of the issues they were asking about with my thoughts in italics after them.

Instead of expansion expect to hear talk of modernizing. Many questions were phrased so that if you were against expansion you were against modernization.
As in " Are you against modernizing and expanding the landfill?"

I applaud the city for creating a committee to look at the proposal. I disagree with Michelle Foster that there isn't much to talk about since their proposal is not yet deemed complete. WM is conducting polls, lobbying government officials, they have hired our former mayor, and they are planning their strategy to expand the landfill.

I don't think it is a good idea to sit back and give them a year or two head start on convincing the public without our elected officials asking questions.

If you ever get polled take notes and send them to me.

Many of the issues that the city of Simi Valley or for that matter any city deals with is balancing economic freedom with community desires. For example, Simi Valley has been wrestling with issues like pan handling, street vendors including people pushing carts, restricting public storage unit expansions, a landfill expansion, and of course home development.

It is easy to be flippant with maxims to explain a set of beliefs that would encompass all of these issues. Take for instance Milton Friedman's "Freedom Works" slogan. But even with all of the wisdom in his writings it is hard to always balance them against community needs. Politicians walk a fine line between the two frequently opposing sides. Many of them do a decent job but woe to the new candidate that strays too far to either side.

If you come out in favor of the community you will be labeled as anti-business, anti-capitalism, and anti-growth. But if you support economic freedom and embrace it you will be labeled a stooge of big business, corrupt, and a tool of special interest groups.

With all of that being said I want to know how your city council is doing. Have they achieved a decent balance? Have they respected individual rights but majority rule? How business friendly is your city?

This entry isn't about any one project but instead a place to rate the business environment and community interest protection of your city.

The Ojai Post has an article about a movement to ban chain stores that will shock my Friedman fanatics while this website about a proposal to allow Waste Management to expand their business will make the Simi Valley Landfill Taskforce convene another meeting.

BTW, now that the city is forming its own citizen oversight committee what will the nomenclature be? Committee one and Committee two? A Team and B Team? Official and Unofficial? Let me know.

( Thanks to loyal contributer Brian Mack for another amazing photoshop. For the record Britney Spears is not currently trashing Simi Valley. Yet. Seriously, why don't those cities get their own dump? Are they too good for it? )

Here is an article from Ventura County Star Reporter Anna Bakalis about the conflict between the city, Waste Management, and Barbara Williamson's task force.

I have a few questions that were not covered in the article.

1. When will the application be complete? It seems anytime somebody has a question, the answer is not yet. The application isn't complete.

2. When will WM be presenting to local neighborhood councils? I know they have already presented some of their ideas to groups around town. Is the city council interested in posting these on the internet so we can all watch? I know they post council meetings.

3. The article mentions blogs. Is there another blog discussing this issue? If not, why didn't I get a plug? I think it would be cool if local citizens read the documents for themselves to see what the argument is about.

4. Is the position of the council that the Task Force can never present their findings to Neighborhood Councils? If Waste Management can present common sense says the other side should be able to also.

Youtube and video uploading will be a force in upcoming local, state, and federal elections. The Republicans have agreed to a youtube debate in October. Only Mitt Romney hasn't signed on which is funny being that he has so many videos that his campaign posted on youtube. But for the time being he is the old type of candidate. He wants to talk to you and control the conversation. Well, I guess he will either adapt or go play atari or something.

If you have a video to post, e-mail me and I will put it on the front page.

Anyways, who else agrees with what Dick Cheney said in the video?

The California budget is way overdue. On one side Democrats, some Assembly Republicans, and Arnold have worked out disagreements. On the other side the Republican State Senate caucus is united ( except State Sen. Abel Maldonado) in their opposition to the governor's budget.

For the governor to prevail he must get one more state senator to come over to his side. Normally this is accomplished by a bit of pork or other incentives for a few of the hold outs. But this year the Republicans are staying together. I don't think Republicans like Tom McClintock will compromise. Needing one more vote to pass his budget where does Arnold go?

How do you think this will end? I envision another Republican getting pulled aside by the governor and offered the governor's support in a future campaign or something of that nature. I doubt even with deals being made the budget will pass 40-0. Many R's need a tax fighting reputation to campaign o in the future.

Will the Republicans stick together?

Who will win in the court of public opinion?

The Simi Valley ( And oak Park) Park Board is on the move. They have many new projects including a water park and a dog park planned.

Here is a Q and A with my favorite park board member Kate O'Brien about these recent projects and more.

So, ask away.

( Note" The candidate submitted the picture.)

UPDATE: HERE IS ANOTHER RELEASE BY THE CANDIDATE:

News Release Measure "C7" Utility User Tax City of Ventura for November 6, 2007 Vote.

Ventura City Attorney has filed an Impartial Summary for Measure "C7" which will be
voted upon by the voters of Ventura.

Carroll Dean Williams filed an Argument Against Measure "C7" which will
appear on the Sample Ballot mailed to voters of the City of Ventura.

Councilmembers Ed Summers and Bill Fulton, along with three other citizens, submitted an Argument For Measure "C7" which also will appear on the Sample Ballot mailed to voters of
the City of Ventura.

Here is the press release from another Ventura City Council candidate.

CANDIDATE CARROLL DEAN WILLIAMS -Retired College Professor- FOR VENTURA COUNCILMEMBER AND SCHOOL BOARDMEMBER OF THE VENTURA UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT