I haven't agreed with many of the priorities Mayor Bob Huber has chosen but I am glad he continues to hold town hall meetings. Does your Mayor hold town hall meetings?

Bob Huber has announced he intends to run for re-election. Do you think he will face serious competition? The last campaign between Steve Sojka and Bob Huber was among the competitive election for Mayor in Simi Valley that I remember. It would be great to watch Bob Huber make the case of why he has deserves re-election and why his priorities have helped Simi Valley.

Who do you want to run against him? I have heard that Glen Becerra has been considering running.

Steve Sojka and Barbra Williamson are also up for election if they run again.

You don't have to register to comment but keep it classy.

Republican Cameron Smyth won't be running against Democrat Fran Pavley for the State Senate seat. Republicans don't yet have a declared candidate.

Cameron Smyth could have been a formidable candidate. He has earned a reputation as a bipartisan moderate and has experience as a State Assembly Member.

Who would you like to see run? I posted in an earlier blog entry that Simi Valley Republican Glen Becerra mentioned he was considering running for Congress. Now that there isn't a Republican candidate for this State Senate seat do you think he should consider running?

Does he really want to spend the next few years arguing with Mayor Bob Huber at city council meetings?

There aren't opportunities like this too often. If he intends to run for a legislative seat this could be a decent opportunity.

Here is a repost of a poll from that earlier entry:

I agree with Ventura County Star Reporter Timm Herdt that Simi Valley politics will be much more interesting because of redistricting.

There is a State Assembly race that involves two influential Republicans from Santa Clarita. Scott Wilk and Patricia McKeon both have support from Republican Party activists. The district leans Republican but I expect moderate Democrat Edward Headington to make the top two.

Republicans don't have a declared candidate for the State Senate seat yet but many people think Cameron Smyth will declare soon. Democrats have incumbent State Senator Fran Pavley running and she will be campaigning in Simi Valley soon.

A small part of Simi Valley is in the Ventura based Congressional district that has many strong candidates running for it including Steve Bennett, Tony Strickland, David cruz Thayne, David Pollock, and Linda Parks.

The House seat that includes Simi Valley and Santa Clarita so far has incumbent Republican Howard "Buck" McKeon running for it and a new challenger Dr. Lee Rogers. A major issue in that campaign has been the Countrywide VIP loan program that Rep. Buck McKeon allegedly benefited from. Buck McKeon has denied all wrongdoing.

All of this brings me to Simi Valley City Council Member Glen Becerra. When Rep. Elton Gallegly announced his retirement he was quoted as saying:

Simi Valley City Councilman Glen Becerra said he also will take a serious look at entering the race. "This seat looks like it was designed for a Hispanic Republican," he said. Becerra, like Gallegly, lives in Simi Valley, outside of the district lines, but said that makes little difference. "I was born and raised in Ventura County, and this is a Ventura County district," he said.

I wonder if Glen Becerra might consider running for any one of these positions.

House 26th:
I doubt he would run against Tony Strickland. Tony Strickland has quickly united the Republican Party behind him.

House 25th:
Buck McKeon will be weakened from attacks on paying his wife to run work on his campaigns and benefiting from the Countrywide VIP Home Loan program. The attacks on Patricia McKeon from her opponents will hurt Buck McKeon. Could Glen Becerra be tempted to run for what is considered a safe Republican seat because of the growing charges against Buck McKeon and Patricia McKeon from their opponents?

State Senate 27th District:
If Cameron Smyth runs I don't think Glen Becerra would challenge him. Smyth hasn't declared his intentions. I assumed he was going to run but I am not so sure. Cameron Smyth is holding a fundraiser for State Assembly candidate Scott Wilk. That might be a sign that he isn't worried about upsetting special interest groups that are supporting Patricia McKeon. Now that it looks like State Senator Fran Pavley will be the only Democrat running Republicans will consider that challenging her is going to tougher. Fran Pavely is popular with Democratic activists and she has the ability to raise money. She has represented much of the area and was a popular teacher in Moorpark.

Assembly District 38:
If Glen Becerra ran for the State Assembly seat he could have had a decent chance. With the two Santa Clarita based Republicans dividing support from that area he could have joined the Democrat in the top two based on his base of support in Simi Valley. He has already endorsed Scott Wilk though so that would be pretty surprising. Claiming the endorsement of your opponent would make a great mailer. He isn't going to run against Scott Wilk.

Glen Becerra has won four elections to the Simi Valley City Council, including his first when he beat a more conservative incumbent.

The deadline to file is in March. He might not see opportunities like this again for a long time.

There are now officially six candidates for the Ventura County based 26th Congressional district with the latest being Linda Parks. She is a Republican with strong connections to the local environmental community.

Linda Parks will make a formidable opponent for the other candidates. Her platform so far includes criticisms of the insider trading scandal in Congress, calls for less partisanship, and appeals to limit the influence of corporate PACS and unions in politics. She will be running as a populist outsider.

Her campaign will need to answer questions from many activists in both parties if she wants to attract their support. To start with what party would should caucus with? I will request an interview with her soon.

I shared the story on my Facebook page for this blog before it was in the newspapers. If you want to follow the latest in Ventura County politics include that page in your reading.

https://www.facebook.com/BrianDennertHere

Who are the other potential candidates?

Tony Strickland is expected to announce that he is running. He is currently in New Hampshire campaigning with Mitt Romney. I expect when he returns he will be organizing his official announcement.

Peter Foy has also been mentioned as a potential candidate but he has said he will be supporting Tony Strickland.

Other potential candidates include Michael Tenenbaum and maybe Rep. Brad Sherman moving to the district to avoid a primary battle with fellow Democrat Rep. Howard Berman.

Another blog had a rumor in the comments section that Michael Reagan was considering a run also. That would be very interesting if some Republicans want an alternative to Tony Strickland. Tony Strickland has spent a long time organizing the local Republican Party. The Central Committee has many close allies of his on it. Michael Reagan wouldn't start as the favorite of local Republicans.

A surprise potential candidate is Simi Valley City Council Member Glen Beccerra who said:

"This seat looks like it was designed for a Hispanic Republican," he said.

Becerra, like Gallegly, lives in Simi Valley, outside of the district lines, but said that makes little difference.
"I was born and raised in Ventura County, and this is a Ventura County district," he said.

The Constitution does not require Members of Congress to live in the district they represent.

Ventura County politics is going to start being much more exciting.

The Simi Valley Police Officers Association got involved in the recent city elections in a way they haven't done before. They have argued that the city hasn't dealt fairly with them in recent contract negotiations and that the contention was over more than just benefits. They announced their intentions to get much more involved in local elections long before the final field was settled.

They endorsed Bob Huber for Mayor over City Council Member Steve Sojka and Keith Mashburn for City Council.

The race for Mayor was an open seat election but the city council election had two incumbents running and several challengers for two seats. The POA wanted to defeat incumbents with Steve Sojka, Glen Becerra, and Michelle Foster on the ballot they had their targets.

Huber was also able to earn the support of Rep. Elton Gallegly, State Senator Tony Strickland, the Ventura County Republican Central Committee, and two former chairs of the Ventura County Democratic Central Committee.

Their endorsement of Huber over Sojka wasn't much of a surprise as Bob Huber was the only other candidate for mayor on the ballot and their goal was to defeat an incumbent. Steve Sojka counted as an incumbent because he was already on the city council.

What was much more interesting is their endorsement in the city council race. They had two strong challengers to choose from: retired firefighter Keith Mashburn and LAPD officer Mike Judge. They chose to endorse just Keith Mashburn, although they had many complimentary things to say about Mike Judge. They could have endorsed both of them and tried to get them to run as a slate. I haven't studied slate elections in nonpartisan elections enough to give a well informed opinion, but I am very interested in your opinions on this strategy. You don't need to register to post a comment but keep it classy.

That's academic for now as they chose to endorse just one challenger. I imagine one of the reasons they endorsed Keith Mashburn over Mike Judge was that they thought Mashburn was more electable. That of course turned out to be funny because Mike Judge won without their support.

I am very impressed with Mike Judge's campaign. He had very little money and almost no endorsements. His fundraisers were mostly attended by actual friends of his. That's unlike when other politicians call big campaign contributors that have business in front of them "friends".

The POA most wanted to defeat Glen Beccera on the city council but they ended up contributing to the defeat of Michelle Foster instead. The official score records their endorsed candidates going 1 for 2 in this election but they came out as clear victors. They were able to defeat two incumbents and a police officer was elected to the council.

Click on continue reading for their press release.

It will be interesting to see how involved they will be in two years when Bob Huber will be up for re-election and the two seats currently occupied by Steve Sojka and Barbra Williamson will be up for election.

Both of those incumbents have significant strengths that might deter many challengers from running against them if they both run again. Steve Sojka obviously has a large base of support he built upon in the last election and Barbra Williamson has been very open in her opposition to the landfill/dump expansion plans.

There are many arguments over the validity of expanding the landfill but it is a fact that enlarging the landfill to take more trash from outside areas is very unpopular. A smart politician might come out and convince people that it is in the best interest of the city to support the expansion. But so far that hasn't happened. That means Barbra Williamson goes into the next cycle with a a strong advantage.

Simi Valley City Council Member Glen Becerra has announced he is running for re-election to the city council. He was first elected to the city council in 1998 when he defeated incumbent Sandi Webb, who was popular with libertarian minded people.

Glen is often mentioned as a candidate for higher office but he has said he doesn't want to move away from his young family. Since Peter Foy has declared he is running again the only other offices would be countywide offices. I would be surprised if he hasn't given serious thought to those offices before.

Because of his long service on the city council, substantial name ID, and activism within the Republican Party ( He has supported Bush, Schwarzenegger, and McCain) in a normal year he would be easily favored to win re-election. This year though the union representing police officers has been raising significant amounts of money that they could spend to defeat him if a credible challenger runs.

Full disclosure: Even though we have often disagreed I am thankful that Glen Becerra alongside Paul Miller interviewed me and recommend to the full council that I serve on a volunteer committee that advised the city. I appreciate that honor I had to help.

Click on continue reading to see his recent email to supporters.

This picture is from the 2006 campaign when Glen Becerra was a part of a Hispanic group supporting Arnold Schwarzenegger. A friend of mine Brian Mack created it for this blog. It is a reference to the movie predator.

I wonder if Arnold Schwarzenegger signs a compromise that raises taxes if the local Republican Party will support him vocally or abandon him for raising taxes?

I haven't seen it on youtube yet, but Simi Valley City Council Member Glen Becerra was briefly on screen during Senator Joe Lieberman's speech. Glen is a Republican party activist and has been involved in promoting the party for many years.
In 2000 he supported Bush and stood by him when he visited Oxnard. He has also been a supporter of Governor Schwarzenegger as I covered here before.

I saw Glen Becerra about the time Lieberman said something like:

Make the government work for all Americans.

I wonder who he would blame for government currently not working for all Americans?

I guess it doesn't matter since he isn't true to his word. Joe Lieberman said:

I assure you this, Tom: I'm not gonna to go to that convention -- the Republican convention -- and spend my time attacking Barack Obama. I'm gonna go there really talking about why I support John McCain and why I hope a lot of other independents and Democrats will do that.

If you see a youtube video of Fox's coverage let me know.

I am interested to see Glen Becerra update his and Neal Andrew's blog.

I left them a question on their blog. Feel free to check when Glen Becerra or Neal Andrews answers it.

ABC news is reporting from the parties at the Republican convention. Check out the band "Hookers and Blow" playing at party thrown by a former aide to Tom Delay. For Democrats Tom Delay has provided many chances to attack corruption or scandals.

ABC news reported that the California Delegation to the Republican convention was invited to a party featuring a pig roast and reggae music sponsored by oil companies. Anyone know if the Ventura County ( CA 24 properly) delegation mentioned in this article attended it? Do you recognize anyone in the video? The California delegation is mentioned about 1:15 in the video. You can ask Glen Becerra or Neal Andrews questions at his blog by clicking here.

I look forward to seeing them answer questions from their readers about who they met, what parties they went to, and what they think of their candidates.

I will ask Sandy Emberland if she attended any parties of interest not mentioned in the local Democratic delegation's blog. To view their blog click here. The Star took down their blog but when it is back up I will post a link.

This commentator for the conservative group "Focus on the Family" was joking about praying for rain of Biblical proportions to come down on the acceptance speech of Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention. Watch the video to see all of his joke in context.

I guess his joke is really insensitive now, eh?

Ventura City Council Member Bill Fulton has updated his blog. I guess that proves it isn't just an election tool for him. Bill, what has the response been like so far from Ventura citizens? Do many of them talk to you about it? I liked your entry about the length of meetings.

What local elected officials would you like to see a personal blog from? If there is an overwhelming response I will propose it to The Star and the elected official that it be done.

Start nominating elected officials you would like to read more from!

I nominate:

Moorpark City Council Member Keith Millhouse
County Supervisor Peter Foy
Simi Valley City Council Member Glen Becerra

I would also like to see some park board, water board, and school board officials bring more light into what they do.

The Tony Strickland for State Senate campaign has announced the support of many Simi Valley City officials and other Simi Valley citizens. You can click on continue reading to read the whole list. Rep. Elton Gallegly is one of the most prominent, but so far it looks like a who's who of the Simi Valley Republican Party. Most of them could be relied upon to endorse the GOP candidate in most campaigns.

The list includes the entire city council except for Michelle Foster. Anyone know why Michelle didn't join with the rest of the council? The other prominent names not mentioned are Republican school board members Eric Lundstrom and Janice Difatta,

On a personal note, thank you to Tony Strickland and his staff . Tony has put together a quick responding and young staff. Thanks for your help! I will write about it more later.

I will have a Hannah Beth Jackson campaign update next week. But in the meantime enjoy their new campaign widget:

The City of Simi Valley voted 4 to 1 ( Barbra Williamson casting the only vote against it) to spend $100,000 next year in cooperation with the Chamber of Commerce on the Shop Simi Valley First campaign.

Read the article by clicking here.

And check out the Shop Simi Valley First website here.

Do you think this is a wise use of money?

Does a program like this show conservative principles?

Does your city have a program like this in place? Who pays for it?

Can government prove a program like this pays for itself?

( This picture of Jim Dantona ( apparent candidate for State Senate CA-19 with Democratic candidate for President Bill Richardson was sent in by Laura Winchester. Laura, is that a Jim Dantona for state senate button?)

A sharp eyed reader spotted this phrase on the Ventura County Democratic Party's website:

19SD Convention Delegates
Jim Dantona - Candidate Proxy
Jay Kapitz - Delegate
Dave Ettinger - Delegate

37AD Convention Delegates
Ferial Masry - Candidate
Chris Robson - Delegate
Ingrid VanEckert - Delegate

24CD Convention Delegates
Jill Martinez - Candidate

More signs are pointing to Jim Dantona ( D ) running in the CA-19 State Senate Race. On the Republican side we have Tony Strickland and maybe others. Anyone hear updates on that?