NEW HOUSING PROJECTS don't come along very often in our city and when they do, they need to encompass many of the city's urgent needs and state mandates: housing for families, parks, retail space and low-income projects, too.

The new 35.67-acre Hansen Trust project on the East End of Ventura is the embodiment of an ideal. The project will have 131 market-rate single-family homes and 34 attached units. Included in the mix will be two parks totaling 5 acres and 20-24 attached units for farm worker housing. The state is now mandating that cities include diversified housing and this project will fulfill that requirement.

"It's an agricultural trust," Council member Brian Brennan explained on a recent council visit to the site. "This whole project was a model of how to do it." The property is controlled by the University of California Hansen Trust, which will use the proceeds from the sale of the property for the Hansen Agricultural Learning Center at Faulkner Farm in Santa Paula. The land is not currently under SOAR's purview and can be developed.

"We believe this project sets a new gold standard for development in the City of Ventura," Dawn Dyer of the Dyer Sheehan Group, the project's developer, said.

It is still uncertain how the farm worker units will be financed, said City Council member Ed Summers. He estimated the cost to build the units would be in the neighborhood of $6 million. The City Council has asked the developer to pay $600,000 for initial costs and architectural fees but the rest of the financing will need to be arranged by the city's Housing Authority.

The council put its final stamp of approval on the project last week.

ACROSS THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CITY is another Utopian vision: The $57 million WAV Project. Scheduled for completion in October of 2009, the project will feature affordable housing for artists, assisted housing for homeless families and market-rate ocean-view penthouse condos for upper-income residents. The project has been hailed for its ability to generate economic activity Downtown. It will also include a theater, gallery space and cafes. It is a completely green project featuring recycled building materials, water and energy conservation, and solar power.

Most of the funding came from federal low-income housing tax credits, which require state approval based on low-income housing criteria. A small loan from the city, redevelopment agency monies and the sale of the market-rate units rounded out the financing. The project is now under construction.

Guidelines for the affordable housing have just recently been formulated.

The mix of market-rate and low-income housing in one project has been done in other areas with much success. While a few of the market-rate units are still available for sale in the WAV project, most have sold, said realtor Jerry Breiner.

The lack of available land space, coupled with urgent low-income housing needs has caused us to rethink the way we build our cities and work on ways to creatively finance such projects. The WAV and Hansen projects are leading the way.

And why Tony Strickland will never have my vote

IT WAS A TYPICAL frantic morning at my house. My daughter, always a sleepyhead, was running late once again. We grabbed her backpack and dashed out the door to our car for the ride to Mound Elementary School in Ventura where she was a fifth grader.

Pulling up to the school we found our car enveloped by a thick fog which I had assumed was weather related. My daughter got out in the middle of it and waved goodbye. I drove home, pulled in the garage and noticed something very odd about my vehicle: it was completely covered in a sticky film.

Hours later I had a sick child holding a note from her principal.

What I had mistaken for fog was actually a cloud of Lorsban, a powerful pesticide which had been banned by the EPA for use in homes because of its neurological effects on children. The citrus operation next to the school had used a speed sprayer during school hours and sent a cloud over the campus. Dozens of children and adults were sickened that day. Testing showed it was all over playground equipment, outdoor eating areas and inside classrooms.

To our horror we discovered there was little we could do to prevent it from happening again to our children or anyone else's. We needed help.

Hannah-Beth Jackson, our Assemblywoman at the time, was quick to respond. She was the only one to come talk to parents. With the help and blessing of the agricultural community, Jackson crafted bipartisan legislation to protect schoolchildren from such incidents. It passed and was signed into law.

This incident taught me something very important about the world: stick up for what you believe in, listen to your heart and don't be afraid of asking for change.

JACKSON, WHO IS NOW running to be our state senator, has spent a lifetime standing up for what is right. As a former deputy district attorney, she put criminals behind bars. She helped to establish a battered women's shelter in Santa Barbara, ran a thriving law business for 22 years in Ventura where she advocated for women's and children's issues, and spent six years in the Assembly, sticking up for her constituents and sponsoring highly effective legislation on their behalf which was signed into law. She voted for billions of dollars in tax relief for middle-income families. And even though neighboring Simi Valley wasn't in her district, she authored a bill to help get the toxic chemical perchlorate out of their drinking water.

While in the Assembly she was part of a bipartisan group which worked together for true state budget reform.

I've found Jackson to be tenacious about doing the right thing. This is in stark contrast to her opponent in the State Senate race, Tony Strickland, who voted against the legislation I just cited to keep our children safe and our water clean and has a long history of siding with big corporations against measures to protect our children, as well as our planet. He even voted against Jackson's bill to provide health coverage for children with cancer in clinical trials.

If our legislators don't vote to protect the weakest among us, who will they protect?

When Jackson's senate campaign opened its Ventura office months ago, I was the first one at their door asking to volunteer. Not long ago, they asked if I would consent to being filmed for a commercial they were planning on the Mound pesticide incident. I immediately said yes. The commercial began airing this week. I have linked to it above. Click on the arrow to play it.

I don't forget it when somebody helps my community as much as Hannah-Beth Jackson did. I want to give her another chance to fight for my family.

VENTURA OFFICIALS SAID TONIGHT they are uncertain what value they will recover from two 5-year corporate notes issued by Washington Mutual and Lehman Brothers, which have both failed in the tumultuous financial markets. The former AAA-rated blue chip investments were together worth about $10 million.

"Events overtook us with the bankruptcy of Lehman that came rather suddenly," said City Manager Rick Cole. "We saw these storm clouds coming but it was probably my conservative instincts that led me not to recommend that we dump these at fire sale prices. ... I was there and ultimately there's a place where the buck stops and it's me. ...

"We used our best judgment as well as the judgment of rating agencies and our bond advisers," Cole added.

The notes make up only a small fraction of the city's investment portfolio and were deferred for use until 2011 or 2013, said the city's Chief Financial Officer Jay Panzica.

Cole emphasized his wish to make the investment issues known, despite being warned by other public entities not to. "There are agencies with much greater public exposure who have told us, 'You can't talk about it because we haven't told anyone about this.' ... I think that's wrong because it's taxpayer money."

Council members Carl Morehouse and Neal Andrews, both fresh from conferences with other city leaders across the state, emphasized that many other communities were in much worse situations. "Only a fool would expect that a city or any other investor group could have survived this without some impact," Andrews said.

Other municipalities are just starting to analyze their own portfolios, Panzica said.

WHILE THE NEWS WON'T affect the current budget, the soured economy has already spurred the city to take action. Officials recently put a hold on $2.5 million in capital improvement projects, instituted a hiring freeze and cut $4 million from the budget. The city's Ad Hoc Budget Committee is looking at possible mid-year cuts.

Panzica said they have pinned some hopes to recover the money on possible litigation as well as language included in the $700 billion federal bailout bill passed last week. The bill refers to measures to ensure stability for cities and counties which may have suffered losses.

WHAT DO BOTH State Senate District 19 Candidate Tony Strickland and consumer crusader Erin Brockovich have in common besides an endorsement deal? Both have ties to shaky companies which are misleading voters, aren't turning a profit and have no proven technology.

I received the following press release from Hannah-Beth Jackson's campaign today:

Tony Strickland launched a new radio ad this week in his attempt to re-invent himself as an alternative energy executive. The ad quotes Erin Brockovich and the CEO of a little known company called Save the World Air (STWA), both providing testimonials to Strickland's independence and leadership in alternative energy.

What listeners don't know is that STWA was charged with stock fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In December 2001, the SEC charged the company with engaging in a fraudulent scheme to manipulate the market for STWA stock. STWA was charged with leading a fraudulent promotional campaign to disseminate false and misleading information about a product they were marketing called "Zero Emissions Fuel Saver," a "fuel molecule atomizer device" that supposedly reduces diesel and gasoline emissions by placing magnets on an engine's fuel line.

The SEC charged that this fraud inflated STWA's market cap to $218 million, and allowed former STWA CEO Jeffrey Muller to pocket up to $9 million in undisclosed restricted stock sales.

On November 15, 2005, the U.S. District Court in New York City ordered Muller to pay $7.5 million in disgorgement and $100,000 in civil penalties.

In 2006, Erin Brockovich was Vice President of Environmental Affairs at STWA and attended conferences and events promoting their "Zero Emissions Fuel Saver" product. Brockovich brought a great deal of press attention to the company, which traded for pennies on the Over The Counter market.

THE MAGICAL MAGNET PRODUCT quite simply does not work. The EPA has rejected licenses for similar technology 12 times. The Discovery Channel show Mythbusters tested the technology and rejected it as hype. STWA even hired the Rand Corporation to assess the magnets - and RAND said there was no evidence that it increase gas mileage.

"It is pretty ironic that Strickland, who has based his candidacy on his involvement in a wave energy corporation with no technology, no employees and no revenue, would use a company convicted of stock fraud as an endorser," stated Hannah-Beth Jackson's campaign manager Sandra Sanchez. "But since this company had no problem lying to investors, I guess lying to the voters is no big deal either."

It would appear I am not the only one doing commercials these days. Celebrity legal scout Brockovich popped up in one, too. I'll leave it to the other blogs to speculate about her motives. But I did send her an email, which she of course hasn't answered:

Dear Erin,

I always considered you to be a maverick of sorts, somebody who sticks up for the little guy. I just saw the commercial you did with Tony Strickland and I am so disappointed right now.

I am one of the parents at Mound Elementary in Ventura who had a child sickened by a serious pesticide overspray incident. We had nearly 40 people fall ill that day. Strickland's opponent in the race, Hannah-Beth Jackson, wrote a bill to make sure this would never happen again and Strickland voted against it!

In case you didn't know, Tony Strickland has taken more than $55,000 in contributions from oil and chemical companies and consistently votes to put the interests of corporate polluters ahead of the health of our families.
 
He opposed legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect children's health from pollutants, re-authorize the state's recycling program, ban carcinogenic pesticides on school grounds, increase penalties for pesticide violations near schools, ban clear-cutting of forests, ban mercury in children's toys, establish standards to handle toxic perchlorate, and many other environmentally friendly bills.

What kind of guy votes AGAINST all that? He has the worst possible rating from environmental groups. I could name countless bills he voted against that would help clean up our planet.

I know you're busy and famous and probably won't take the time to respond to a mother in Ventura. But just know that I lost faith in somebody I thought was a hero.

Marie Lakin

For a look at what other blogs are saying, go here and here.

WHEN I LAST HEARD from my friends in the Pierpont community, they were up to their necks in sand dunes and bureaucratic red tape. The situation really hasn't changed much except that they are now buoyed by the results of a recent non-binding arbitration decision. But the rhetoric is still being piled on higher than the sand dunes.

As I've reported in past entries, residents have been stymied in their efforts to get both city and Coastal Commission permission to move sand away from their homes which is now damaging their properties.

Homeowner Ron Wilson is the only one who has been issued a permit to move the sand away after encroaching dunes shattered a glass retaining wall outside his oceanfront home. He recently won an arbitration decision in his quest to recover damages from the city for $37,000. However, Kate Neiswender, an environmental lawyer working on the case, said the city has decided to go ahead and pursue a trial date.

In other legal action, last spring a judge denied a preliminary injunction sought by the homeowners against the city to force the speedy removal of the sand piled up against their homes. That case is also yet to be resolved.

"The city was instructed by the judge not to let this fall into a bureaucratic black hole," Neiswender said. Yet that's exactly what has happened, she added. "The city is so unmotivated to help the people of Pierpont, it defies belief," she said.

The City Council has been doing what it can to move things along, said Mayor Christy Weir. She spoke with Assemblyman Pedro Nava, who was once on the Coastal Commission. Weir asked for advice on what the city can do to appease this state entity which has maintained all along the Pierpont area is a sensitive environmental habitat for rare plants, nesting birds, globose dune beetles and legless lizards. Using mechanized equipment to move the sand is out, the commission has said, and they have the final say.

BUT NEISWENDER MAINTAINS it's now the city holding things up, as they are the ones who issue the permits to move the sand. She pointed to a July 25 meeting between representatives of the Coastal Commission, State Parks and the city on behalf of Dan Scully, a resident whose situation is the most urgent. "The agreement was we could move the first three feet of sand away by hand. We are allowed to move it as many times as we want.

"Of course we are required to sift through all the sand like little kids, looking for legless lizards and globose dune beetles."

City Attorney Ariel Calonne said the residents' first attempts at applying for permits did not fulfill the Coastal Commission's many requests as spelled out in a detailed letter. "The first applications that came in ignored that letter and, in all candor and honesty, were worse than the back of a napkin in terms of literally sketching out what would happen," he said.

Five residents, including Scully, resubmitted their applications weeks ago for hand clearing of the sand, Neiswender said, following the July meeting with the Coastal Commission. A biologist was hired to look through the sand first. There are no nesting birds or rare plants, she said. Nobody knows about the beetles or lizards.

Calonne acknowledged the resubmission. "We agreed to issue him (Scully) an administrative permit. He has done his biological report. He will get permitted after the administrative hearing, which is being pre-reviewed by Coastal Commission staff so we're sure they won't appeal. The rest of the folks finally submitted biological reports about three weeks ago and are being queued up to get through the administrative hearings as fast as possible," he said.

If this has been as exhausting to read as it was for me to write, just think of how these residents are feeling about now.

All this to move a little sand.

WITH THE NEWS in the markets going from bad to worse, most of us are checking our investment portfolios daily to see the damage. It has been unsettling.

Our cities are also struggling with investment decisions. Tonight's City Council meeting brought a report from Chief Financial Officer Jay Panzica that a second investment house with which the city holds a medium-term note is having financial difficulties.

In March the city's $10 million investment in bonds with Bear Stearns was transferred to JP Morgan Chase when the investment banker collapsed.

Now comes news that Lehman Brothers has also gone belly up. The city has a $5 million investment with this firm, Panzica said. And Washington Mutual's bonds, another city investment, have recently been downgraded.

"Are we at risk right now?" Panzica asked. "The answer is we just don't know." But, he added, Lehman still has money and assets and has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which means it will be reorganized and not liquidated.

The city's financial department is carefully monitoring the situation, and will take steps to guard the city's investments, Panzica said.

Council member Ed Summers, a senior vice president with Affinity Bank, brought some context to the discussion. "It is important to remember the investment with Lehman and Washington Mutual is only about 6 percent of the city's portfolio," he said.

It is comforting to know that the city has diversified its investments. That's good advice for everyone right now.

ONE OF MY MISSIONS in writing this blog has been to put an occasional spotlight on those in Ventura who have devoted their time and efforts to community service. These good men and women work tirelessly behind the scenes and are the absolute pinnacle of everything that is good about America. They don't want glory. They just want to make a difference in their own quiet ways.

I know many such people and I am honored to call them friends.

One of the things I have always admired about Barack Obama is his devotion to community service. In 1985, after finishing up college, he put his plans for law school on hold to take a job with the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Things were tough on the south side of Chicago. Workers had been laid off from their jobs in the steel mills and Obama was hired by the local churches to help these folks and their families find housing, job training and other services. He then went on to Harvard Law School, the Illinois State Senate and the U.S. Senate.

BUT INSTEAD OF LAUDING Obama for this unselfish period of serving the poor, last week both vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani mocked his work as a community organizer and while doing so offended those in community service everywhere.

I was, for a period, undecided about who I would vote for in this presidential election. I admired John McCain in his 2000 presidential run and thought him a man of honor. However, my first choice for president had always been Joe Biden. I was as thrilled to see Biden added to Obama's ticket as I was dismayed to see Sarah Palin added to McCain's.

I have no patience for this belittlement of our public service community for political gain. Palin's words could just as well be aimed at my friend Sherry Cash whose unselfish work helping the homeless Downtown has been an inspiration to me. She recently won an award from the Turning Point Foundation. Or it could've been aimed at City Corps, a group of amazing people who are working to turn around the lives of at-risk youth. Or maybe she would denigrate my friends and colleagues in the Ventura Education Partnership who raised and gave away over $100,000 to the schools last year.

Community organizers are the heart of our democracy and the social work they do often takes the burden off our local governments.

I will continue with my mission on this blog to focus on people in this community who do good work. And maybe in my own very small way I can work to counteract this message that serving your community is somehow an unworthy step in the climb to higher office.

ONE OF THE THINGS many women often neglect in their lives is friendship. In the bustle of kids, jobs, housework and volunteer duties, sometimes there just isn't the time to nurture relationships with other women.

Jonell McLain probably wasn't thinking much about forging friendships when she first spied a $37,000 diamond necklace four years ago in the window of Van Gundy Jewelers in Ventura. She definitely wasn't thinking about book deals. But she's ended up with both thanks to a necklace she and her friends have named "Jewelia."

The fancy bit of bling caught McLain's eye right away but the price tag was a bit offputting. "Oh my God, who would spend $37,000 for a piece of jewelry?" she recalled thinking at the time.

But McLain saw in that necklace a higher calling. So she rounded up 11 friends, each putting in $1,000, and offered the store $12,000. The store's owner sold it to them for $15,000, provided they include his wife in their group. "She was going through a rough time because her sister just died and she had cut herself off," McLain explained. They happily agreed.

McLain and her friends represent a vibrant segment of America: the Baby Boomers. Now entering their 60s, they refuse to go gently into that good retirement. McLain is a whirlwind of activity with 20 plates spinning in the air at once. And when it's her turn to wear Jewelia for a month, it shares space around her neck with a gold peace symbol necklace a friend gave to her in the '70s.

THE WOMEN OF JEWELIA have a definite philanthropic bent. "We aren't just women who wanted a necklace," McLain explained. Their combined energy has produced more than friendship. It's raised money for many charities including the Coalition to End Family Violence, CareGivers, Easter Seals, the Salvation Army, Miracle House and an orphanage in India.

They recently "adopted" a homeless woman who spends all her time Downtown and helped turn her life around, even convincing a local dentist and oral surgeon to restore her missing teeth for free.

These ladies are pretty good with their own public relations, too. They landed a book deal with Random House detailing the whole story. "The Necklace: Thirteen Women and the Experiment That Transformed Their Lives," by Cheryl Jarvis, is being released on Sept. 9.

"It's about being 60 years old, what's missing and what you've done," McLain explained. The life of each woman in the group is examined and woven together in a look at friendship.

THEY'RE GOING ON A cross-county tour to promote the book next week. McLain's excited. "It really will be kind of a lark!" The ladies kick off the tour with a Sept. 9 book signing event at 7 p.m. at the Barnes and Noble Bookstore on Telephone Road in Ventura. This weekend they're taping interviews for "Good Morning America."

What's next? McLain is working to organize a volunteer and part-time cadre of Baby Boomers in Ventura to provide a workforce for the social services.

The generation who helped change the world is not going to leave it sitting down.

Update: Janet Maslin of the New York Times gave the book glowing reviews! Click here for her review.

WITH ALL THE TALK ABOUT reforming public education these days, it's wonderful to see a high school which is already blazing trails on its own. I dropped by the new campus of El Camino High School at Ventura College last week for a tour with Principal Kelsie Sims.

The four-year independent study public high school, formerly situated on Dean Drive, now shares its campus with Ventura College. Students can earn an associate degree while in high school without paying college tuition and enter a four-year university with considerable credits already completed. With the cost of a college education so high these days, El Camino High School's unique independent program makes good sense.

It's the only independent study high school located on a college campus which offers the full range of A-G series college prep courses and is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

Sims is the kind of principal every teen-ager wants. Young and energetic, she juggles multiple tasks with ease and keeps tabs on everyone with a motherly eye. While talking to a visitor about the school recently, she stopped mid-sentence to open her office window and call out a friendly greeting to a passing girl.

STUDENTS COME FROM all over the county and from neighboring Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties, too. Many of the 300 enrolled are dynamic teens already busy making their mark on the world. "El Camino provides an opportunity to students to explore their passions and interests and still have it be a high school experience," Sims said.

There's the young woman who now ranks third in the world among female surfers; another is a competitive ice skater and one senior plays in a local symphony orchestra.

Students take classes at VC and also work one-on-one with a teacher. They have full access to college facilities such as the library. "All of my students are over there studying," Sims said. Many concurrently complete certificate programs in various disciplines.

Students also volunteer their time around the city. "I have a high school student in nearly every elementary school in the district," Sims said.

It's clear El Camino has figured out a way to meet the challenge of educating today's busy teens.

El Camino High School, located at 61 Day Rd. in Ventura, is holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new campus at 3 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 5. For more information about the school, which is still accepting students, call (805) 289-7955.