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.