Update: Not only have all the county school superintendents endorsed Hannah-Beth Jackson, but so have the Ventura County Star and the Los Angeles Times, along with the Ventura County Reporter and Santa Barbara Independent (the newspaper with the greatest circulation in Santa Barbara County.)

From the Ventura County Star: "The Star endorses Hannah-Beth Jackson based on her superior record of achievement in the Assembly and her ideas for moving the state forward."

From the Los Angeles Times: "The Times has no problem making its choice. We wholeheartedly back Jackson. The environmental and education credentials she built up as a member of the Assembly will be put to good use in the Senate, and we're counting on her to help work through California's budget mess."

IN AN UNPRECEDENTED SHOW of support, all 19 of Ventura County's school superintendents have endorsed State Senate District 19 candidate Hannah-Beth Jackson. The announcement was made at a press conference held at the Ventura County Superintendent of Schools Office on Monday.

"She has walked the talk consistently in the eyes of the superintendents of this county," Ventura Unified School District Superintendent Trudy Arriaga said. "We know that the health and well being of this nation is based on how well our children are doing. Hannah-Beth Jackson has most certainly shown that she also understands that and cares consistently about the education and well being of the children of this state."

A county-wide endorsement of this nature has never been done for a candidate before, Arriaga said. It demonstrates the incredible support Jackson has within the education community.

As her constituent when she was in the Assembly, I often saw Jackson at local school events and she is also a long-time member of the Ventura Education Partnership's honorary board. She authored legislation to give teachers a tax credit to help with their numerous out-of-pocket expenses and, as I mentioned in an earlier entry, she passed several pieces of legislation to help keep students safe. She has widespread support from school boards across the district and has won numerous awards from the education community.

Her opponent in the race, Tony Strickland, has received very few endorsements from the education community.

EDUCATION IS THE CORNERSTONE of all Jackson's stump speeches in this race and she correctly points out it is one of the keys to building our economy.

"We need to make sure we're giving students a 21st century education because they're going to be competing in a global marketplace," Jackson said. "And if we educate our children properly we're going to be able to reduce the number of young people who end up in a life of crime. We spend $45,000 a year incarcerating people in prison; we spend $7,800 educating them. This is wrong and we need to do better."

Debbie Golden, Ventura Unified School District Board of Trustees member, had high praise for our local legislator.

"When Hannah-Beth was in the Assembly, I had reason to call many times and ask for help. She always returned my calls. Not only would she return my calls, she would work with us so that we could make sure we were doing the best for the children of our community. That's just one reason why all five board members of the Ventura Unified School District are supporting Hannah-Beth Jackson," Golden said.

"I also called Mr. Strickland's phone many times. He never returned my phone calls."

I RECENTLY READ a book which theorizes why so many Americans vote against their own social and economic interests.

The premise of "What's the matter with Kansas?" by Thomas Frank is that values voters are lured to the polls to vote for Republicans by promises to stop abortion and gay marriage, roll back taxes, and above all, stop those leftist elites. This is often delivered with a sensibility they believe will appeal to middle America, he writes.

"Today's Republicans are doing what the Whigs did in the 1840s: putting on backwoods accents, telling the world about their log-cabin upbringings, and raging against the overeducated elites," Frank writes.

Does Sarah Palin's debate performance come to mind here?

Yet, he writes, every single time we wake up the next morning after election day and realize we didn't get what we asked for. "It's a French Revolution in reverse -- one in which the sans-culottes pour down the streets demanding more power for the aristocracy."

There are some truths within these pages. Four years ago after the election we were greeted by George Bush's plan to spend his new political capital by privatizing Social Security, much to the glee of Wall Street. Can you imagine right now where your money would be if it had all been invested in the stock market? Right down there with your 401K plan.

Religious leaders did indeed find themselves let down and that saddens me. Karl Rove, who courted the religious vote for Bush, was recently shredded in a book by conservative Christian author David Kuo. "National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as 'ridiculous,' 'out of control' and just plain 'goofy,'" Kuo wrote. He was the number-two person in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. His boss also quit and leveled similar charges.

INSTEAD, FRANK WRITES, the rich got richer. Estate taxes for the wealthy were repealed, big corporations received tax breaks, workplace safety programs were attacked, and labor unions -- who really represent middle America -- were demonized.

Author Christopher Lasch, no lover of liberal causes, once pointed out that "Reagan made himself the champion of 'traditional values' but there was no evidence he regarded their restoration as a high priority. What he really cared about was the revival of the unregulated capitalism of the '20s: the repeal of the New Deal."

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was grilled Thursday on Capitol Hill about that unregulated capitalism, which most experts agree significantly contributed to the economic meltdown. "I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms," Greenspan said.

I WRITE ALL THIS to preface a YouTube video which was made by our own Ventura City Councilman Carl Morehouse. I asked Morehouse right away if he'd read "What's the Matter with Kansas?" and indeed he had.

"I'm a fan of country music," Morehouse said. "but I have become extremely outraged at the bent some of the stations have taken with regard to political biases, particularly toward the 'right.' I'm also outraged that the Republicans in particular use language to manipulate the working man -- primarily blue collar -- and have them vote for emotional issues only to shaft them later with their pro-big business policies and simultaneous destruction of any social safety nets once the jobs are gone. So to that end, I decided to write my own country tune about that deception."

Carl's video can be viewed above.

THE QUINTESSENTIAL California girl, my friend "Nancy" is a gregarious woman with a wicked sense of humor and a perpetual tan. She's lived here her whole life. But as a single mom who is just barely making ends meet, she is losing sight of the California Dream. And now she's close to losing her home.

Nancy's plight exemplifies what has gone terribly wrong with our economy: she signed a mortgage contract she couldn't afford and she's gone into default. She hasn't made a payment in three months. And she's just one of thousands nationwide. These defaults set up a series of bank failures that have rocked the global financial system.

According to a local real estate source, Ventura now has 322 properties listed for sale. Of those, 55 are now owned by banks through foreclosures and 66 are "short sales," in other words, the asking price is less than the balance the owners owe. Ventura is No. 2 in the county, behind Oxnard, in the percentage of such homes on the market citywide.

Nancy refinanced her mortgage a little over a year ago. She thought she had signed a mortgage contract with terms offering her a fixed rate for five years. But after just eight months, she received notice that her mortgage payment had gone from $1,700 to $3,800. She can't pay it.

"My principal balance went up so high I owe more than what my house is worth. Every time I make the minimum payment I end up $1,000 in the hole," she said.

Three years ago her house was worth $600,000; now it's worth $400,000, she said.

HER MORTGAGE BROKER may take issue with her claims of being completely misled, but it's clear Nancy did not understand what she was signing and should not have been approved for the adjustable rate mortgage she was unknowingly saddled with. "They don't explain things well," she said with a sigh.

Nancy has put a lot of work into her East Ventura home and doesn't want to lose it. Recently she went back to her lender and begged for mercy. "He said, 'We're going to try to get you a fixed loan you can afford.'

"But that was 12 days ago..."

Would more government oversight on the lending industry have helped my friend? Perhaps. But it's clear the free-wheeling days of risky lending are over.

On a related note: at top is a preview of a new commercial from the Hannah-Beth Jackson campaign that was filmed in Ventura in front of a bank-owned home.

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.