ojai news at The Ojai Post :: blog, newspaper, events in Ojai, California

chicken cheese steak at Jersey Mike's...in Ventura. It was good, but I miss having Monte Coffee around.

The recent citizen SLAPP suit, and city of Ojai's continued litigation and run up legal expense to tune of $500K deserves closer look. Monte Widder's pattern of futile litigation at city's general fund expense and to his benefit goes beyond reason. Question begs for his departure and start recall effort for council supporting and voting for this continued wasteful woeful and willful sham. This game's been running for much too long- not for long is there an upward surplus when the council votes as directed by city attorney Widders for SLAPP appeal. Widders has his cash cow at the expense of the general fund, and the council appears,truthfully or not to understand the implications of further debt. Would like to see community efforts and talents put to work on this because the status quo has not shown wise and sound decision making, but continued mistakes using unsound methods from past. If I were to lose substantial amounts of revenue in my home budget, I probably could not appeal to float a bond
to make up for losses.

Ojai's City Council has got to go. At the very least they should resign for trying to thwart democracy and for trying to set a precedent in California Constitutional Law for a "pocket veto" against citizen sponsored direct democracy. California's hard won direct democracy, initiative and recall statutes have been on the books for nearly one hundred years; now the Ojai city council and Monte Widders think they can come along and spend our money to overturn all of that.

Think I'm lying or exaggerating? Then why has the ACLU, the United States' largest civil rights organization, joined the appeal against the City for using a SLAPP suit against Jeff? How much is this going to cost the city? How much has it already cost us? On one day alone, Monte and two associates showed up at court (three lawyers) to beg the judge for a continuance because they weren't ready for the case that Jeff's lawyer put up. That day cost the city over one thousand dollars. What we know for sure is that they've paid Monte's firm more that $20,000.00 for this travesty. That amount is for hours billed to the city by Widders' firm in October and November, the period that the judge threw the case out of court because it had no merit. The majority of the work done on this case had to have happened in the August/September period. We don't have Widders' bill for that period, but it was probably at least as high as the Oct/Nov period. So basically the city has already spent over $40,000.00 of our money to sue a citizen of Ojai for exercising his constitutional rights! That's insane! WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE DOING?

Because Steve Olsen wasn't on the council at the time, all but he voted to thwart democracy by suing Jeff and "50 john does to be determined later". Rae Hanstad, Joe DeVito, Sue Horgan and Carol Smith should resign for having done this. Not to let Steve Olsen off the hook, he said he was against the lawsuit during the election only to win and then vote with Rae Hanstad, Sue Horgan and Joe DeVito to spend MORE money and file a CROSS-APPEAL! Funny way to be against the lawsuit. Steve Olsen should resign too. Carol Smith, to her credit, seems to have regurgitated the Kool-Aid and actually voted against authorizing Monte Widders to spend even more money on this doomed lawsuit HE filed. She might be the only council-person who knows what ACLU stands for. Perhaps Carol can be forgiven and not asked to resign, but only if she does the following:

1) Apologize publicly for trying to block the initiative process by voting for the lawsuit against Jeff.

2) Acknowledge that a cross appeal by the city is an attempt to damage California's nearly 100 year old direct democracy initiative process by enshrining a precedent in California Constitutional Law for a "pocket veto" for city attorneys.

3) Promise to never allow another SLAPP suit on her watch.

4) Promise to work toward and eventually remove Monte Widders as Ojai's city attorney.

5) and Vote to cease all legal proceedings in this case.

In fact, maybe all of the city council would like to come out and perform the above mae culpa. That is the only way I can see that they should be allowed to remain in their seats. Let's not forget that the very same statutes that allow California citizens to petition for initiatives also allows us to RECALL representatives who are not representing us. The council can still dodge this freight train by doing the above 5 things, otherwise it is our duty to seek their resignations or recall them in order to protect out rights.

At the very LEAST - Widders has to go!

Well said spk. Outrageous that we are financing an attempt to roll back rights that our great-great-grandparents had to fight to put in place! What is the city council thinking? Widders is laughing all the way to the bank. Didn't he say the reason he had to file this lawsuit was because otherwise, the city might have to defend the initiatives if the people had passed them?

Imagine - we could be spending our money to defend something the people of Ojai passed. As opposed to spending our money to try to roll back our rights to get something passed. Which will probably fail, which means ultimately we will pay not only Widders bills, but all the bills of the other side as well.

What a debacle.

They all should resign in shame. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to happen.

Recall looks pretty easy. Check it out:

http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/recall.pdf

Off this particular topic but related (in the long run) - what did everyone think of Ron Polito's letter to the editor over at the OVN?

I didn't see the letter. What did he say? Did he announce which chains are going to anchor his new strip mall? Is he bringing a Hooters to town? Or was he just complaining that some chain owners were giving him the cold shoulder because they figured out that they weren't really wanted in Ojai?

On the lawsuit, the saddest thing about it isn't even the wasted money or the asinine effort to spend our money to give Widders a pocket veto on citizen initiatives (as bad as those are). Worse is the lost opportunity. Just think if the city had let the initiatives go forward? What a different place we could be in.

As far as a recall, what's to stop Widders from filing a SLAPP against anyone who signs that petition? Not this city council, that's for sure.

(Oh, that's right - the ACLU is here now!)

Well I suggest that anyone unlucky or desperate enough to do business with Polito better dot their "i"s and cross their "t"s. He's already cheated two Ojai residents out of their leases (Ojai Frostie and Gift Galleria -when it was on Ojai Ave) shortly after the owners sunk huge amounts of money buying their new businesses. He should hang his head in shame!

If that's true, that he cheated them, they would have a good case against him. Why didn't they pursue that?

Obviously, he had the legal upper hand. In the case of GG, a lease by Polito was verbally promised to the new owner. (Obviously, it should have been in writing, thus my warning in the post above) Days after closing, he told this unfortunate new owner he had changed his mind. A gallery went in instead. The owner was forced to relocate to a much less desirable location....and has sinced closed.

In the case of Ojai Frostie, I wish Mr. Henderson would write in here and provide all the details. But I'm sure he was assured that he would have that space for a longer period of time than just a few years - why else would he have bought the place?? Polito didn't have plans to redevelop before the sale?!?!

Unless one has an iron-clad written lease, a commercial landlord can pretty much do as he or she pleases. Unfortunately in the case of Polito, he held the financial fate of two people in his hands, he made his choice and never seemed to look back.

City hires an attorney. Attorney:

1. Refuses to perform his legally required duty and instead threatens to sue citizen if citizen does not withdraw.

2. Citizen offers to withdraw. Attorney sues anyway.

3. City attorney's case thrown out of court on its face as having no merit.

4. National civil liberties organization comes to town to take city to court for violating citizen's rights.

5. City attorney bills city thousands of dollars.

6. City faces liability for original SLAPP suit and possibly additional lawsuits.

What does a city attorney have to do to get fired in this town?

7. Use public money to finance an attempt to roll back citizen's rights?

8. Expose the city to public ridicule?

9. Milk a conflict of interest by recommending lawsuits then hiring his own firm to do the work?

10. Bill the city for three lawyers to ask for a continuance?

I guess, none of the above. Either that, or people on this thread have it all wrong. Maybe someone from the city can explain?

On second thought curious, wrong question. Instead, what does the city council have to do to get fired in this town? All those things happened on their watch.

I really appricaite that everone seems to be on the same page with regard to the lawsuit, but why is eveyone so anonymous. Please stop fearing Monte Widders. He CAN NOT sue you for speaking your mind on the ojai post.

BTW my name is

Sean P. Keenan

Oh, and I can't spell at this hour.

Thanks,

SPK

"He CAN NOT sue you for speaking your mind on the ojai post."

Really? The court said Monte Widders couldn't sue Jeff either... but he did.

Can anyone tell me who Craig Brown is?
He always seems to come to Mr. Widders' defense by attacking those who question our city attorney's actions. (See letters to the ed. in today's OVN)
And has anyone noticed the tort that is waiting to happen by planting trees on both sides of the new crosswalk on Matilija Ave.? How clever to obstruct the view of the pedestrian traffic to the motorists! In case of an accident, I wonder what that law suit will cost the city.

This is what I've been wondering about.

?What is the latest on the proposed hike on water rates?

?Is anyone in power demanding better water quality?

Ojai has the worst water in the state. Of course I'm speaking of my own experience, but that is quite a bit since I've lived in CA most my life and traveled all over CA. Never had I tasted water as bad as Ojai's.

?What about the infrastructure-they can't keep up with the leaks and soil contamination?

?How much do you pay for bottled water,
water filters,
water softeners,
water heaters that get clogged prematurely due to the extremely high mineral content.
Same for coffee pots, swamp coolers and all water devises I haven't listed?
Those of you who use swamp coolers and clean them out each year see the buildup from just one season.Disgusting.
Now multiply what you are paying out by the number of people in Ojai's various water districts.
?Do you see a problem here?
But that is the life of Ojaians for as long as I've been around.

?What about your time-isn't that worth anything? Clearly you use up gas to pick up these items,items unnecessary if you had good water to begin with. Then there is the environmental aspect as well.

The disposal of these products when spent.
The salt contamination to our creeks and rivers from our water softeners.
Don't forget in there production, they leave a 'Carbon Footprint' for all of us to walk through.

Their request is clearly out of line-when we see other rates less than what they have now, yet they want more money.

?For what?

Well, it's time for me to go quench my thirst.

I stopped reading Mr. Brown's letter after it became apparent that he is some sort of attack dog for Widders and Co. He claims that there is a monetary motive behind Jeff's appeal. Utterly ridiculous! Jeff is out of pocket on this whole dreary thing. Because he is the one being sued, he's been forced to retain an attorney. Thankfully the ACLU has come to his (and our) aid. There will most definitely be lawyers making money on this thing, but Jeff is not one of them. Monte Widders, Mr. Brown's dear friend, is going to make a lot of money as he already has on this doomed lawsuit. He's already lost once and we've paid him more than $40,00.00 dollars! Now he's going to be schooled by the ACLU, but he doesn't care because he'll be billing all of us who live in the city limits of Ojai.

I personally know of five people, including myself, who sent letters to the editor of the OVN about this issue. Not one was published. Todd Miller submitted a thoughtful, well-written, guest editorial to the OVN for publication. You can read it on the post above, thanks Tyler. The OVN declined to publish it. Instead they published that hatchet job by Brown. Despicable. 5 like it might be time to boycott the OVN.

Thank you for your kind words Sean. OVN is batting 1000 so far regarding rejecting my guest editorials on this subject. Others submitted to-date, including a rebuttal to former Mayor David Bury's guest editorial can be found on the "Ojai Ballot Initiative Resource Page." OVN rarely publishes dissenting views on this subject. Fortunately for Ojai, we have an alternative to OVN in The Post.

Is this Craig Brown?

http://home.att.net/~nordhoff/CraigB.jpg