Give One Hour to Help Ojai
Can you give one hour to save Ojai from too many chain stores? I know we are mostly busy people. We live in a busy society where many won’t even take 30-seconds to sign a petition. Let me offer you a scenario. I work sixty hours a week, drive a van pool to Santa Barbara, have two small children, exercise and meditate daily, and generally have a pretty busy life. I took 45 minutes after work on Wednesday to stand in front of Starr Market and was able to collect nine signatures. If 20 people volunteered to spend one hour and they each got 10 signatures, we would have our petition ready to submit in no time.
Will you commit to one hour, in the next week, to help Ojai?
Pick a block to go door-to-door. Stand in front of Vons, Starr Market, Westridge, Rainbow, Farmers Market, or the Ojai Playhouse. Ask your friends. We can do this together with very little time from each person. Just one hour, that is all I ask.
Complete this form (only I will see it) and I will bring you the materials. Please note, you must live in the City Limits of Ojai and be a registered voter to collect signatures or to sign the petition.
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Comments (6)
I got five signatures yesterday. I can help some more next week. I enjoyed it when I was challenged, and was able to engage on the issues in a thoughtful discussion. Thanks for your efforts, Kenley.
Comment #1 Posted by: Tyler | May 3, 2007 07:20 AM
Be a part of Ojai's History
Those of you who are a bit shy about approaching people in collecting signatures, take it to where you are more comfortable while doing it. What I mean, if you are one of those who goes to the library allot like I and my daughter did there, collect there. If you work with young kids, ask their parents. You don't all have to stand out where you are not comfortable. We all have our web of influence at hand to collect those important signatures.
Be a part of Ojai's History.
Just contact Kenley in his above statement by clicking on the Complete This Form request.
Comment #2 Posted by: Dana and Alyeska-kg6amv@yahoo.com | May 3, 2007 11:04 AM
This is what I've been saying:
"Hi, will you sign our petition to save Ojai from more chain stores?"
Or, when knocking on doors I add my name and where I live so people know I am local.
Follow-up questions are always: (1) Do you live in the CITY LIMITS of Ojai? (this one is very important). And, (2) are you registered to vote in Ojai?
Just in response to what Dana says above, this will definitely be an historical initiative and will have an impact for many years to come.
Comment #3 Posted by: Kenley | May 3, 2007 12:41 PM
Good work, Kenley. I'll help. I'm kind of waiting for the recall petition being ready, possibly as early as Monday, so I can save two birds with one cat trap. My intention is to go from door to door in my extended neighborhood which is north of Grand from Signal on the west to the city limits on the east. The recall will have sixty days; I figure if I go out a couple hours per day, I should cover the area easily. I can take the initiative and the recall with me. Many times no one is home so I will leave a quarter or half sheet at the house with my email address and phone number so I can come back if they choose to sign. I'll say something like: "Help preserve Ojai by 1) signing the anti big chain initiative; and 2) recall DeVito because he didn't do anything for years, and when a citizen put forward initiatives to limit chains and to support housing, he sued the citizen twice; and even now refuses to support Kenley's initiative, steals from it and confuses the whole issue by delaying tactics, and "promising" to come up with a city designed one, etc. I'll stop by and get the materials soon. Again, be proud of yourself. If anyone wants to join me, welcome. It's really quite fun and healthy with all the beautiful homes, scenery and exercise. I did it during the campaign and the other day for the water meeting. We could divide up the areas, and make a Daley machine like in Chicago. Actually I was talking to this old timer at Farmers' Market the day you were there; this guy says in the pre-Daley years he had the same guys vote 50 times under different names. Too bad Carlon is so honest or we could get this things done quickly. People will be complaining about the length so I better make this short. See ya.
Comment #4 Posted by: Dennis Leary | May 3, 2007 10:01 PM
P.S. This old codger said our city council is corrupt, but not as bad as Chicago. Gee, I guess that's good news.
Comment #5 Posted by: Dennis Leary | May 3, 2007 10:04 PM
I highly encourage anyone interested in this topic to go out and spend an hour getting signatures. I just did, and I can report two things:
1) Its easy! People know about this and overwhelmingly support it. In a couple of cases, people came right up and just said where do I sign? It was interesting to me that despite what one might think from the paper and the city council, not one person in an hour downtown expressed anything other than support.
2) It feels good! Its nice on a beautiful day to take an opportunity to chat with members of our community about an issue like this. So many people expressed their thanks that this effort is underway.
One thing to watch out for: I had to turn away more people than signed because they live on the east end, or Meiners Oaks, or Miramonte. Only registered voters in the City of Ojai can sign. But it is encouraging also that the whole valley seems to want to keep the chains out of Ojai. And even beyond: at least three visitors from out of the Valley stopped to express their support as well.
If you've got the time to read this, I bet you've got an hour you could spend. Call Kenley!
Comment #6 Posted by: Anonymous | May 6, 2007 02:11 PM