A World of Opportunities
With graduates of Nordhoff and Chaparral barely a week into their summer, there's probably still plenty of celebration going on...even if it takes the form of relaxation and recreation before school starts again for the 95% of Nordhoff graduates who principal Dan Musick says intend to attend college. Between both schools, every student that the VC Star interviewed plans on pursuing their passions and talents, and that means leaving the valley, often for very distant places. For those who stay behind - as well as for the rest of us - our world of opportunities is in the Valley all around us.
The Ojai Valley Green Coalition last night hosted Trudy Ingram in a presentation and forum about exploring the Ojai Valley's ecological footprint, a measure of peoples' use of nature, linked and converted to land area. The opportunity is tremendous: our current consumption patterns as a community require 22.3 acres per person per year to support us, while we only have 3.9 acres available per person. So we're operating at 18.4 acres per person per year over the capacity of our natural bioregion to sustain us, the majority of that excess being in "energy acres" needed to absorb our CO2 output - mostly from transportation and buildings. (Gas up with care: use the ojainews.com Gas Prices tool to find where it's cheap!) To "help the earth care for us", as Trudy suggests, we need to see and seize this world of opportunities.
The Planning Commission of the City of Ojai presented its 2006 Design Awards on Wednesday, and while the criteria for said awards bears further investigation, i'd strongly suspect that we're looking at a "pretty" contest more than an award for those with the most progressive look at how to make buildings which use less and collect more energy. If we're to be a truly sustainable and model green community, these types of considerations must go into our development consciousness. So far, there doesnt look to be anything related on the City Council agenda for Tuesday the 26th.
Meanwhile, i saw a double-hopper gravel truck turn right onto Ojai Avenue from Montgomery Street. If we expect people to continue bringing their tourist dollars here, expect them to still turn out for our still buzzing Music Festival, and expect our youth to want to stick around after graduation, we'd best manage our world a little better. The opportunities abound.
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Comments (5)
nice report, evan. on OjaiNews.com, we also have a syndicated feed from OjaiJobs.com, in case anyone is looking for a gig or needs to hire help part-time or full-time.
I just received this testimonial for OjaiJobs.com...
Ojai Jobs worked fast for us - we found just who we needed in 3 days! - Tom Bostrom, Bostrom & Associates
Comment #1 Posted by: Tyler | June 22, 2007 01:10 PM
Nice report, evan. I missed the Green Coalition meeting Tuesday and the council meeting on Wednesday due to other interests so it's helpful to have them referenced here. The awards given out by the planning commission are really problematic from my point of view; all part of club policy; anything really awardable is marginalized, like small, sustainable, modest dwellings and businesses. We just don't get what "ecological footprint" means. It irks me to see all the big cars and trucks around Ojai, and all the folks who think nothing of driving down to Ventura and Oxnard in their "mobile boxes" for big box treats and "necessities." Talk about being in a boxed-in frame of mind. Another pet peeve of mine is pets: what a colossal waste of psychic and natural resources that should be serving poor people. We'll never have peace on earth until we free the animals from being pets for our starved psyches and meat for our stuffed bodies. The title to this thread says it well: "A World of Opportunities." True. But we've got to think outside of the box of our own self imposed prison consciousness. I still haven't checked out OjaiNews.com but I will. Thanks again.
Comment #2 Posted by: Dennis Leary | June 23, 2007 08:55 AM
thanks, Dennis.
the agenda for tuesday's city council meeting is now also posted HERE. (the link in the above article downloads the pdf straight from the City's website, but here you can read it as a page in the ojainews site.)
Comment #3 Posted by: evan | June 23, 2007 09:27 AM
Thanks, evan. I love the colors and the format of the link.
Comment #4 Posted by: Dennis Leary | June 23, 2007 09:55 AM
evan - love the link showing all the gas prices in the valley!
Comment #5 Posted by: Lisa Snider | June 27, 2007 04:43 PM