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

Advertising is the best way to make the community know that you are planning a fundraiser. Give them all the details they need such as date, time and duration.

fundrais, the Editor's Journal is just a brief snapshot of what's going on...details are in the links so that people can pursue what interests them without being bogged down by every detail of every event.

Generally speaking, however, you are correct.

uh, evan, fundrais is spam!

Instead of commenting on your post, evan, I think fundraiscandies is actually just posting a plug for a major corporation's chocolate...

true enough, friends. however, i've heard sentiments like that from real-live people, so i thought it'd still be relevant to "respond". now go eat some slave-chocolate! ;)

Has anyone seen the new "Rose", in the places where the old "Voice" used to sit?

They report that back in March, our illustrious city council voted to give a no-bid contract to former Mayor David Bury for $70,000 to make a proposal for a $3.5 million revamp of the Libbey Bowl!

Now, Mr. Bury apparently is a talented architect. But what in the world are his qualifications to take on an acoustic redesign? What's up with the $3.5 million revamp? Is it necessary? What are we buying with it? For this kind of money, shouldn't the city be soliciting bids from world class firms who have the chops to design a world class amphitheater?

And if the city council is handing out public monies, shouldn't other Ojaians have a crack at the $70,000 sinecure?

David Bury, come onto the Post and explain yourself.

City Council, Mayor Horgan, come onto the Post and explain yourselves.

Last weekend we had the sorry spectacle of meeting at OUSD to contemplate massive cuts that will shortchange the children of this valley for years to come. Meanwhile, our city council is giving out $70,000 to cronies in no bid contracts, and getting ready for what can only be a $3.5 million boondoggle when it is handled like this.

In Mayor Bury's last months as mayor, he was putting lipstick on the SLAPP suit debacle. Hardly a performance deserving of reward, much less no-bid contracts.

Something really stinks down in City Hall. Is it time for a recall, this time of the whole council?

As a city, we really need to draft some new blood in city government.

We are all ready for Obama for President in 2008, to bring some much-needed change to Washington DC.

How about some serious change at City Hall while we are at it?

We need to get back to being a model city. Not a corrupt, crony-infested SLAPP-suiting parody of the worst of last-century southern California local politics.

I think Cathy Lee Jones and her boyfriend Rckin' Ron publish the Rose. I s this correct?

No, this is not correct.

Pray tell Suz!!a

#7 & #9, the answer you need can be found here:

http://vcreporter.com/cms/story/detail/a_voice_divided/5888/

There is also this article:

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/apr/03/the-end-of-a-great-era/

Incidentally, no one has reserved the domain name VenturaRose.com.

Suza, as a former mayor and member of our illustrious council, methinks you can offer the closest we are going to get to some kind of understanding of whither goest our city government.

Really, this looks like a local version of a Bush-Cheney crony government gone wild. How does a former mayor get a no-bid $70,000 sinecure for something he doesn't appear to have any particular qualifications to do? Is this Ojai's version of appointing a Mike Brown to FEMA?

What did Mayor Bury do that you didn't do? (Besides front a SLAPP debacle that will live in infamy for some time to come.)

(I'm of course presuming that you didn't get any $70,000 no bid sinecures in the year after you left office.)

For those who may have begged off serving on the council as a result of financial and time concerns, this at least puts paid to the idea that serving on the city council is a no pay position. Do your service. Like Dick Cheney, or perhaps a better example, former Louisiana rep Bernie Tauzin - he who spearheaded the Bush "senior drug benefit" guaranteeing the federal government will pay asking price for pharmaceuticals, then left Congress to go directly to a lobbyist position at millions per year for big pharma - do your time, and your cash reward will come shortly after.

Hmm, Sue Horgan says she's retiring, right? What's in store for Sue? A no-bid $100K "contract" to advise regarding what the city can do about schools that are flat broke because of budget cuts?

I swear, our local politics are resembling national politics in the worst way. If the Ojai Council had an army, I have no doubt our fair city would now be involved in an intractable occupation of Meiners Oaks.

To Comment #11:
There are alot of assumptions here, and, to be honest, I don't have enough information to respond.

But I would not make any assumptions without first knowing the facts.