HELP US "STOP THE TRUCKS!"
In response to one of our recent Public Records Requests to the Ventura County Planning Division, Kim Rodriguez, the Director of the Division made a tacit admission about the lack of any prior independent review of the various Conditional Use Permits (C.U.P.) issued to the Ozena Valley Ranch Gravel Mine. We are grateful for this admission as it is something we had long suspected. We responded in part to the Division as written below:
"Apparently no outside consultant, nor anyone with any with any technical or scientific expertise ever reviewed or analyzed the content and quality of work (or lack there of) with the possible exception of in house staff whose judgment in these matters has already been called into question, the 2001 C.U.P. , the 2003 C.U.P. Modification or the 2007 M.N.D. prepared for the Ozena Valley Ranch Gravel Mine operations and submitted by West Coast Environmental & Engineering (and/or John Hecht, its principle officer) prior to these permits and/or applications being submitted to the Planning Commission for review and/or approval.
If this is incorrect, please advise. However, given the contentious nature of this project, we sincerely hope that this practice of accepting and moving forward on a application with out any serious review of its merits will cease and desist. The citizens of Ventura County and most particularly those in Ojai and the Cuyama Valley expect and demand nothing less from our civil servants..."
We need the continued support of everyone in Ojai to see that these past travesties do not happen again. Please send your donations to the Stop The Trucks! Coalition – c/o The Ojai Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 1134, Ojai, CA, 93024, or you may also walk your contribution into the Chamber’s offices anytime during the business week, at 201 S. Signal Street -- in the Ojai Festivals building -- in downtown Ojai.
Howard Smith
More follows:
Rob Varela, Ventura County Star
By Michael Shapiro, Chairman / Stop The Trucks! Coalition
Repeating what I wrote in my Ojai Valley News Guest Editorial -- various news reports about the recent Santa Barbara-based Diamond Rock Mine didn’t tell the full story. It is simply not true that the Stop the Trucks! Coalition prevailed during the recent hearings before the Santa Barbara Planning Commission, and that’s why we’re appealing the decision of the Santa Barbara Planning Commission to approve the Diamond Rock Mine’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR). If we don’t, it paves the way for the granting of their Conditional Use Permit (CUP) and simultaneously strips-away any of Ojai’s legal rights to challenge them in the event that they “change their minds” and hundreds of rock and gravel mine-transport trucks end-up careening through Ojai after all.
Indeed -- unless their ruling is challenged and we win a reversal, Ojai and the Stop The Trucks! Coalition have been stripped of any rights to challenge and review their EIR and CUP as it relates to the health, safety, welfare and environmental havoc that such mine transport truck traffic through Ojai would cause. And this is why our appeal is so important. And although the appeal process will take time and lots of funding – we feel we have a good chance of prevailing as long as we continue to have your generous financial support to stay the course.
To compound the stresses and challenges now facing Ojai and the Stop The Trucks! Coalition, we’re now simultaneously facing an aggressive Ventura County-based mining operation – the Ozena Valley Ranch Rock & Gravel Mine – and what also appears to be a well-entrenched Ventura County Planning staff hell-bent on white-washing innumerable past CUP violations by the Ozena applicant and somehow granting them a renewed CUP and expanded production, regardless of those violations.
The struggle to preserve the traditional ambiance, character, economy, environmental health, safety and welfare of Ojai is rapidly building to a critical mass, and if we are to prevail both legally, administratively and politically, we must continue to have your generous financial and political support.
...With your continued generosity and support now – we will prevail again in this latest and most onerous challenge to Ojai’s preservation as that example of a small, California town of yesteryear… a town who’s economy and environment is supported by education, the arts and tourism, and not rampant, destructive, dangerous and unhealthful industrialization -- which is exactly what massive gravel and rock mine transport trucking would end up causing.
Send your donations to the Stop The Trucks! Coalition – c/o The Ojai Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 1134, Ojai, CA, 93024, or you may also walk your contribution into the Chamber’s offices anytime during the business week, at 201 S. Signal Street -- in the Ojai Festivals building -- in downtown Ojai.
For continuous updates on all the news regarding this issue, don’t forget to also log-on to the Ojai Post and “click” on “Stop The Trucks! Coalition.
Thanks so much.
Michael Shapiro
Chair – Stop The Trucks! Coalition
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