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

haha

I started shrieking and nearly fainted when I watched it.

Fun!
S.

i like the two rockin' lego babes watching the show!

That was very very amusing. Thanks for sharing

Tyler, you're a genius. Thanks. You made my day.

I have a question. The guy is singing to this woman or girl. I'm a man, I think, at least in my present body incarnation, so I can relate to that. I have an imaginary womam lover and that's who I think of, a sort of goddess, except that I don't like the term goddess because it is like a little female god so I switch it to a divine Womam [sic] Lover. I used to be married and have had other imaginary or real womem in my life so the song would work for them too. The kids on the couch appear to be girls so how is that with them or the artist creatrix of them.

But here's the question: what if you're a woman or a girl and these beatles are singing "she"? What do you do in your mind? If you're herterosexual, do you switch it to "he"? Or do you simply imagine loving another woman. If you are in a same sex situation, then it seems the song has a perfect fit. Obviously, few people even think about it but then they're obviously not me, except in a very broad metaphysical unitary sense.

Just a thought. I'm in a reflective mood, mostly about whether I should run for council. But that's another thread.

Does anyone want to pass the hat to get Dennis laid? If he doesn't get elected to the city council there in Ojai he could come work for me at my Man ranch in Nevada.

Does anyone know if Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation is involved in any planned or proposed projects in Ojai?

Does anyone know exactly what the conflict involving Cabrillo was that forced Monte Widders to recuse himself from advising on the city's "affordable housing" plans?

The April 22, 2008 Ojai City Council minutes state:

"City Manager Kersnar noted that City Attorney Widders had determined that he would recuse himself based on concerns of a possible conflict of interest if he participated in discussions regarding the City's Housing Element. In the past, City Attorney Widders represented Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation, an affordable Housing developer."

Don't know if they were discussing a specific project but if affordable or low income housing was approved, Cabrillo might
be in line as developers.

Check out the CEDC web site:
http://www.cabrilloedc.org/

What the....?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nVQaHpOnO8

Anyone see Monte Widders as our Trojan Horse?

brilliant. I wonder what J will do after seeing this! thanks tyler.

dear Heidi-

you go girrl!!!

The following is from the rather crowded Ojai City Council - 2008 thread:

Further to the very interesting news above (#54) about Monte Widders being forced to recuse himself from affordable housing issues:

The outfit that he does or did outside work for, creating the conflict, apparently is the Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation, which appears to be an "affordable housing developer" dedicated to a program of building new "affordable" developments and homes. Here is a link:

http://www.cabrilloedc.org/index.html

Now here's where it gets interesting: One of the two 2006 initiatives Monte Widders SLAPPed with his lawsuit called for a city policy aimed at making existing housing affordable, without building more housing. It mandated that the city "not build our way to affordability by new developments."

Directly in conflict with the program of his client, the Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation (CEDC), which appears aimed primarily at building new housing communities under the rubric of "affordable housing."

Had Monte Widders not SLAPPed that initiative, and had it been adopted, his client CEDC presumably would have lost Ojai as a fertile field for development.

Of course, he did not recuse himself from taking an active role with respect to the 2006 initiative; just the opposite. He spearheaded a SLAPP to stifle the initiative.

The initiative SLAPP created a whole lot of smoke. Now it looks like we can see the fire. Lo and behold, it turns out that while Ojai only suffers for this SLAPP, at least one of Monte Widders' private clients reaps benefits. While the City of Ojai pays the bill for a lawsuit of no discernible value to the city, by all appearances, a private client of our city attorney benefits.

Perhaps the game is finally up for Widders.

This should be the number one issue in this upcoming campaign, IMHO. H&H have some explaining to do. And there needs to be an investigation.

Anyone with further information, please share.

Comment #85 Posted by: Smoke and Fire

The following is in regard to several comments on the Ojai City Council - 2008 that have to do with Monty Widders recusing himself under apparent duress from the housing element issue in a recent city council meeting. In Particular comments #41 - #43, #54 - #57, and #85. I have reposted comment #85 from that thread here in the open thread.

If I'm not mistaken, the Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation(CEDC) is the developer that made possible the S. Fulton street affordable housing project known as the Sycamore Homes development for which they received the "Single-Family Nonprofit Project of the Year Award" from the Southern California Association of Non-Profit Housing(SCANPH). Whew! That was a lot of acronyms. Anyway, the CEDC is widely held to be a very good example of a "non-profit" developer of "affordable" housing. I put those words in quotations because they are very strong "buzz words", and I have not yet been able to seriously analyze their veracity; however I am prepared to take them as they are billed. I do know that the City Council loves them and so do a lot of other city governments in the area. The CEDC's mission statement is as follows:

“to provide affordable housing with an emphasis on resident ownership and control; to develop effective community organizations; to develop community facilities that serve the low-income community; to implement other economic development activities that benefit the low-income community; and to advocate in the field of community economic development.”

By all accounts this is a good non-profit developer who specializes in affordable housing. A quick review of zillow.com shows that the development was sold out in April-May for about $230k each. That would have been a good price in 2003, during the bubble, for a 3-4 bedroom home. However, these homes are high-density. For instance, comparable homes on Bald street are sitting on lots that are five times as large as the 3,000+ sq ft lots that the Sycamore Homes sit on. Sure the homes on bald are significantly older and maybe even a little smaller inside, but they have yards. Riding your bike through the S. Fulton St. development is slightly surreal. Like the condo development on S. Montgomery St. it seems wildly out of place for Ojai. I don't want to digress, but there are apocryphal stories that the "Palm Springs-style" condos on Montgomery St. were also built under the auspices of "affordable" housing. You can buy one today for the low low price of $895,000.

I'm not familiar with the stipulations of the loans on the S. Fulton St. homes, but I suspect there are rules as to when or if you can sell these homes. A quick search of MLS shows that none of the 25 homes in this development are for sale currently and I've found no evidence that any of the homes have been sold since they were initially purchased. Zillow.com considers these homes worth $480-535k if they were to be sold today. I seriously doubt that, given the collapse of the housing bubble and their Santa Claritaesq appearance as well as their tiny lots, but who really knows. There is a home on Bald that has a 15,000 sq ft lot and only 2 bedrooms that is asking $285k. It's been for sale for a long time. I think if one were presented of the option of purchasing a 3-4 bedroom home in the Sycamore development versus that old place on bald, you'd have to seriously weigh the factors of having your neighbor on three sides living just feet from your walls or knocking down three walls of the old joint and "remodeling".

Nevertheless. The real issue here is the fact that Mr. Widders had to recuse himself from city business because of his professional dealings with the CEDC. I don't know what the exact nature of those dealings were, but it strikes me that if he had to recuse himself as the city attorney on the housing element issue that the implied conflict of interest would extend to the initiatives that Jeff Furchtenicht submitted two years ago that were subsequently SLAPPed. Rather, I should say that a three judge panel will be deciding shortly if in fact the initiatives were SLAPPed. It certainly goes a long way toward explaining why the city attorney would have gone out of his way to SLAPP these initiatives, one of which mandated that the affordable housing problem in Ojai should be dealt with using existing housing stock, not by new, high-density development by the CEDC or anyone else. Why else would the city attorney go against existing California Constitutional law and risk legal exposure for the city by the likes of the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU). I'm not an attorney, so I do not know if this level of apparent conflict of interest constitutes criminal wrongdoing, but it certainly seems wrong that the city has had to pay at least $83,000 so far for legal actions against the ACLU. Just to highlight this whole thing, the ACLU's other main adversary in court today is the Bush Administration!

The members of the city council who voted twice to further this whole shady affair need to seriously consider dropping out of the coming election should the appellate court rule against the city and Monty Widders.

Good work SPK. I have always thought something just simply s.t.u.n.k!

Thanks SPK for the analysis. This needs looking into!

This makes our city attorney look like a developer mole, using the public job of city attorney to help his outside, private clients. And charging Ojai to do it! No person can serve two masters.

We need to know what kinds of projects Cabrillo is interested in in Ojai. We need to know more about the relationship of Widders to Cabrillo, and any other developer clients. We need to know when Monte Widders started representing Cabrillo. Did he disclose his relationships to the city council before he sued?

If he had to recuse himself from housing element discussions, it is really hard to imagine how he wouldn't have had to recuse himself also from the SLAPP suit.

You also are right to ask what the incumbent councilpeople have to say about this. Unless there is some benign explanation, if they let this kind of thing go on on their watch, they ought to resign in disgrace. This goes to the heart of the integrity of our city government. Public dollars should not be spent to benefit the private interests of city officials, or their private clients.

This seems like such a big and obvious blunder that it is hard to believe. One would think our city attorney has a conflicts system in place and would have made sure he was not involved in squashing initiatives that go against the interests of his outside private clients.

Who can shed some light on what happened? What is the law on this? Let's hear some more facts. Who has authority to look into this and prosecute, if that's what should be done?

Thanks for this acute analysis. I used to bring up the conflict of interest issue at council meetings. It met with vehement denial by Sue Horgan. And of course administrators and councillors agreed with Sue Horgan; at the very least by their combined silence. This strange silence runs through all the commissions, the media and into the community at large. A comment was even made that I recall where I think David Bury was present that in a small town like Ojai, these things cannot be avoided, or something to that effect.

This, among many others, has led me to the conclusion that an economic cabal runs Ojai and plays by its own rules, despite churchly and civic guidelines to the contrary. The sadder thing is the general complicity of the community. Perhaps it's the sedative/stoned nature of our culture that saps any moral strength we used to have. Toxic food, toxic media, toxic toxi-city everywhere you turn nowadays.

There are a few of us who question the integrity of the system but we are few and far between. That's the main reason I've dropped out of the race for council. There is no support for someone like me as an alternative. Even if my personality was not so crazy and deficient, anyone with any remoteness to my values has no chance of being elected in Ojai.

Ojai as cultural Oasis is rapidly becoming an illusion of the fringe element. Just stand at the post office corner and watch the traffic go by if you have any doubts. You don't need a weatherman to see which way the wind is blowing, and by all means watch for parking meters, the metaphorical ones, of course because Ojai does not have physical ones. However, if you don't put your quarters in the right meters as directed, you will be punished one way or another, marginalized or simply ignored.

Face it. Ojai is corrupt. Where there's smoke there's fire; and it ain't no Day Fire.

Congratulations Dennis on dropping out of the race.
Now go and find a community more to your fantasy.
If you can't and do choose to stay here, please do something productive for yourself and/or others.
Stop complaining and spreading your "beautiful poison".
You probably still have a gift or two to give and get.
Get on it!

Dennis may be long winded. But at least he stands by what he writes here on the post. There's a lot of it, but it's his. Your anonymous attacks on him are worse than useless and they are cowardly. When I see an anonymous or a cutesy nickname comment, I automatically discount it.

spk-
my "anonymous attacks", if you want to call it that, on Dennis have been very helpful to him.
take my word for it.
while your signed comments are occasionally educational, I think your position on things is pretty predictable.
i choose to stay anonymous, because i just don't want to deal with the vibes if people know who i am.
and i tend to call a spade a spade, and lots of people just can't handle it.
can you?

I believe in anonymity too, Anonymous. Here's the way it was said once before on this blog:

"Do the clothes make the woman, or the woman, the clothes?

Names perhaps can display ownership over words. But I think of names in this context more like clothes. They shelter the words. They protect them. And they project them.

Or not. Some with their names have girded themselves as a clown, or a peacock, or a prancing pony. We see their names, and we dismiss what they write. Or we color it with our established impressions. For these, their names detract from their words.

Naked words, unclothed by the identify of the speaker, have nothing to shelter them. And nothing to lend them credence, but the power of the expression itself.

Like their words, anonymous speakers stand naked, their words alone offered for their own merits. They get no respect they don't command on their own. They are easy to ignore.

How different from the named, those who can say anything, or nothing at all, but by the power of their name command attention to their idea.

The blog is a place of discourse. Why dress the discourse with one's name? Why claim ownership over words at all?

The blog is far different from the pasquines of Garcia Marquez's childhood, the anonymous scandal sheets that aired the dirty laundry of a small town, posted overnight on the square. The blog is far from the awful modern pasquine of the Ojai Valley News, that "thumbs up/thumbs down" feature that anonymously airs the pettiest of gripes, the expressions that would not be made were a name attached for sheer embarrassment.

On the blog, the merits of one's comment can be instantly addressed. Discourse is immediate. Accusations can be answered. On the blog, we don't need to distract from the power of our words by girding them with our name. Our words literally can speak for themselves.

And we need not fear the discourse. On the blog, there is neither reason nor sense in hiding for fear of how some might react. But if you are a victim of such fear, is it not preferable to speak your words by themselves? To allow your words, unowned and free, nameless, to suffer their blows?

If the words are the body of the woman, and her name merely her clothing; would you not rather discourse with her naked?

What does her name add that you wouldn't prefer to do without?"

How do your anonymous personal attacks stack up on that measure, Anonymous?

Anonymity should not be an excuse for posting a comment you could not be proud of signing.

Anyway. Back to the issue at hand: Our apparently conflicted city attorney. Can anyone out there add some information and thoughts on that subject?

Anonymous 21

that was incredible.
i was with you but then the double negative:
"What does her name add that you wouldn't prefer to do without?" threw me.
As brilliant as I am, my mind has a hard time digesting the gist of a double negative.

Then we get to "anonymous personal attacks".
I don't think of them as "attacks"- only rarely.

But what a beautiful exposition you offer.
I don't recall it's prior publication.

comment #20

"If you want to call it that,"

Uh, what else is it called. If you think your comments about Dennis are helpful, good for you. I can only hope that Dennis feels the same, though I don't really see how he could.

You may think you call a spade a spade, but you do it anonymously, which seriously limits your effectiveness. To the degree that I take seriously criticisms coming from anonymity, I can handle quit a lot. I'm glad you find my positions "predictable", though I would use the term consistent.

spk-
I'm sorry.
I need to retract what i said.
your posts are often educational and interesting.
it's Dennis posts that are consistently predictable, and point out the same negative view of everything over and over.
complaining, bitching, moaning.
the water's no good.
the air is no good
money is no good
houses (boxes) are no good.
etc, etc,etc

only the fantasy life he has created where poor is beautiful, and we strip away all social, political, economic fabric is good.
it's nihilism dressed up ojai style.
occasionally dennis has admitted to a need for contact.
get it?

Hot area in Ventura:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hotground5-2008aug05,0,4689903.story