Supervisor Steve Bennett (Steve) has made some very powerful mis-statements about me. Over the years i have been involved in many community matters with Steve and have a huge amount of respect for him for all the great things he has done for Ventura County and the Ojai Valley like: SOAR, The Oak View Park and Resource Center, the West Campus (Former County Honor Farm) and H.E.L.P of Ojai, etc., so it is difficult for me to contradict him. However, in order to properly serve the Ojai Valley voters who elected me to the MAC last November I am compelled to respond to Steve with my side of the story. First of all I believe that we need to give Steve some extra leeway for the mis-communication which has taken place between us. As the current Chairperson of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, Steve has many extra difficult matters to deal with which must take up a great deal of extra time and effort. So we must appreciate that and be understanding as to why he has not been able to completely focus on the situation of my involvement with the MAC and FEMA.
I first spoke with Steve in late December about the FEMA Flood Plain Mapping problems which residents of the East End of the Ojai Valley had brought to my attention. These residents came to me for help in resolving the struggle between FEMA and Ventura County on claimed erroneous Flood Plain Mapping which caused the mandatory payment of increasingly higher and higher payments for flood plain insurance required to obtain a mortgage,plus the 30% to 50% more those residents had to pay for construction on their property because of faulty flood plain designations.
My research indicated what appeared to me as a many year long term fued between the County and FEMA on Flood Plain issues. It appears that the residents of the Ojai Valley may be paying a total of hundreds of thousands of dollars of yearly mandatory insurance premiums and extra costs for construction based on potential erroneous flood plain designations.
Many of the stories brought to me, together with back-up paperwork, told of seemingly “Turf Wars between FEMA and the County” with the residents in the middle. And, it appears that this has gone one for at least 24 years since the last FEMA mapping of the Ojai Valley.
I realize that this story is getting very long and possibly boring, but I can’t figure out a better way to tell it, so please bear with me for a bit.
As a result of these complaints, in December of last year (2008) I spoke with Steve about this problem and his answer was “Jerry, it’s not the right time to get involve, trust me!”. Steve said exactly the same thing to me in mid January of this year (2009) when residents told me that they heard rumors that FEMA was remapping the Ojai Valley and that now was the time to get involved before FEMA made their new preliminary map. After that it would become much more difficult to make adjustments.,. Steve again said ” Jerry, the timing is not right for us to get involved and don’t worry”. Because I had constituents who wanted answers I begged Steve for more details on what was happening, but he completely ignored me and refused to give me any details and again said “Don’t Worry”. That was when I began to worry, and started to try to find out what was going on with the FEMA remapping of the Ojai Valley
Between January 10 and January 20 I made dozens of phone calls to FEMA and the County in an attempt to find out what was happening. No one was returning my calls so I again made an appointment to meet Steve in his office at 12:50 PM on Thursday, January 26, 2009. I made the appointment for two reasons: since Steve could Veto any recommendations the MAC made to the Board of Supervisors I wanted to resolve any potential conflicts between my election platform for the MAC and Steve’s position on those matters. Second, I needed to respond to the ever growing ranks of residents who were demanding that I respond to their requests for information on the current status of the FEMA remapping process.
Steve’s responses to me were ” Jerry, I will never censor any matters brought to the MAC for review and Comment, and “The time is still not right for getting involved with FEMA” Again he refused to give me any details so when he again told me ”Don’t Worry!!”, that’s when I began to worry even more!.
About two weeks after my meeting with Steve I received a return phone call from the FEMA Engineer in charge of the flood plain remapping of Ventura County. To be frank I was somewhat shocked with her responsiveness, interest and desire to help. She told me that I had called her at almost the end of “Just the right time for the Ojai Valley to get involved in the process”. Over the next 10 days we had many discussions about how to best try to resolved the problems involved. At around 2 PM on Wednesday, February 25, 2009, the FEMA Engineer asked me to make arrangements for a Ojai Valley Community meeting with her, in Ojai on March 17th, and an earlier meeting in the afternoon in my office to discuss some specific mapping problems with the residents who had come to me for help. I was to find a public meeting place and get the word out to interested residents about the time and place of the meeting.
Within an hour of that conversation I emailed Steve, his assistant Steve Offerman, the local newspaper, blog and many residents about the meeting. I also sent an email directly to Steve advising him of the luck of being able to set up such a special meeting in the Ojai Valley and requesting his involvement, possibly as a monitor of the evening Community meeting. Later that evening my wife, an attorney, and I attended a reception Steve had arranged for newly elected and appointed members of his several advisory councils. When my wife and I arrived Steve Offerman congratulated me on setting up the meeting with FEMA. A few minutes later I spoke with Steve and asked him if he had read my email, which he hadn’t as he was not in his office that afternoon. I then requested that he read that email as soon as possible and call me if there was any problem. At that time neither I nor the FEMA Engineer had any idea that we were doing something wrong. Instead, we both felt that we were in the process of breaking through a many year feud between the County and FEMA, which was going to have the results of resolving many costly problems for the residents of the Ojai Valley.
For whatever reason I don’t know, Steve never called me to tell me that FEMA and I were causing a “Political” problem for Steve with the rest of the Supervisors. If he had just contacted me I’m sure that we could have worked out a win-win situation. Instead, on the following Monday I received a call from the FEMA Engineer stating that because of political pressures instigated by Bennett she had to cancel the March 17 meeting. She also stated that she was sorry for the residents of the Ojai Valley who, as a result of Steve’s actions, were going to be deprived of a special opportunity to have their costly flood plain problems resolved.
The next thing that happens is that Bennett shows up at our next MAC meeting on March 16 and besides wrongfully castigating me in front of all of the other members of the MAC plus the many residents in attendance, Bennett then went on to “Punish” me (and the residents who voted for me) by giving all of us a copy of an amendment to the Resolution by the Board of Supervisors for the Formation of the Ojai Valley MAC, (MAC), which he intends to submit to the Board of Supervisors. In that proposed amendment Bennett desires to “CUT THE HEART OF THE MAC” by completely eliminating the MAC’s elected/appointed responsibilities for reviewing, commenting and making recommendations to the Board of Supers on matters relating to the ‘HEALTH, SAFETY AND WELFARE” of the residents of the unincorporated areas of the Ojai Valley. And, to add insult to injury, Bennett wants to eliminate the ability of MAC members or residents to put matters on the MAC’s meeting agendas for discussing. Bennett demands that he is the only one who can place items on the MAC agenda.
Since Bennett has the right to veto any recommendations the MAC desires to make to the Board of Supervisors, one has to ask why he wants to virtually eliminate the right of the only local representatives the residents have to voice their problem, concerns, etc.
I was elected on a platform for revitalizing and renewing the MAC and for doing my best to bring it back to what it was and what the Board of Supervisors desired. I am committed to fight for the democratic rights and freedom of speech for the residents of the Ojai Valley who have the right to vote for their MAC representatives and who those residents expect to do their best to represent them.
I’m sorry to say that the leadership of the MAC for the last several years hasd been pathetic and the current members of the MAC, now of whom were elected in a contested election, except me, and most were either appointed by Bennett or recruited by his o0ffice to run unapposed, are therefore indebted to Bennetic and are apathetic toward any move to re=energize the MAC. There are a couple of potential exceptions but “political Pressures” seem to be forcing them to keep their heads down.
So, that’s the Story, except for the fact that Bennett has recently announced that HE has arranged for a FEMA meeting in Ojai on April 7th starting at 6:30 PM in the Matilija Junior High School Auditorium.
I hope and request that at least everyone who lives in a designated Flood Plain area of the Ojai Valley
attend this meeting. It could be critical for your ability to potentially request and obtain an adjustment to your insurance premiums and greatly reduce your cost of future construction on your property.
I also request that if you too desire to fight for the rights of the residents and for the members of the MAC to continue to review and make comments and recommendations to the Board of Supervisors on matters relating to the ‘HEALTH, SAFETY AND WELFARE” of the residents of the unincorporated areas of the Ojai Valley, please express your opinion(s) to Supervisor Steve Bennett, and to all the rest of the members of the Board of Supervisors.
“If we do not fight for our rights, we will lose them!”

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