I may be naive, but this issue of Organic Bytes looks more like Organic Bites to me.

I have inserted above a copy of the top of today’s e-mail from the Organic Consumers Association (OCA). Please note that in the headline we are told that Monsanto and Big Ag are “Trying to Kill You”. While I firmly believe that Monsanto and Big Ag are sickening us, killing many of us, and a major threat to our national and global security, I do not believe that they are “Trying to Kill” us.

Note the first paragraph, “Energy-intensive industrial farming practices that rely on toxic chemicals and genetically engineered crops are not just undermining public health, they’re destroying the planet.” I couldn’t agree more.

“Trying to Kill You” is just untrue. Stating things like this weakens, or kills the credibility of those of us who work toward a healthy and sustainable food system and planet.

What do you bet I will get called a traitor? What do you be I’ll get called worse things? But it won’t kill me.

I am grateful to the OCA and to every other organization and person that works to create a safer and more just life for all.

(Special to the Ojai Post)

“In a neat little town they call Belfast, apprenticed to trade I was bound …”

during the ’90s, a decade after I had left UC Space Sciences and done the California Senate and Space Station — after spending the ’80s becoming a ‘gee whiz’ expert on all the kosher, politically-correct, Space Transportation technologies of Laser Launch, Coaxial Electromagnetic Launch, Railgun Launch, Big Dumb Boosters, VTOVL, HTOL (Aerospace Planes) — during the ’90s, at Stanford, when I wasn’t writing The Undiscovered Physics, when I wasn’t supporting HMX Corp, I plied my trade writing business plans for all those Space Transport systems, accompanied by 10-50 Year Market Assessments/Forecasts, looking ahead and anticipating the scale and diversity of the Cis-Lunar, Mars System, and Interplanetary Aerospace Industry infrastructure growth.

“And many an hour sweet happiness, I spent in that neat little town.
 ‘Til sad misfortune came over me, which caused me to stray from the land.
 Far away from me friends and relations, betrayed by the black velvet band …”

by the time I had published the Undiscovered Physics, and had moved to Aotearoa (New Zealand) I had begun writing REVERSE Market Assessments, estimating the scope and application of the (black gov’t, ‘blue’ corporate, sector) Space Infrastructure ‘MIC’ (the Military Industrial Complex) developed over the past 5-6 decades! [Which, overview, I did not publish until last year, 2011.]

THIRD ROCKEFELLER FROM THE SUN …

“I took a stroll with this pretty fair maid, and a gentleman passing us by. 
I knew she meant the doing of me, by the look in her roguish black eye.
A goldwatch she took from his pocket and placed it right in to my hand. 
And the very first thing that I thought was, ‘Bad luck to the black velvet band’ …”

then arrived the first decade of the New Millennium, and a whole world come together in anguish, combat, dialog about the infinite extent of the Mob$ter Bank$ter Military Corporate $ecurity $tate … and the last few years leading up to 2012, and every gang$ter facade shattered, every institutional Theatre of Disinfo revealed … a World Divided, between those who would extend and further the ignorance, the servitude, the global cultural genocide, the planetwide rape of the Sacred, Living, our Mother Earth — and those who would END the Covert Combat $tate, END their Downward-Spiraling of the Economy, END the Vanishing of HeartMind, Consciousness, Respect, Spirituality, Discernment, Enlightenment … to BEGIN a TenFold Expansion of our Global Economy, accomplished in Honour and Collaboration amongst all Cultures … BEGIN a Hundred-Fold Expansion of our Global Wealth, accomplished in an Economy of REFORESTATION, returning the Sacred, BioDiversity of the Forests, the Rainforests, the Rivers, the Wetlands, the Aquasphere, the Mycosphere, the Once-Living Ocean and Atmosphere …

in the U$ alone, today, Millions are employed by the Aerospace Industry in our genocide- and ecocide-based predatory rape & pillage economy — tens of millions employed by the Defense Sector, and the Security State — on the order of a hundred million more by Corporate Industry in general, the Cancer, the Borg …

POMES (PRISONERS OF MOTHER EARTH)

“Now before a judge and a jury, next morning I had to appear. 
Oh the judge he says to me: ‘Young man, your case it is proven clear. 
We’ll give you seven years penal servitude, to be spent faraway from the land.
Far away from your friends and companions, betrayed by the black velvet band’ …”

of those, as of today, the buzz is (our best estimate is) that half-a-million to a million are currently employed, or imprisoned, or stationed, in-situ, between the Cis-Lunar System and the Mars/Phobos/Deimos System infrastructures, with only a few percent of the total distributed in Venus orbit, amongst other planetary orbits, and less than a hundred sent to the most remote MIC-Rockefeller $tate outpost of Alpha Centauri …

LANDED IN BANDYMAN’S LAND …

“So come all ya jolly young fellows and a warning take by me.
When you are out on the town me lads, beware of them pretty colleens.
 For they feed you with strong drink, ‘Oh yah’, ’til you are unable to stand. 
And the very next thing that you know, me lads, is you’ve landed in Bandyman’s Land …”

the consumer-media MIC-Aerospace Mars-Penal-Colony disinfo campaign, led by the Marsgate, Wilcock, Prometheus, Exopolitics, and other slime-factions — hyped by Wired Magazine — and now trumpeted/represented by Princess Kaoru Nakamaru, in the wake of Japan’s new military and economic independence from the RockefellerU$, recalls the puppetmaster hands of the Crown, Monarchy, and Rothschilds and their theatre-histories of ‘Transportation’, Slave-Prison Sentencing/Banishment to the North American Colonies, and later to Van Diemen’s land, Tasmania, Australia …

according to Nakamaru-Sama, in 2012 the population of the Earth will be separated into two divisions, and one of them shipped off to another planet!

which immediately brings to mind the global ‘Occupy’ movement, targeting the homeless and unemployed, the combative, quarrelsome and ‘uncontrollable’ — calling attention to themselves as subjects for ‘MIC-Transportation’ …

RETURNED SONGLINE, 2012, OF ALL KNOWING …

“Her eyes they shone like diamonds. 
I thought her the Queen of the land.
And her hair hung over her shoulder. 
Tied up with a black velvet band …”

full background stories below, with hundreds of photos/illustrations …

SpacePlane Equation, SpacePlane Economy … http://www.facebook.com/notes/millennium-twain/the-spaceplane-equation-revisited-/10150389674089525

Japan Nuclear Independence … http://soverania.blogspot.com

Supernouminal “Divine Creation” … http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=439987494524

Interstellar Distance Fraud … http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150369702204525

Big Brother “MIC Interplanetary” (RockefellerU$ Californi¢as) … http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=381705464524

“The first major innovation in English eighteenth-century penal practice was the substantial expansion of the use of ‘transportation’. Although it was believed that transportation might lead to the reformation of the offender, the primary motivations behind this punishment were a belief in its deterrent effect, and a desire to simply remove hardened criminals from society …”

MIC-Aerospace, MIC-Ethics Discussion (see “MIC-’Transportation’, Before Mars”) … http://www.facebook.com/groups/AerospaceMIC

See the Nakamaru Videos in “Shocking Announcement About 2012 {Princess in Japan}” … http://www.facebook.com/groups/SiriusAstromancy

for good, or ill, we can no longer refer to human ‘civilization’, simply, as the World …

Millennium

More PR from Supervisor Bennett’s office…

The Ojai Valley Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) is a volunteer, elected advisory council formed by the County Board of Supervisors to review significant County land development projects and County land use policies in the unincorporated Ojai Valley. The MAC makes advisory recommendations to County departments, the County Planning Commission, and Supervisor Bennett.

A vacancy has arisen on the Ojai Valley Municipal Advisory Council for the Meiners Oaks area seat, Division No. 2. Representatives of the divisions must be registered voters who reside within the division. The vacancy arose following the retirement of Councilmember Russ Baggerly after 15 years of service on the MAC.

MAC meetings are generally held monthly on the third Monday evening, in Oak View. For more information on the MAC, including past agendas and meeting summaries, please visit the MAC website: www.countyofventura.org\ovmac

All interested persons are encouraged to submit letters of interest and qualification. If multiple candidates apply, the MAC may vote on a candidate to recommend to the Board of Supervisors. Submit letters and supporting materials by February 10th, 2012 to:

Steve Offerman, MAC Executive Director
C/o Supervisor Steve Bennett’s Office, L-1900
800 S. Victoria Ave. Ventura, 93009

For more information, please contact Steve Offerman in Supervisor Steve Bennett’s Office, 654-2703, steve.offerman@ventura.org

Fun article by Kit Stolz in the VC Star on The MOB Shop, the Ojai Valley Green Coalition, Modern Folk and Rainbow Bridge. An excerpt on The MOB Shop’s plan to build a free-to-use outdoor bicycle repair stand:

“If I teach you how to fix your flat and how to maintain your bike, and you can do it at my place for free, you’re going to tell your friends about it,” explained Tim Rhone, one of Pasco’s three partners. “And then when you want a bike, you’re probably going to come to us. It’s a longer-term approach. It’s building a relationship, rather than just going for the sale.”

Rhone and his three partners, all devout cyclists, plan to put a stand outside the shop, with tools cabled to it, to allow individuals or small classes to work on their bikes without disrupting business inside the shop. Although they estimate the stand will cost $10,000, it’s an integral part of their business approach.

“We want people to be able to roll up, fix a flat, fix their chain, do whatever,” Rhone said. “We want to help the community ride and maintain and take care of their bikes. We want to change the bike culture in this town.”

Can’t say I saw this one coming…

PR: Ojai educator Akiva Werbalowsky announced today as candidate for the US House of Representatives, CA 26th District (Ventura Bioregion). Voters from diverse backgrounds are attracted to Werbalowsky’s ‘Earth Conservative’ Republican view that environmental health and liberty education are required for American democracy to flourish. “The most capable candidate free of special interest money will be elected, so I’m earning my votes with authentic, creative leadership that Californians understand and endorse.”

Werbalowsky is 47 and came to Ojai in 1987, where he now lives. He founded and managed the Ecological Agriculture and Permaculture Programs at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, was director of the Princeton Review, and was on Apple’s original iPhone launch team until 2009. Akiva was a guide at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia home, and lived in Israel for three years, teaching Permaculture and cultivating organic projects. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Virginia, a Graduate Degree in Education from UCSB, surfs, bikes, kayaks, writes and performs music, gardens, and is grateful for the California liberties he protects.

“Today’s global community demands one crucial American ethic for any shared enterprise to have honor: Respect All, Oppress None.”

“The best things in life aren’t things…they’re relationships. Californians caring for ecological health deserve a strong voice in our nation’s Capitol, and I ask to be that voice. Any debate between jobs or the environment clearly indicates we need smarter jobs.”

Volunteers, Media, Voter Registration, and employment inquiries, email: VoteAkiva@gmail.com

Why we need a Constitutional Amendment against Corporate Personhood

This will take a second. The jurisprudence behind corporate personhood did not come into existence overnight with the Roberts Gang in the Supreme Court and the Citizens United decision. The idea that a corporation is a person and therefore due the rights of a human being under the Bill of Rights finds its roots in post Civil War America. But to explain the whole issue we have to start back still further in our nations history. The Revolutionary War which birthed the United States was as much a war against Royally chartered corporations like the East India Company as it was against British rule. The recently poorly understood Boston Tea Party was actually a protest against a Corporation which led to the Revolutionary War against the British Government and hired mercenary “contractors”.

Understandably after we won our independence, corporations were held in especially low regard. In fact, they were outlawed in many of the states for the first 20 years of the Republic. Gradually States began to allow corporations to be chartered, but only for specific, well outlined endeavors that had to serve the common good directly. To charter one of these early corporations required an act of law by a state legislature. Before the Civil War, corporations could only be chartered for a specific time, usually 20 years, and after that time they were dissolved and all of their assets distributed among their shareholders. A corporation could apply to have its charter renewed, which required another act of law in the local state legislature. This meant that a majority in a state legislature had to vote in favor of extending a corporate charter. Also, if a corporation were charged with any wrongdoing or with acting in only its own interest rather than the common good, its charter was subject to immediate revocation. One early example of these heavily regulated corporations is the Niagara Canal Company which was allowed to be incorporated in 1798 for the express purpose of building a canal along the Mohawk River in New York state. This was the first failed attempt at establishing the Erie Canal.

Corruption being what it is, these laws were targeted by business lawyers. As time went by and the Revolutionary generation waned, citizens began to forget the lessons learned of the danger of unchecked corporate power. Judges who were formerly business, corporate and Trust lawyers were appointed to state and federal benches and they began loosening the laws. At the beginning of the 19th Century in what should now be a very familiar refrain, the lawyers/politicians began to play the states off of one another. In 1811 New York was the first to cave and allow simple registration and the beginnings of limited liability for corporations. New Jersey followed rapidly in 1816. The Supreme Court eliminated the necessity to have corporate charters extended every 20 years and made corporations “inviolable”, meaning that they could not simply be terminated by the State legislatures. The term “artificial person” began to crop up in jurisprudence as applied to corporations. Finally, Delaware basically bent over backward to get business to move to their state and dropped incorporation fees to nothing with no real restrictions. This is why over 50% of US corporations are incorporated in Delaware to this day.

In the 21st Century, Supreme Court Justices hear cases in Washington DC and they announce their decisions which are picked up by the global media in an instant and debated ad infinitum by pundits. It was not this easy in the 1880′s. Each decision was then and is still now preceded by a “headnote” which summarizes the decision in the case. The decision, preceded by its headnote is published by the court reporter in the “United States Reports” which is printed by the Government Printing Office for the benefit of the legal profession. Today, the “United States Reports” is still the official record of Supreme Court decisions. While the headnote is not as useful because there are so many people educated in the law who parse through the actual case and decision, in the 19th Century, the headnote was basically the whole decision and was often used as precedent for future decisions. The headnote, then as now, is written by the court reporter of the Supreme Court.

In a case dating back to 1886 called Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, the Supreme Court decided that California counties were incorrect in including the fence along the right-of-way of the railroads in their property tax assessments. That is the extent of the decision and it was unanimous. So why then do I even bring this innocuous decision up?

Eighteen years previously, in 1868 three years after the Civil War, the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution was passed. This amendment overruled the racist Dred Scott decision which decided that African Americans could NOT be citizens. The 14th Amendment held that:

 “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

In the “headnote” to the 1886 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad decision published in the “United States Reports”, the court reporter for the Supreme Court, lawyer and former president of a bankrupt railroad John Chandler Bancroft Davis, wrote that the case was decided on the basis of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. His headnote essentially claimed that the Supreme Court had decided that corporations were “persons” under the law and therefore accorded full rights as persons under the Bill of Rights. This was never discussed during the case itself. Nevertheless, this headnote was published as the official summary of the decision in the “United States Reports” and has subsequently been used as precedent for the “corporate personhood” line of jurisprudence. Supreme Court Chief Justice Morrison Waite died before the decision was even published.

In a case of supreme irony, the 14th Amendment which was meant to give former slaves, themselves considered property, the rights of full citizenship after the Civil War, was morphed into the legal justification for giving property, todays megalithic corporations which have trillions in wealth, the right to corrupt our democracy and enslave us all.

It is precisely this legal precedent of “corporate personhood” that has allowed money to capture our democracy and totally corrupt our governments. Any attempt at campaign finance reform is impossible as long as this wrongheaded thinking is allowed to stand. Under this line of thinking, it is unconstitutional to put limits on the political contributions of corporations or other organizations because it infringes on their 1st Amendment rights under the “Equal Protection” clause of the 14th Amendment. We can make no laws to stop corporations or other large organizations from essentially legally bribing our representatives in government. They are allowed to spend their considerable resources on lobbying and campaigns however they see fit. Worse, corporations need not even be based in the United States with US citizens as share holders to enjoy the same rights of actual US citizens.

The Citizens United decision is merely the capstone to this line of jurisprudence. Our democracy was not healthy the day before the Citizens United decision was handed down, and it will not be “fixed” by simply repealing that decision alone. This is why organizations like Move to Amend and others are trying to educate the public about this issue with an eye toward a Constitutional Amendment eliminating corporate personhood. There is little hope of reforming campaign financing and thus reclaiming our democracy without a Constitutional Amendment. Fortunately for us, the Amendment need not be long or written in difficult legalese. It can be as simple as this:

Corporations are NOT people and money is NOT speech.

Read excerpts from Tony Biasotti’s new article in the Ventura County Star that appeared in Tuesday’s online edition:

“While Ojai Quarry owner Larry Mosler waits to see whether the county will revoke his mining permit, he got bad news from the state: His mine has been barred from supplying material for government projects…”

“…Don Drysdale, a Mine Reclamation spokesman, said Ojai Quarry was removed from the list because it has no county-approved reclamation plan — a document mines must submit showing how they would clean up the mine if they went out of business. The quarry also has not posted a sufficient financial assurance, a bond that would be used to pay for such a cleanup…”

” ‘ …We know it’s a big impact to their business, and we don’t take it lightly, but there are laws you have to follow,” Drysdale said. “You can’t just be a little bit wrong to be off the list… ‘ “

“…Ojai Quarry was removed immediately as a supplier of rock for at least one major Ventura County Watershed Protection District project, a bank reinforcement at Calleguas Creek in Camarillo, said Ventura County Public Works Director Jeff Pratt…’ “

To see the full letter from the State of California to the Ojai Quarry announcing their “delisting,” along with some short supporting documents, please go to:

http://www.stoptruck.dalyroad.com/

♪•.¸¸¸¸.•* I hope you’re year is off to a 5 STAR start! ♪•.¸¸¸¸.•*

The Ojai Women’s Business Socials are coming up on 3 full years of monthly gatherings. I call that tremendous community support of local businesses and entrepreneurs…

This month’s Social will be hosted at our own five diamond resort, the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa. We’ll have the entire restaurant called Cafe Verde to ourselves, you can find it in the spa courtyard. The Social will be from 6-8 pm. You’re welcome to stay as long or as little as you like. There’s no RSVP or anything complicated. Free parking, too.

Just show up, if it works for you. And yes, you’re welcome to bring girlfriends too.

*********************************************

This Social there will be a $15 charge which
includes a glass of wine and food. Come hungry!
*********************************************

This is our 5th Social at the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa. Each one is more elegant than the next. It’s a real treat to enjoy this world class destination, in our backyard. So I invite you to come, meet the other women in town that run businesses, and start the new year off with the energy and enthusiasm that come from surrounding yourself with a supportive community.

DETAILS:

DATE: Wednesday, January 18, 2012
TIME: 6-8 pm
LOCATION: Ojai Valley Inn & Spa, at their Cafe Verde restaurant in the spa courtyard
FEE: $15: includes 1 glass of wine plus dinner buffet (sodas and other beverages available too.)
WHO: for Women in Business, or thinking of starting their own business!

For more info, visit the main website: http://www.NoMoreNylons.com

From the VC Star, a second County Supervisor adds her name to the mix…

Parks becomes the first Republican to declare in the race, joining five Democrats who already have announced their intent to run. Her announcement comes two days after Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Simi Valley, said he will retire at the end of his current term.

Parks has long been a political maverick unaligned with partisan interests in county political circles. During her 2010 re-election campaign for the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, in which she defeated former Assemblywoman Audra Strickland of Moorpark, she was opposed by the county Republican Central Committee, the hierarchy of her own party.

Parks is in the middle of her four-year term as supervisor, and thus can run for Congress this year without giving up her seat on the board.

By Michael J. Shapiro

The Stop the Trucks! Coalition (Coalition) has had to fend-off countless, scurrilous attacks from the moment we organized five years ago. We were vilified again following the most recent Ventura County Planning Commission hearing (December 15, 2011) after expressing our opposition to the Ojai Quarry (Quarry) being given an early Christmas present: Two months of additional time to comply with their Conditional Use Permit (CUP) plus an added bonus: Approval for keeping on-site and operate an expensive, heavy-duty industrial rock crusher which, up until now, had never been permitted.

This development is particularly astonishing considering that the Quarry had already been given more than an additional year to come into compliance at a subsequent Planning Commission hearing in November of 2010 and, in spite of begin given that extra time, it has failed miserably to do so. And that failure has been well documented by both the County Planning Division and the State’s Office of Mine Reclamation (OMR). Nevertheless, antagonists have labeled the Coalition as “a little band of political extortionists” and “entitled, liberal, elitists.”

Let’s set the record straight and provide a dose of reality.

When the Ventura County Planning Commission failed to act in a timely fashion on a motion to revoke the Quarry’s CUP by “Continuing” the December 15th hearing to February 23rd, the State OMR (Office of Mine Reclamation) stepped in. The OMR “delisted” the Quarry – a de-facto over-ride of the County’s inaction regarding the failure of the Quarry to have an approved Reclamation Plan and failure to post an appropriate Financial Surety. The OMR removed the Quarry from the State’s list (AB 3098) of acceptable material suppliers, effective this past Friday, January 6, 2012.

This means in practice that the Quarry can no longer be a supplier or sub-contractor on any local, County or State government contracts in the State of California. Locally, it means that the contractor working on the Calleguas Creek project for the County’s Watershed Protection District can no longer accept rock from the Quarry. This ban will stay in effect for as long as the Quarry fails to meet the State’s legal requirements for the operation of an open surface mine.

In other words, if you don’t follow the law, you don’t get to operate.

Nevertheless, the Ventura County Planning Commission will be holding a follow-up hearing to decide whether or not the Quarry’s CUP should be revoked or not. That hearing is scheduled for Thursday, February 23, at 8:30 in the morning, in the Hall of Administration at the County Government Center. We urge all of our supporters to attend that meeting to express their outrage and opposition to giving the Ojai Quarry any more extensions or extra privileges it does not deserve and has not earned.

Coalition critics and supporters alike should be reminded that the recent December-2011 Planning Commission hearing was convened in order to address earlier findings by the County’s Planning Division confirming that the Quarry was in frequent and egregious violation of its CUP.

The Planning Division had already recommended that the Quarry’s CUP be revoked and its business shut down. The Coalition attended the December hearing to speak in support of the Planning Division’s original findings and recommendations. Ojai’s City Manager, representing the Ojai City Council, also attended the meeting to enunciate the City of Ojai’s unanimous support of same.

Unfortunately – though the State’s Office of Mine Reclamation has now “delisted” the Quarry, that does not represent or result in a permanent ban on all operations. Though now “delisted,” the Quarry may remain operational and continue to sell its product to private entities and businesses.

How contradictory that while the Quarry continues to represent itself as being “broke” and that they’re simply some little aw-shucks mom & pop business owners struggling to eke-out a living that they’ve simultaneously also spent hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars to purchase heavy-industrial equipment that they weren’t even permitted to have on site in the first place, let alone operate in additional violations.

Furthermore, the Ventura County Property Assessor’s Office has appraised the Quarry owners’ combined properties along Route 33 in the many millions-of-dollars. The completed portion of their most recent “contract deal” as a subcontractor for the County’s Watershed Protection District (supplying material for Camarillo’s Calleguas Creek flood control project) has also netted them substantially more income.

The Quarry has also initiated failed litigation against Ventura County attempting to question the County’s authority to enforce penalties for the quarry’s numerous, serious violations The Quarry has also continued to fund legal and consulting fees to fight the County as evidenced by their most recent threat of additional litigation based upon some absurd fantasy that their “civil rights” were being violated.

It’s also worth a reminder that the multi-million-dollar Tri-State Trucking Company holds the first Trust Deed on the Quarry’s property.

Indeed – if the Quarry claims to be a simple “mom & pop business” struggling to make a living, then their struggles are self-inflicted: Instead of squandering funds on consultant’s fees and frivolous law suits against Ventura County that lacked credibility and merit – their balance sheet might reflect far more revenue if they had operated their business responsibly and legally.

The Coalition’s adversaries have also accused us of inflating and/or exaggerating the potential numbers of trucks that could have wreaked havoc upon the Ojai Valley if we had not opposed them, and we vehemently deny that.

If anything, our estimates are conservative: There were at least five different mines each having CUP’s that may have entitled them to ship 250-trucks-per-day, six-days-a-week… so, do the math. The specter of so many heavy-industrial-diesel trucks speeding daily through the Ojai Valley is absolutely horrifying.

The Stop the Trucks! Coalition never called for a ban on all trucking in-and-out of the Ojai Valley as has been charged by our disingenuous adversaries. In fact, we’re on record as being 100% behind any and all trucking that supports the re-supply and delivery of all goods and services throughout the valley – including rock, gravel, harvesting citrus and anything else vital to our local economy.

The Coalition is nevertheless proud of the fact that over the past five-years we’ve either negotiated settlement agreements with, or exacted pressure to close one specific large aggregate mine, that – all-combined – could have otherwise led to sending over 800-huge, diesel-exhaust spewing trucks per day through Ojai indefinitely — without any local economic benefit to the valley whatsoever.

The Santa Barbara Planning Department recently approved an agreement that would eliminate the last of that county’s mines in the Cuyama Valley from shipping any aggregate south on Maricopa Highway through Ojai. The department only has to approve and issue a Zoning Permit which is expected to occur before the end of this month. When that finally happens, the Coalition will have achieved its original goals of halting the transformation of State Highway 33 and Maricopa Highway into an industrial transportation corridor that would have virtually destroyed the Ojai Valley.

Coalition critics have also charged that efforts to oppose an industry’s attempts to sully and destroy the Ojai Valley were not worth the effort or the modest expense vs. the significant successes we’ve managed to obtain. Not only are they unequivocally wrong, they’re also out-of-touch with the vast majority of those who have chosen to plant their roots and settle in this magnificently beautiful valley in the first place.

The fact remains that if we had not been successful in stopping the trucks, Ojai would have suffered a catastrophic transformation from a bucolic valley whose non-industrial economy is based upon the arts, education, real estate and the tourism that feeds off those — into a massive, de facto industrialized transshipping zone more akin to Bakersfield and San Bernardino than to the Shangri La on which our economy depends. Massive industrial trucking would have also contributed to the erosion of our property values and the ensuing overall economic calamity would have been an unmitigated disaster.

The Ojai City Council has helped with support of the Coalition’s legal expenses in order to help protect the very economic base that would have otherwise been threatened.

That’s also why the Ojai Chamber of Commerce is represented on the Coalition’s Executive Committee and why the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa and many generous individuals throughout the valley have also made significant contributions to the Coalition’s efforts.

The Ojai Unified School District has also had a place on the Coalition’s Executive Committee because of the obvious safety issues arising from the threats of hundreds of industrial trucks each day traveling past Nordhoff High School when students are arriving and departing.

If our critics believe that business owner-operators can egregiously violate their CUPs without consequences, then they obviously favor the kind of de-regulation that would lead to endangerment and environmental ruin.

Even a Caltrans representative recently stated to me that the Ojai Quarry’s operations have so irresponsibly undercut the slope for so many years that the stability of Highway 33 continues to be threatened. The Quarry operator has already caused one massive rockslide into the North Fork of the Matilija River and Caltrans workers have been swarming all over Quarry property these past few months, at tax payers expense, attempting to shore-up the undercut slope and prevent yet another feared landslide.

If the Quarry is forced to close, the loss of jobs associated with such a closure will be due entirely to the utter contempt for following and abiding by rules and regulations and certainly not anything whatsoever to do with Ojai’s Stop the Trucks! Coalition.

Although we were initially gratified that our County Planning Division had recommended the Quarry’s CUP be revoked and the land reclaimed and restored, factions within County government may nevertheless believe that because insuring rock and aggregate supplies are more important than following State Law, they may now be considering a possible sweetheart deal to instead reward the Quarry for its numerous, egregious violations. That’s incomprehensible and unacceptable to the Coalition.

Remember… over a year ago – during the November/2010 County Planning Commission Hearing – it was confirmed that the Planning Division had found the Quarry to be in innumerable and egregious violations of its CUP. Some of those same violations have, in fact, recently led the State to over-ride the County and “delist” the Quarry.

Nevertheless – Planning Division Director Kim Prillhart has apparently negotiated a new “deal” with the Quarry since that hearing. And what’s happened since? The Quarry remains non-compliant, has threatened litigation against Ventura County, and it has continued to rack-up additional violations. As noted earlier, among the additional violations are that they have illegally operated their rock crusher again – the same piece of heavy equipment forbidden by the CUP to be on-site in the first place.

The possibility that Planning Director Prillhart may now have actually given the Quarry a green light to not only have the rock crusher on-site – but to also openly operate it – is patently outrageous considering that at that same November/2010 hearing – the Quarry’s attorney testified before the Planning Commission that the only reason the illegal equipment was at the Quarry in the first place was in order to be able to lease it out to a third party – disingenuously implying that there was never any intention of ever using this huge piece of industrial equipment – but simply renting it out! Following such testimony one has to certainly question both the judgment and reasoning behind why Planning Director Prillhart would ever offer such a generous reward following such an egregious CUP violator whose attorney blatantly lies before the Planning Commission.

Prillhart appears to be attempting to unilaterally override the Quarry’s CUP by giving it carte blanche to use the rock crusher – a noisy, polluting, huge piece of industrial equipment – without any Focused Environmental Impact Report analyzing its negative impacts of either severe noise effecting countless residential home owners and/or animal species who inhabit the area – or the effects to both air and water pollution from massive dust and particulate matter being dispersed into the air and water from its use thus causing that same pollution to enter the nearby Northfork of the Matilija River – a vital spawning ground for the endangered Steelhead Trout.

Does not Prillhart’s negotiations send a dangerously incorrect message to all businesses operating within our County: If you egregiously violate your CUP and lie before the Planning Commission you’re more likely to be rewarded instead of risking having your CUP revoked and your business ordered closed! Is there not something wrong with that picture?

The time has come for the Ventura County Planning Division to finally be far more sensitive, responsible and equitable towards Ojai by more thoroughly and broadly considering the genuine impacts upon the greater Ojai Valley resulting from industrial businesses or commercial developments whose operations – though perhaps even beyond and outside of the valley – could nevertheless exact a terrible and unacceptable economic, safety and/or environmental toll upon Ojai’s residents and the tourists visiting here.

Have the Ventura County Planning Division’s top management and executives forgotten about the following:

The Caltrans proposal to extend the Freeway right through the heart of the Ojai Valley;

The developer who wanted to build a new “city” of houses ringing Lake Casitas;

U.S. Gypsum’s desire to develop an open-pit phosphate mine in the Los Padres National Forest back country shipping truckloads by the hundreds through Ojai;

Homestake Mining Company’s plan to develop an open-pit uranium mine near White Ledge and Superior Ridge within the Lake Casitas watershed;

The developer who wanted to construct a combo “big-box” shopping center and dense condominiums adjacent to Nordhoff High School on what is today the Ojai Meadows Preserve;

The oil company who wanted approval for wildcat drilling and exploration on private land along Koenigstein Road in Upper Ojai;

That Petrochem’s Oil Refinery adjacent to Highway 33 would release tons of toxic carcinogens to drift-up into the Ojai Valley;

Or the desire by Waste Management to construct a super-regional landfill near the entrance to the Ojai Valley and adjacent housing tracts causing serious health and negative environmental consequences?

Ojai Valley citizens organized coalition-after-coalition to defeat every one of those ill-conceived projects!

Without their efforts, Ojai would be a shell of what it has managed to remain until today.

It’s time for the Ventura County government establishment to finally comprehend that the vast majority of Ojai’s residents do not favor having to suffer the negative environmental, safety, economic or health consequences from any projects that now — or any time in the future — are pending before them.

As noted above, the Stop the Trucks! Coalition is just the latest manifestation of Ojai’s efforts to protect and preserve what is quintessentially…. Ojai. And unless our Ventura County Planning Division finally “gets- it” – I’m afraid it won’t be the last.

That truth, and the fact that some fine citizens from throughout the valley have already established the growing Ojai Valley Defense Fund – are all worth our serious support. After all… haven’t all the efforts to protect and preserve this magnificent Ojai Valley so far been worthwhile and in the best tradition of America?

Until we get some reasoned respect and equity from the Ventura County Planning Division’s leadership, let’s continue the tradition of standing-up to those who would endanger the Ojai Valley and continue working to protect Ojai’s future for many generations to come.

Michael Shapiro – current Chair of Ojai’s Stop the Trucks! Coalition – has lived in Ojai for over 21-years where he’s served on the Board as 1st VP of the Ojai Land Conservancy; co-founder and Chair of the Dump Weldon Coalition; Co-Chair of the Board of the Oak Grove School; co-founder & Co-Chair of the Board of the Ojai Playwright’s Conference; Co-founder and VP of the Board of The Jewish Community of the Oak; served on the Advisory Council of the Tri-County Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Leadership Council of the national Southern Poverty Law Center. Active in local and County politics, he’s a frequent and outspoken critic of racism and environmental injustice.