This Week in Conejo Valley Politics, April 5, 2009

They have common ground after all. Congresspersons Lois Capps and Elton Gallegly each received an award by the Humane Society for writing legislation that protects animals. Protection of human life was obvious excepted, as Gallegly has been a strong supporter of continuing the Iraq war.

The Do It Center was victorious in its campaign to squelch legitimate competition. On Wednesday, supporters of the failed Measure B  successfully lobbied the Thousand Oaks City Council to forbid Home Depot from building a store in the city. Free enterprise be damned.

During his state senate campaign last year, Tony Strickland weakly claimed to be an alternative energy executive, although he admits in papers filed last month that his income from his putative company, Green Wave Energy Solutions, was between $0 and  $499 last year. Could it be that Green Wave was just an expedient way to ride the clean energy wave without doing anything substantive?

Justice takes a holiday. The man who killed a jogger in Thousand Oaks last summer was sentenced to only six years in prison and financial restitution. Six years? That’s four less than the maximum, which itself is insufficient.

Plastic bags are bad for the environment, so the city of Moorpark wants to ban them. It will not because it fears being sued. The cost, too, is high. Then there’s the plastics industry. The environment usually loses out to industry.

California beware: climate change is real in the state and it is worse than expected. Higher temperatures, loss of agriculture revenue, greater electricity use, and worse, says the state’s Climate Action Team. Let’s hope Republicans take the team’s report to heart.

Governor Schwarzenegger appointed an independent auditor to oversee the $50 billion  California will likely receive from President Obama’s stimulus package.  Well done, both of you.

A man in New York walks into a building with two guns and a lot of ammunition. He kills 13 people there before killing himself. Sound familiar? It should. It’s the fifth such massacre this month. And yet the NRA opposes restrictions on gun ownership. Enough already.

Republican religious extremists were further marginalized this week by an Iowa Supreme Court decision that struck down as unconstitutional a law banning gay marriage. As Iowa goes, so goes the nation.

This Week in Conejo Valley Politics, March 29, 2009

It was wrong of you to fire Geoff Dean, said the Civil Service Commission to Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks. The sheriff fired Dean for preparing to run for Brooks’s office when Brooks retires in 2010. Dean gets back pay and is the apparent frontrunner in the race.

There is a special election on May 19. It’s about the California budget. Most people don’t like the ballot measures and will vote against them according to a recent poll. This will disappoint the governor.

Californians are not happy: 77% said the state was headed in the wrong direction, 80% disapprove of the legislature’s performance, and 57% disapprove of Governor Schwarzenegger’s performance. Perhaps this is why 81% of people support Proposition 1F, limiting legislative pay during deficits. It’s the economy, stupid.

In a completely unrelated story, Governor Schwarzenegger said he would not run for political office again, since the Constitution forbids foreign-born presidents. Republicans were relieved.

Most drugs sold in Ventura County come from Mexico, say law enforcement officials. Perhaps Rush Limbaugh should buy a sombrero and move south, closer to his suppliers.

The Ventura County Supervisors graciously voted to accept $2.7 million of Barack Obama’s stimulus money this week. It will be used to buy up houses that have been foreclosed and sitting empty. They will be sold to lower-income and middle-class people. Thanks for help Ventura County, Mr. President.

Stimulus money might save police and firefighter jobs in Ventura, but only if they are still around. The Ventura City Council voted to use reserve funds to keep the officers and firefighters employed. Mayor Christy Weir, pinching pennies, voted against it.

Evangelical apocalypse enthusiasts infiltrated the military and George W. Bush’s White House, said filmmaker Michael Wilson during a screening of his movie Silhouette City in Thousand Oaks. They don’t like gays and want to “reclaim the nation for Christ.”

This Week in Conejo Valley Politics, March 22, 2009

A Thousand Oaks group will submit a plan to the city council to revitalize Thousand Oaks Boulevard. If they can improve it to ugly from horrendously ugly, that will be a marked improvement.

A made-for-TV movie is being filmed at California Lutheran University. Officials would not comment on how bad the movie was likely to be or how seriously it would damage the university’s reputation.

Newt Gingrich screened his new propaganda film about Ronald Reagan at the former president’s library in Simi Valley. Starry-eyed Republicans glossed over Iran-Contra and massive Reagan budget deficits.

The Conejo Valley Unified School District is a model for dropout prevention, says the State Attendance Review Board. Time, then, to cut funding, says the state.

Protesters in pink waved placards in front of Thousand Oaks High School condemning the budget cuts that caused 860 educators to lose their jobs in Ventura County. Republican legislators were unmoved.

Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks will decide this summer whether he is retiring. He might be replaced by front-runner Geoff Dean, not the sheriff’s first choice.

The unemployment rate in Ventura County was 9.2% in February. It feels much worse. Everyone knows someone who is out of work.

This Week in Conejo Valley Politics, March 13, 2009

Police, not pork. Congressman Elton Gallegly voted against it, but Ventura County law enforcement agencies will be getting more than a million dollars from President Obama’s stimulus package.

Meanwhile, in a forceful response to the worst economic climate since the Great Depression, Rep. Gallegly sponsored a bill to create a commission to honor the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan.

Republican flip-flop. California State Senator Tony Strickland admitted to poor judgment in paying his wife with campaign contributions. He now wants to make the practice illegal–a misdemeanor.

Local nerds completely misunderstood the significance of the Magna Carta this weekend by dressing up like medieval knights and princesses at the Reagan Library, where the document is currently displayed.

Thousand Oaks is running out of money. Proving that that McMansions aren’t selling like they used to, the city will ask 20 employees to retire early.

San Francisco is screwed. Sea level will rise will cause about $100 billion in damage by the end of the century, according to the Pacific Institute. Most of this will be around the gay bay. Republicans will 
claim that this is the will of God.

Religion no longer dictates federally funded science. President Obama signed legislation this week allowing the use of stem-cell lines forbidden by the Bush administration.

Obama signed a $480 billion spending bill to keep the government going until September. It contained earmarks. Republicans publicly claim to oppose these, but are happy to insert their own earmarks, not vote for them, then brag about their ability to get the money. See, for example, Elton Gallegly.

George Wallace’s daughter joined an event commemorating the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, 44 years ago. The late governor, who ordered the beatings of the original marchers, would not have been happy.

Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, hastily prepared to be consigned to the dust bin of history this week. He kicked humanitarian groups out of the country after a warrant was issued for his arrest for war crimes.

Faits-Divers, March 6, 2009

In western Europe, fait-divers, roughly translated as “various events,” are a cultural tradition. They are short snippets of news, crime, accidents, and strange occurences that appear in newspapers. Luc Sante recently published a book titled Novels in Three Lines, which collects  faits-divers written by Felix Feneon in 1906. My enthusiasm for this book has led to the idea of creating a fait-divers for the Conejo Valley, to appear once per week. These faits-divers, although written by me, are culled from various news sources. They are devoted to events, mostly local but some national and international, that merit brief attention. I will concentrate more on news and neglected, though important, corners of the news than on the crime and weird news that already pervade the papers and the web. I hope they amuse you.
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Congressman Elton Gallegly loves animals, but not PETA. His dog, a poodle, will not eat without him.

Unemployment climbed to 9.1% in Ventura County in January. It is expected to get worse.

The supreme court of California considered whether Proposition 8 bans gay marriage in the state. It does, says Kenneth Starr, dean of Pepperdine Law School. A majority cannot tyrannize a minority, says activists.

Protesters for and against Proposition 8 demonstrated in Thousand Oaks and Ventura. Republicans asserted that God does not want gays to wed. God, oddly, was silent.

General Electric and General Motors, stanchions of American capitalism, are in trouble. Their stock prices have tumbled. The latter will seek more billions from the federal government to produce cars nobody wants.

Mohandas Gandhi’s possessions caused anger between the Indian government, the seller, and the auction house. The government, through no fault of its own, won out.

Iran is unsupportive of Mickey Rourke’s attempt to resurrect his career. It demanded an apology for The Wrestler. None was forthcoming.