Ventura County Star Letters To The Editor

Ventura County Star Letters To The Editor – I am an energy worker in Ventura County, and I will vote no on Measures A and B, which will cost our local economy and workers like myself economic opportunities. Our energy production infrastructure is already strictly regulated.

Measures A and B are nothing more than a power grab for the Board of Supervisors to stop local production. The power to shut down existing energy production in the county will hurt average consumers and workers like myself with families to support, all under the guise of environmentalism.

Ventura County Star Letters To The Editor

Energy prices are already high — we should try to insulate the residents of Ventura County from the already volatile energy economy caused by international events. Vote no on A and B.

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Bernardo Perez and I met doing the point and time calculation for the local homeless population in Simi Valley. At no point did he mention to me that he was running for office, but what he did do was show incredible empathy for the homeless population in Ventura County and a seriousness about helping to be part of the solution.

Every time I meet him I let him know he won my vote and I encourage you to watch him too because I assure you he will win yours. Donate, support and most of all vote for this incredible official who is running for Fourth District County Supervisor.

Primary Election Day was held on May 24 in a host of states, including Texas. On the same day, more than a dozen innocent young children were slaughtered there while attending school. This being Texas, Republicans will overwhelmingly receive strong support from the voters, while also offering “thoughts and prayers” to the families of the children as they grieve.

Once elected, these same Republicans will do absolutely nothing to stem the tide of gun violence tearing at the fabric of our once great nation. Republicans in Texas just passed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. Presumably because all lives are precious from the time of conception. Really? If you won’t even try to protect young children from slaughter while you sit in school, how valuable are their lives to you? Sounds like some serious Texas bull to me.

In The News

All the illegally placed campaign signs placed by the Deputy Sheriff’s Union do not negate the superior experience and leadership of Sheriff Bill Ayub. Sheriff Ayub is by far the most qualified individual for the office of sheriff.

Money is no substitute for experience and union support is not leadership. Bill Ayub has proven that he has the experience to do the job. Sheriff Bill Ayub’s first day on the job was the day after the Borderline mass shooting and the start of the Thomas Fire. Ventura County didn’t notice a gap in the leadership of the Sheriff’s Office because there wasn’t one. Sheriff Ayub hit the ground running because he was experienced and prepared.

Ventura County is one of the safest communities in the nation despite the crime-ridden, homeless-overflowing county to our immediate south. There is a reason we are safe here. It is because of strong public safety policies put forward by our leaders.

To register in California, one of the most liberal states, the requirements are more than adequate: your California driver’s license or California identification card number; the last four digits of your social security number; and your date of birth.

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Your information will be provided to the California Department of Motor Vehicles to retrieve a copy of your DMV signature. The statement by many that one does not need to show their ID to register is patently false, as evidenced by the above information from the CA.gov website. It is absurd that after believing in the integrity of our elections for 200 years it is now being questioned.

When we voted, we have to identify ourselves and the address where we are registered to live, and we sign the ballot, so the signature verification with the DMV. The voter registration list is regularly purged of the deceased and those who have moved, so the claim of “dead people voting en masse” is a lie.

Anyone who says our electoral system needs fixing is not interested in electoral integrity, but rather in electoral party, i.e., their side winning at all costs. All concerned citizens should pay close attention to the election of county officials because they have the authority to reject your ballots. The danger of a party member in that position changing the course of an election and canceling the votes of citizens is real.

Our democracy is at risk from an enemy within, consisting of the far right, white supremacists and fundamentalists who wish to turn the clock back to pre-civil war ideologies. The claim of voter fraud is fraud.

News — Claudia Bill De La Peña For Supervisor ’22

What other industry would we allow to operate under regulations from seven decades ago? We should have local control over these types of extractive industries. Measures A & B will not shut down the local oil industry, it will bring their procedures into the 21st century.

Big Oil and their minions contributed over $8 million to buy your vote. They expect to get this money back by avoiding their fair share of mitigating the impact their industry has on our environment. If things are financially desperate for them, they will declare bankruptcy, leaving us with the full costs of cleaning up their drilling pads, removing pumping and distribution infrastructure, capping wells, and ensuring the integrity of the well casings for centuries. If you see big signs on farms advocating a “no” vote, look around. Do you see oil processing facilities or pumpjacks? That landowner, typically a farmer, receives a royalty for his mineral rights.

The potential for the contamination of our groundwater basins tells us that it will be much easier and much less expensive if we make sure that there is no possible way that wells would get locked up in this country of fractured and loaded geology. The improved drilling techniques that pump high-pressure steam, acids, chemicals and vast amounts of water into oil-bearing strata are recipes for disaster. Measures A & B return us to having local control to ensure our groundwater and that surface water is forever free of the pollutants generated by the extraction of hydrocarbons.

Mr. Beil, a retired CalGEM official, suggested that the oil industry is already adequately regulated and Measures A and B are not necessary. Ironically, on the day his letter was published in The Star, an article appeared in the L.A. Times discussing how inactive oil wells located 400 feet from residences in northeast Bakersfield were found to have major methane leaks. The leaks were not discovered by CalGEM or other regulators, but by an environmental researcher walking in the oil field. He heard a hissing sound coming from two wells covered with blue barrels.

Letter To The Editor — In Support Of Ventura County District Erik Nasarenko

According to a 2020 investigation by the Times, there are 35,000 inactive wells in California. The oil companies “have not set aside anywhere near enough money to make sure these drilling sites are cleaned up and safe.” Sunray Petroleum of Las Vegas, the owner of the above wells and many others in Kern County, filed for bankruptcy in 2011. CalGEM ordered 28 inactive wells restored, but Sunray Petroleum is appealing the order. It is extremely likely that similar leaking inactive oil wells exist in Ventura County. Apparently, you don’t have to fire a poor performing employee. You can advance them and thus avoid an unfair termination process. It appears that the county did this with Sevet Johnson, rewarding her terrible job performance by giving her the top position of County CEO.

For four years, Johnson was Director of VC Behavioral Health, which (according to the county website) “promotes hope, resilience and recovery by providing the highest quality prevention, intervention, treatment and support to persons with mental health and substance abuse problems.” This is total gaslighting. Our county has no viable programs, let alone any “highest quality” ones.

Almost no treatment options for mental health and substance abuse exist in this district. In Ventura, you see homeless mentally ill and/or drug addicts everywhere. Where are the medical beds for these people? The police almost never take them because there is nowhere to take them but jail. The district, under Johnson’s direction, has done almost nothing to change this.

The California Hospital Association and medical consensus determined that counties need 50 inpatient psychiatric beds per 100,000 population (approximate VC population 850,000).

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When Johnson started, the district had 30 public inpatient beds for the mentally ill and zero for drug addicts. Today we have a whopping 36 staffed beds for mental illness and still no beds for drug addicts. The county has about 1,700 mentally ill homeless individuals and probably hundreds more mentally ill in our families who cannot get treatment.

Johnson has completely failed to address mental illness and substance abuse in this district. Johnson and the county also mocked mental health advocates who dared to point out the lack of beds.

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