Oak View

A fire burned one room in an Oak View home Tuesday afternoon, authorities said. The blaze was reported about 4:10 p.m. at 85 Chaparral Road, and was under control about 15 minutes later, a Ventura County fire dispatcher said. No injuries were reported and the cause of the blaze had not been determined.

Placing the blame where it belongs Re "Down the Capitol rabbit hole," Column, May 26 The headline for the column by Steve Lopez could not have been more apt. Instead of blaming the Legislature and the governor for not providing the funds needed to employ school nurses to help care for California's students, he blames the representatives of the teachers and classified staff for attempting to protect students from unlicensed medical...

Carol Ann Mann, a homemaker and Oak View resident, died at her home Sunday. She was 68. She was born Carol Ann Jones on Dec. 10, 1930, in Peoria, Ill. Her family moved to Los Angeles, where she graduated from Dorsey High School. On Oct. 7, 1947, she married Wallace Mann in Nevada. Before moving to Oak View in 1979, she lived in Mexico. Her son, Brian, an Oak View resident, said she loved to cook traditional Mexican meals and also liked gardening. He also said she was a strong-willed woman.

A 51-year-old Oak View man has been arrested on suspicion of sexually molesting a 12-year-old girl in the Ojai Valley, authorities said Friday. Garry Garner was arrested Thursday afternoon by Ventura County sheriff's deputies at his residence in the 11000 block of Puesta del Sol. He was later booked into county jail and remains in custody. Garner was booked on suspicion of committing two felonies, including lewd acts with a child and oral copulation with a victim under the age of 16.

After years of fighting gangs, drugs, and graffiti, residents of the Oak View neighborhood this weekend plan to celebrate their efforts at cleaning up the area. At Saturday's fifth annual Oak View Community Pride Day, residents and city officials will clean up trash and paint over graffiti. Afterward, there will be awards, food and music, said organizer Peggy Flanagan. "Things are really looking better," said Flanagan, a code enforcement officer.

Frances Martha Vork, a homemaker, died Monday in Ojai Valley Community Hospital's skilled nursing facility. She was 97. She was born July 2, 1902, in Sandstone, Minn., where she grew up. When she was about 21, she moved to Wheeler Hot Springs with her husband, Harold. Her husband was an outfitter, and she enjoyed riding horseback with him through the back country in Ojai. In 1926, the couple moved into a house in Oak View that he built on a hilltop above the Ventura River valley.

An Oak View woman and her boyfriend were accidentally shot and wounded early Thursday when she began playing with a gun and he tried to take it from her, authorities said. Tina Chrolla, 25, was in stable condition at Ojai Valley Hospital Thursday morning, a hospital spokeswoman said. Chrolla's boyfriend, Gary Lumsden, 23, was treated and released, officials said. Chrolla was sitting on a chair playing with a handgun at the couple's house on Mountain View Street about 3 a.m., said Dep.

Ventura County coroner's officials identified Monday a 39-year-old Ventura man who died after his motorcycle crashed into a car that crossed over the center line into oncoming traffic near Oak View. Stuart Wise, a mechanic, died from internal injuries that he sustained in Sunday's crash, said Deputy Coroner Dale Zentzis. On Sunday, Wise's motorcycle hit a car driven by William J.

Two juveniles and an adult started a brush fire Wednesday while setting off fireworks in the dry bed of the Ventura River in Oak View, authorities said. Ventura County firefighters doused the flames before the fire had burned more than half an acre, said Ventura County Sheriff's Lt. Michael Gullon. But officials had been concerned about the fire's potential to spread.

An Oak View restaurant developer won half his battle against paying $27,965 in smog fees Wednesday when the county slashed the required fee by more than half. Over objections from the city of Ojai, the county's Environmental Report Review Committee approved an environmental document for John Cuccia's application to build a spaghetti restaurant in Oak View. The revised document requires him to pay $12,082 to offset air pollution emissions from the restaurant's traffic.

Thanks so much for running Garry Trudeau's "In Memoriam" (Sunday Comics, May 30). Such a genuine public expression of respect for the lives lost in the highly questionable Iraq war has been sorely missing from the powers in charge. God bless all our troops, and allow those still alive to return from this misguided endeavor soon and safely. Dawn Rosalind Bill Hessell Oak View, Calif. Why is Trudeau's output carried in the comics when the majority of it is simply his personal political point of view?

One person was killed and two others injured when their truck veered off the southbound lanes of Highway 33 near Oak View and rolled several times, authorities said Saturday. Ronald Riley, 41, of Bakersfield was ejected from the vehicle in the accident, which occurred just north of Santa Ana Boulevard about 9:15 p.m. Friday, according to the California Highway Patrol. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Re "$1.2-Billion Downtown L.A. Project Draws Top Architects," Dec. 24: The new Walt Disney Concert Hall is Los Angeles' finest sculpture, and the surrounding gardens provide a contemplative viewpoint. Now the plans for an adjoining development could make Grand Avenue the focal point the city has always lacked. If the new area is done with the level of artistry that architect Frank Gehry displayed with Disney Hall, Los Angeles will be a more complete city, and very, very proud. Bill Mead Oak View, Calif.

"British Columbia's Gentle Cycle" [Aug. 24], your article about the Kettle Valley Railroad, brought back memories from 1957. I, as a newly married English immigrant to Canada, worked in the division engineer's office in the division headquarters in Penticton and traveled throughout the division. One of my duties took me to the many timber trestles spanning Myra Canyon and adjacent canyons during the summer of 1958. We were rebuilding the trestles, piece by piece, [so] that we did not interfere with the running of the trains -- a difficult and enjoyable job. In those days, before the environmental concerns, the heavy timbers that were replaced by the new timbers were just dropped into the canyons.

Re "The Golden State's Fool's Gold," Commentary, Sept. 8: Unlike most writers, Joan Didion's prose slips further and further into incoherence and cant the older she gets. Note the clear, unaffected sentences and ideas in her eighth-grade essay and compare them with the mushy musings she gives us "deep into adult life" (whatever that means). Didion seems to think that Californians are more riven with doubt about their state than residents of, say, New York, Florida or Oregon, which is patent nonsense.

An Oak View man accused of raping and drowning an Oxnard teenager two years ago pleaded not guilty Wednesday to murder charges that could bring a death sentence. Douglas Dworak, 37, is charged with forcible rape, murder and an allegation that he killed during the commission of a rape in the 2001 slaying of Crystal Hamilton, 18. The allegation allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty, although no decision has been reached on whether to do so.

A controversial proposal to build a spaghetti house at the top of Arnaz Grade on California 33 in Oak View faces public scrutiny today from Ojai Valley residents concerned about increased traffic and air pollution. The county Environmental Report Review Committee will hold a public hearing on the proposed family-style restaurant with an entrance on a high-accident section of California 33. The hearing begins at 1:30 p.m. in Room 344 of the county government's Hall of Administration.

Selling whirligigs isn't as easy as it used to be for Bill Swan. Since Swan stopped displaying in front of an antiques store along California 33 in Oak View, it's been a buyer's market for his wind-powered novelties. And advertising hasn't helped. "You can't get much sales just saying, 'whirligigs for sale,' " said Swan, who has posted a sign in his yard. "People say, 'What the hell is a whirligig?'

Sheriff's detectives have arrested a man in connection with the rape and drowning of an Oxnard woman, whose body was found on a beach south of Mussel Shoals in 2001. Douglas Edward Dworak, 37, of Oak View was being held in Ventura County Jail on suspicion of rape and murder in the death of 18-year-old Crystal Hamilton. Dworak's arrest Tuesday came after a two-year investigation and DNA testing by the sheriff's Major Crimes Unit and deputies in Ojai, said Sgt.

The article on Father Cormac Antram of the Navajo reservation ("The Holy Wind Talker," by Leo W. Banks, March 23) invites newfound hope that peace can be obtained between two very different cultures. Thank you for a great story. Karen J. Gendusie Oak View, Calif.