Breeze
Both April and I would like to thank you so much for the write up in your paper!! It was exciting to see April featured and we just wanted to let you know how much we appreciated it! Have a beautiful day!
Diana J. Davis (aka: “Dinah”), MBA
Livingston Memorial Visiting Nurse Association & Hospice
Ventura Breeze,
I read Amber Hanson’s interesting article on Graffiti. Of late, in some quarters, graffiti has risen to the level of art (Banksi, Basquiat, Haring), but there is no doubt about what covers the fences of Anacapa Middle school on Telegraph and S Mills Rds. The amount of commercial detritus on these fences is offensive to many who pass; it makes the neighborhood look cheap and run down.
I imagine the school gets some advertising revenue from the bill posters, but the image of the school and the city is terrible. I don’t have any idea of how to cure Barbara Boggio’s (Anacapa’s princial) budget woes but commercial graffiti and signs affixed to their chain link fence is visual pollution that is worse than much of the spray-painted graffiti Amber Hanson addresses.
John Deegan
Dear editor of the Breeze.
I checked online to see the agenda and minutes of the April 11th City Council meeting and found no minutes. Since the agenda makes clear that the City of Ventura is cutting the budget of the Ventura Avenue library more than half (as well as reducing Boys and Girls club funds) – and since the 30 day comment period starts when the meeting ends, I am surprised that the citizens are being denied access to this important information. I called the City Clerk on April 18th and was informed that they (clerk’s staff) are behind and it would be 6 weeks or more before the April 11 minutes would be available.
Please encourage your readers to notify the City Council that it is not ok to cut any library budget (no later than 5/5/16 or to come to the City Council meeting on May 9th). The City was wrong to close Wright library some years ago and now they want to force closure of the Avenue library by reducing that library budget by $80,000 while spending 1.8 million on east side parks. The Avenue library is one of very few resources for the poorest community in our city. It houses a bilingual book and DVD collection, provides homework assistance to all who come, adult literacy classes, ESL classes, computer classes for seniors, early childhood education experiences and is a HUB of our Ventura Avenue community partnering with the boys and girls clubs, the West Ventura schools and local businesses to provide invaluable resources that are otherwise unavailable to these citizens.
Rather than wonder around waiting to be pulled into gangs, the children of Ventura avenue neighborhoods have a wonderful library to spend time at learning to be creative, imaginative and literate.
Liz Campos
Ventura Ave neighborhood resident
Hi Gail and Sheldon:
I want to thank you for the lovely article in the Breeze. I believe our Therapeutic Visitation Center model will become statewide, perhaps country wide, model for preserving families. We have tracking our families that do indeed reunifying and the results have been nothing short of spectacular. A couple of other counties have already made a visit. Kids & Families Together works with the hardest of families and I’m especially proud of our staff.
Being a not-for-profit that primarily works with county contracts can be very challenging as they can only pay for reimbursable expenses – and there are so many expenses that are not reimbursable. Anytime I can get the Kids & Families Together name out in the public is very much appreciated.
See you both around!
David Friedlander
President/CEO
Kids & Families Together
Dear Sheldon:
What a beautiful cover on the edition of the Ventura Breeze in honor of the City’s 150th Birthday! I will read it from cover to cover, and not just to look for the few “April Fools” articles (which I think I already found one in the “Mailboxes” – however, if you substitute “dog poo” for “Horse poo”, it just might not be that outdated!! ;-).
And thank you, thank you, more than mere words can convey, for the beautiful and extra special write-up for our Parkinson’s Support Group honoring PD Awareness month!
Yours Truly,
Patty Jenkins
Hey Sheldon:
Appreciated the article “City Center Brings Awareness To Domestic Violence.”
The article could have included a paragraph to acknowledge the churches in the area that sponsor rooms and volunteers. Churches are often criticized for only providing benefits for their members. They get very little publicity for their Community Involvement. Some of them have sponsored rooms since Harbor Community Church initiated that service to the homeless some years ago.
Thanks in advance for setting the record straight.
Roy Wilhelm
Be the person that your dog thinks you are.
~ Scamp (I stole it)
