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Four Ferguson Case Orr Paterson LLP attorneys on Rising Stars list of 2016 Super Lawyers

Four attorneys with Ferguson Case Orr Paterson LLP have been named to the Rising Stars list of Super Lawyers for 2016. This is a repeat honor for partners Bret Anderson, Jesse Cahill and Douglas Goldwater, and the first recognition for Kymberley Peck, an associate with Ventura County’s largest law firm.

The Rising Stars list includes fewer than 2.5 percent of the lawyers in the Southern California Region who are 40 years old or younger, or who have been in practice for 10 years or less.

“Each of the attorneys named to the 2016 Rising Star list continually seeks opportunities for growth in their profession so that they can continue making significant contributions to our clients and our firm,” said FCOP managing partner Michael Velthoen.

 

Betsy Blanchard Chess selected as Director of Fund Development

Betsy has worked with numerous arts organizations including the Rubicon Theatre.

The Museum of Ventura County is pleased to announce the hiring of Betsy Blanchard Chess as its new Director of Development. Ms. Chess will help lead the organization in its efforts to sustain its two locations-the second site being the Museum of Ventura Agriculture Museum in Santa Paula-and to build an endowment.

Betsy attended high school in La Jolla and did both graduate and postgraduate work at the University of Southern California, earning a Masters of Arts degree in Modern European History.

In 1988 she became editor and publisher of The Broadcaster Magazine for the Farm Bureau of Ventura County. She retired from the magazine in 2013.

In 1994, she briefly served in a professional capacity as Executive Director for the Ventura County Symphony . She returned to the board as a volunteer and helped to oversee the birth of the New West Symphony in 1995. In 1998 she was hired as Executive Director of New West, a position she held until 2002.

In 2002, Betsy was named president of the San Buenaventura Foundation for the Arts where she worked to realize the Foundation’s dream of building the Cultural Arts Center in Ventura.She was chairman of the Arts Showcase for the Ventura Unified School District in 2005. She also serves on the board of advisors for Women’s Economic Ventures and the Board of Advisors for New West Symphony.  She is a member of Ventura Rotary of which she will be president July 1, 2016- June 30, 2017.

Ventura Interface Ministerial Association as a 2005 Woman of Vision, three times by the Ventura Rotary Club with Paul Harris Fellowships and by the Ventura County Arts Council with their first ever Arts Stars Award for her work in arts education. In 2011 She was named to the Cultural Affairs Commission of the City of Ventura. In 2012, Women’s Economic Ventures of Ventura, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties named Betsy one of five business trailblazers. The Association of Fundraising Professionals named her Volunteer of the Year for Ventura County in 2014.

 

Ventura Police Department’s newest K9 Teams, Officer Keith Therrien and K9 Falco, will be introduced at Ventura Baptist Church Mar. 13

One of Ventura Police Department’s newest K9 Teams, Officer Keith Therrien and K9 Falco, will be introduced at Ventura Baptist Church on March 13 at 9:30 a.m. Falco was purchased from a donation by Ventura Baptist Church. Falco is a two and half year old all black German Shepard from Germany. His full name is Falco Von Pentavita. Falco came to the United States on January 11th and started his training to become a police service dog that same day. Falco graduated the Inglis Police Dog Academy on February 18 and began protecting the citizens of Ventura February 19th.

 

The Ventura Police Department has four K9 teams. All are assigned to the Patrol Unit so that a team is on-duty seven days a week, providing around the clock service to the community. All of our canines are German Shepherds and they live at home with their handler/officer and their families. We use our K9 teams for a variety of public safety assignments. The two most frequent uses are to locate fleeing suspects and to find illegal drugs. Canines can search an entire warehouse, for example, in much less time than a team of officers could perform the same job. Canines can sniff out hidden suspects thereby making them more effective in this situation than their human counterparts. Using K9 teams allows the department to perform a variety of dangerous tasks in a quick and more effective manner.

 

Our department, along with other law enforcement agencies from Santa Barbara and Ventura County, train weekly with Dave Inglis, one of the foremost K9 trainers in the United States. Weekly training sessions focus on tasks such as searching, apprehension, drug detection, obedience, agility and confined searches.

 

The National Police Dog Foundation, founded by Dave and Debbie Inglis, has assisted in the purchase of all of our canines (past and present). Donations made by Ventura Baptist Church were provided to the Foundation for the purchase of Falco. If you are looking to give to your local church may want to consider mobile giving as one way of doing so. The Foundation seeks donations from the community and uses the money to purchase and train police dogs for law enforcement agencies throughout Ventura County. The donation of a trained police dog and handler is a tremendous benefit to our Department and to the community. On average the cost for a canine is $12,000, with an additional $8,000-$10,000 for training and certification, no tax payer dollars are used for the effort. All of the training is provided through the generosity of donations to the Foundation.

Cal Poly students from Ventura honored

Rachel SantaOlalla and Tanner Shelton make Ventura proud.

Twenty-one Cal Poly students were recognized for their awards and other accomplishments by state lawmakers on the floors of the Assembly and Senate in Sacramento on Monday, Feb. 1.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Monning, D-Carmel, whose district also includes the university, introduced the students to his colleagues. “I am proud to welcome to the state Senate some of Cal Poly’s most talented students,” Sen. Monning said.

Each has distinguished him or herself as an individual or on a team that has received a national industry award or on such high-profile events as the Tournament of Roses Parade, with its TV audience of 100 million, and the team that raised $600,000 for a net zero solar home that was judged third best in the nation.

Venturan Rachel SantaOlalla is a landscape architecture major in the College of Architecture and Environmental Design. She is a 2007 graduate of Ventura High School.

Being on this tour is a rare and special opportunity that I’m enthusiastic about,” SantaOlalla said. “I think it’s a progressive move to have New Age thinking start a conversation with lawmakers. Being selected as a representative of Cal Poly landscape architecture means I have a role in advocating for the landscape architecture industry. I see this as a platform for exchanging ideas, including the types of project that I and my peers from this generation would like to accomplish.”

Tanner Shelton is a city and regional planning major in the College of Architecture and Environmental Design. He is also a graduate of Ventura High School in 2012.

“I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to represent the university and the many accomplishments of our students and faculty,” Shelton said. “I think the success of the people in this delegation and all across our student body is directly attributable to Cal Poly’s focus on Learn by Doing and the university’s student-oriented approach to higher education.”

 

Public invited to Ventura 150th “City Hall Open House” on Friday, March 11

Community members of all ages are invited to visit Ventura City Hall, located at 501 Poli Street, for a fun afternoon learning about local government during an Open House celebrating Ventura’s 150th anniversary of cityhood.  The free event will be held Friday, March 11, from 1 to 4 pm.

Art and historic tours, music, refreshments, displays, open offices and a mock City Council meeting conducted by VUSD fifth grade school children are all highlights of the afternoon.

FOYER – Meet your guide Glenda Jackson at 1:15 and 3 pm in the first floor Foyer for a tour of the historic building with fascinating stories about its landmark architecture and role as the former county courthouse. At 2:30 pm Community Partnerships Manager Denise Sindelar will guide you through the building’s nationally prominent Municipal Art Collection – a permanent showcase of the county’s finest artists.

ATRIUM – Enjoy live music, refreshments and displays by the Ventura Water, Police and Community Development departments in the first floor Atrium from 1 to 4 pm.

COUNCIL CHAMBERS – Don’t miss the mock City Council Meeting conducted by Ventura Unified School District fifth grade school children at 2 pm in the majestic second floor Council Chambers, once the county’s superior court.

COMMUNITY MEETING ROOM – Explore a century of dramatic historic photos of city history in this former courtroom on the second floor from 1 to 4 pm.

SANTA CRUZ CONFERENCE ROOM – View a 20-minute film celebrating the first century of City Hall in the smallest former courtroom on the second floor 1 to 4 pm.

CITY MANAGER, CITY CLERK & HUMAN RESOURCES OFFICES – Meet city officials and explore the offices of government leaders during the open house from 1 to 4 pm.

CITY HALL EAST BACK PARKING LOT – Visit “touch a truck” displays behind the building from Ventura Police, Fire, Public Works and Ventura Water from 1 to 4 pm.

Experience 1840s California at free Olivas’ RANCHO DAYS on March 13

Find out what life was like on a California Rancho over 170 years ago during the “Rancho Days Celebration” on Sunday, March 13, from 11 am to 3 pm at the historic Olivas Adobe, 4200 Olivas Park Drive, near Ventura Harbor.

Step back in time to experience Ventura’s Western heritage-Chumash, Mexican and Cowboy-at California’s only remaining Monterey Style adobe built in the 1840s by a Mexican family on the 4,694-acre cattle-and-crop land grant Rancho San Miguel.

Enjoy great period entertainment and try your hand at a dozen engaging and educational activities for the whole family with Rancho-era workshops led by outreach staff, volunteer experts and heritage services organizations including the Ventura County Hand Weavers & Spinning Guild, Olivas Adobe Historical Interpreters and Channel Islands Woodcarvers.

Make adobe bricks. Grind corn and grill tortillas. Pan for gold. Rope a steer. Try beading, birding and animal tracking. Craft some Mexican paper flowers. Learn more about the Chumash natural and spiritual worlds, the adobe’s barrel organ, Gene West wooden toys, laundry days and Thaumatropes and old gadget guessing games plus watch antique gun demonstrations, tour the historic adobe with costumed docents abd visit the Mexican food truck onsite to purchase authentic refreshments.

ENTERTAINMENT LINEUP

11-12              Mariachi Aguilas de Oxnard

12:05-12:25   Ballet Folklorico de Bell Arts – repeats 1:05-1:20

12:30-1           Professor Tinker’s Magical Medicine Show – repeats 1:25-1:50

2:10-3             California State Old time Fiddlers – Range Riders

The Rancho Days Celebration is an all-free event in celebration of the City of Ventura’s150th anniversary of cityhood thanks to the sponsorship of Olivas family descendants Bill and Elise Kearney.

Ventura College Hosts First District-Wide Distance Education Summit

Dean of Distance Education Gwendolyn Lewis Huddleston and Chancellor Bernard Luskin hosts summit

Ventura College recently hosted its first district-wide Distance Education Summit on campus at the new Applied Science Center to discuss the future of Distance Education throughout the district and statewide.  Chancellor Bernard Luskin and Ventura College President Greg Gillespie joined Dean of Distance Education Gwendolyn Lewis Huddleston, Moorpark, Oxnard and Ventura College administrators and faculty from across Ventura County in a discussion on the future of Distance Education.

“Ventura College is pleased to be one of eight pilot colleges participating in the statewide California Community Colleges Online Education Initiative (OEI), a collaboration to increase student access to high-quality online courses to ensure that more students are able to complete their educational goals,” explained Board Chair Larry Kennedy.  Through a common course management system, students will be able to take classes at any of the colleges in the exchange using a system of reciprocity.

Distance Education has come a long way from the days of correspondence classes.  Luskin, who supports this effort wholeheartedly, has been a pioneer in distance education throughout his career.

“Moving distance education into the mainstream of our offerings increases access and opportunity for students in our county,” said Luskin.  “Having Ventura College as one of the eight pilot colleges leading the statewide initiative is a testament to the leadership of Dean Huddleston and her colleagues.”

 

United Blood Services Announces First New Blood Mobile in Twenty Years!

The familiar sight at local mobile blood drives is sure to please donors and staff alike.

Ventura & Santa Barbara – United Blood Services has upgraded it’s “blood mobile”, a familiar sight in the area, with a brand new unit. The new blood mobile was especially built and configured to United Blood Services specifications and is designed for the lifesaving work they do every day. It has a very specialized lay-out and specific technical equipment to conduct even more efficient blood drives than the older unit. The space was designed for optimal blood donor use and low physical effort for donors regardless of donor size or posture.

United Blood Services new blood mobile will be out and about in the community effective immediately at blood drives being held at high schools, places of worship, businesses, special events and more! In fact, this new blood mobile will travel to 350+ community blood drives in 2016 to collect blood from United Blood Services fabulous volunteer blood donors.

Nearly, 60% of the blood collected in the Ventura & Santa Barbara area comes from community blood drives. Having this new state of the art blood mobile to hold blood drives in will become an even greater tool in having blood available to hospital patients when needed. Donors are encouraged to tour the bus at one of many blood drives happening in the area. Donors can make an appointment for an area blood drive by calling 877-827-4376 or by going online at www.Blood4Life.org and clicking on “Donate Blood” and typing in their zip code to find a list of drives nearby. Appointments are appreciated, but not necessary. Walk-ins are welcome, and will be honored. Much needed blood donations may also be made at our Ventura Center on 2223 Eastman Ave or our Santa Barbara Center on 4213 State Street.

Those who are age 16 and older, weigh at least 110 pounds and are in good health, can likely donate. Additional height and weight requirements apply for donors age 22 and younger. Donors who are age 16, will need a parent permission slip to donate (which can be obtained online at www.UnitedBloodServices.org).