The World According to Larry.

This is my home, and I am doing something about it. I regularly pick up trash when I see it when I am out for walks and on my bike. I care deeply for the preservation of the natural beauty of Ojai.

Just after moving to Ojai in 2017, my wife and I were forced to evacuate our home: to decide what to bring and what to leave behind, and the anxiety of not knowing the condition of our beloved town. This was our first fire and it is indelibly burned into our memory. I will never forget the relief of arriving home, smoke damage and all. Quickly followed by the realization that many came back to ashes.

That’s why I am so deeply concerned about fire resilience, ember screens, infrastructure maintenance, and maintaining the quality of life for those who live within the City of Ojai. I want to make sure that we all have a home to come back to.

I don’t support overregulation and requirements that have increased the cost of housing in California and Ojai significantly.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had more residences for the middle class that are being squeezed at the top, when the only housing being built right now is for lower income? We all have single friends or older couples living alone in big homes who would love to downsize and stay in Ojai. Where can they go that’s smaller, with management and maintenance?

The upside is Ojaians get to stay here, and new families move in.

I don’t support spending on projects that can’t provide metrics of effectiveness, bridges that take almost 10 years to repair, or a city that can’t follow procurement requirements. I don’t support overspending and locking us into commitments that force tax increases or skimming the reserves below 100%. In fact we should increase our reserves.

Our financial commitments seem to be growing faster than our expected income, even if taxes go up. If we keep spending like this, the only other way to pay the bills will be building more hotels, since they generate the most tax revenue. But more hotels just mean more traffic and more congestion. We shouldn’t be spending ourselves into a corner where our only choices are higher taxes or more traffic.

While this isn’t in the scope of the work of city council, this is an issue forefront to our citizens.

The state of California and the City of Ojai have policies and regulations in place regarding immigration enforcement, and I support those laws and requirements. I don’t support any funding cuts from any source that affect the City of Ojai and its residents.

I would try not to get involved in issues outside of the City of Ojai that we cannot impact at City Council, other than being on a supportive list to satisfy a few while creating division and a distraction within the community.

You have your priorities and I have mine for those within the City limits. We need people on the City Council who are focused 100% on Ojai.

If there are procedures and policies to follow, then you follow them, like procurement. The processes are there for a reason, not as something to work around or ignore.

We have a city manager, lawyers, department heads, and staff that know the processes, and I expect them to ensure that we and they follow them.

Many of the ordinances need to have automatic review dates or a sunset provision built in, rather than having to be voted on to be reviewed. The problems arise when an ordinance never gets a chance to be reviewed, based on a lack of political will rather than commonsense or fairness.

I want a continual review of ordinances to make them less ambiguous for the public. You should not be getting two opinions at the building department for the same ordinance with the same set of facts. That is unacceptable to everyone.

If someone comes before the City Council with knowledge and experience that can help Ojai, such as a resident who spent a career in finance, then we need to take advantage of their assistance.

It is almost impossible for our small staff to do what is required of them in a timely and fiscal manner without AI. I would want them to use AI for reviews of ordinances and other documents: the pros and cons, the conflicts, and the errors, with the goal of making them more effective and unambiguous.

It would come with training first. You do not ask people to use a tool like this without teaching them how it works and where it gets things wrong. Nothing would become final without human staff review and approval.