The Conejo Valley Guide "Welcome" blog covers a wide range of topics, local information, highlights of local things to do, compilations and other items. Focus is on information relevant to Ventura County and surrounding areas, including Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, Newbury Park, Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Malibu, Simi Valley, Camarillo, Moorpark, Somis, Fillmore, Santa Paula, Ojai, Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Santa Barbara and Moorpark.
The Conejo Valley Guide® "Welcome" blog covers a wide range of topics, local information, local things to do, holiday event compilations, announcements and more.
L. David Irete submitted this shot of the "supermoon" staring down the western Conejo Valley open space and Edison power lines in Newbury Park this morning. Last night's (and this morning's) supermoon was the closest full moon to the Earth since January 26, 1948.
Mark your calendars for November 25, 2034. That's when astronomers indicate the next time we will have a supermoon this close to earth.
A sliver of good news on the tax front. Voters approved Proposition 30, The Schools and Local Public Safety Protection Act of 2012, in the November 6, 2012 statewide election. The measure was approved by a margin of 56% to 45%.
Proposition 30 mandated an increase in the statewide sales tax rate from 7.25% to 7.5% effective 1/1/13 through 12/31/16. along with a 7 year increase in marginal income tax rates for certain filers with incomes over $250,000.
Since we are quickly approaching the end of 2016, we have a .25% reduction in sales and use tax rates to look forward to in the new year.
This means that sales taxes in most of Ventura County, including Thousand Oaks, will drop from 7.5% to 7.25%, Rates in Oxnard and Port Hueneme will drop from 8% to 7.75%. Rates in Los Angeles County, including neighbors Agoura Hills and Westlake Village, will drop from 9% to 8.75%.
In a separate post, we noted that the cities of Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley ranked 4th and 5th in terms of lowest overall crime rates in the United States and 1st and 2nd in California based on 2015 FBI data. Kudos!
Here, based on the same Uniform Crime Reporting data for 2015 released by the FBI in September, we will take a closer look at large cities (defined as 100,000+ residents) with the lowest and highest violent crime rates in he country.
Violent crimes consist of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault whereas property crimes are categorized as non-violent reported instances of burglaries, thefts (including cars) and arson.
Top 25 lowest overall violent crime rates per 1,000 inhabitants in 2015; cities with population of 100,000 or more (Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Data)
As you can see above, while the City of Thousand Oaks has the 12th lowest violent crime rate among large cities of 1.05 incidents per 1,000 residents, the City's property crime rate is lower than most on this list. Simi Valley's rate of 1.36 incidents per 1,000 ranks it 26th out of close to 300 large cities.
The city of Cary, North Carolina, ranked as lowest on this list with .5 violent crimes per 1,000 residents in 2015, followed closely by another local perennially safe city, Irvine. Glendale ranks a very respectable 7th on this list.
Top 25 highest overall violent crime rates per 1,000 inhabitants in 2015; cities with population of 100,000 or more (Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Data)
No Ventura County area cities came anywhere close to the top 25 highest violent crime rate large cities in the U.S. This list was topped by the cities of St. Louis, Detroit, Birmingham, Memphis and Milwaukee, with violent crime rates ranging from 16 to 18 incidents per 1,000 residents in 2015.
Our neighbor, the City of Los Angeles, with its population of nearly 4 million, ranked 92nd on the list with 6.35 violent crimes per 1,000 residents.
Was a crime committed in your neighborhood? Check the Ventura County Sheriff's Department online crime maps.
In late September, the FBI released its annual Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) data for 2015. "Crime in the United States, 2015" compiles crime data from law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. The data includes violent crimes, consisting of murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault, and property crimes such as burglaries and thefts.
The overall U.S. violent crime rate grew 3.1% in 2015 as compared to 2014, with 3.73 incidents per 1,000 inhabitants. Overall property crimes declined 3.4%, at 24.87 incidents per 1,000 inhabitants in 2015.
Three years ago, the crime rates were 3.87 (violent crimes) and 28.59 (property crimes), indicating the rates have declined overall over the last three years.
We took a look at the data for approximately 300 cities in the U.S. with populations of 100,000 or more. The cities of Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley ranked 4th and 5th in the U.S. and 1st and 2nd in California for the lowest overall crime rates among large cities in 2015. Congratulations! The top 10 are shown in the table below:
Top 10 lowest overall crime rates per 1,000 inhabitants in 2015; cities with population of 100,000 or more (Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Data)
The cities of Oxnard and Ventura landed at 143 and 153 when ranked by lowest total crime rates.
Taking a look at solely violent crimes (murder, rape, robbery, assault), the list looks a bit different. Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley drop to 12th and 26th, respectively and other California cities - Irvine, Murrieta, Glendale and Temecula moved into the top 10.
Top 10 lowest violent crime rates per 1,000 inhabitants in 2015; cities with population of 100,000 or more (Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Data)
Let's take a look at other Ventura County cities of all sizes to see where they stand. Keep in mind that this does not include unincorporated communities of Ventura County like Oak Park, Casa Conejo, Lake Sherwood and others.
Overall crime rates per 1,000 inhabitants in Ventura County cities in 2015 (Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Data) (excludes unincorporated communities)
The cities of Ojai and Moorpark held the lowest overall crime rates among Ventura County cities in 2015.
Overall, in 2015 Ventura County residents had an average of 22.84 total crimes for every 1,000 residents, including 2.56 violent crimes (31% below the national average) and 20.28 property crimes (18% below the national average).
As a comparison, the City of Los Angeles, with nearly 4 million residents, had an overall crime rate of 29.94 total crimes per 1,000 residents, including 6.3 violent crimes. The highest overall crime rates among large cities in 2015 were: Salt Lake City, UT (101.86 crimes per 1,000 inhabitants), Springfield, MO (91.51), St. Louis, MO (81.33), Birmingham, AL (81.05) and Spokane, WA (80.31).
Other nearby cities' 2015 crime rates in the UCR data includes Calabasas (11.71 crimes per 1,000 residents), Agoura Hills (15.5) and Westlake Village (the L.A. County side, with 8,522 residents) with 23.59.
Overall, there are nearly 9,400 cities measured in the UCR. Of these, 214 cities had a total of zero reported crimes in 2015. The average population of these 214 cities was 870.
* The FBI cautions comparative use of this data for drawing conclusions by making direct comparisons between cities. Comparisons lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting communities and their residents. Keep this in mind when reviewing this data, which is summed up here for informational purposes only.
With the Presidential General Election coming up in less than two weeks, how about a quick summary of selected voting laws in the State of California for voters here in the Ventura County area. The following is a summary from the California Secretary of State's "Voting Law Compliance Handbook: A Voter's Guide to Safeguard California's Election Process" updated April 2016.
Making the time to vote: The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day. If you work a long shift and are unable to get to the polls to vote in a statewide election, California state law provides up to two hours of paid time off to vote. These hours must be at the beginning or end of your normal shift and you must give your employer two working days notice.
Rewards for voting: Can the local donut shop offer a free donut if you show them that you've voted in the Presidential Election? NO! Say what!? No free donut?? Nope. Federal law prohibits anything of value given in exchange for proof of voting if there is a federal office (e.g. President, U.S. House, U.S. Senate) on the ballot. In a state or local only election, the donut offering would be o.k., just as long as it wasn't given to bribe you to vote (or not vote) for a particular candidate or measure. Speaking of donuts, or doughnuts, as it were, the new Krispy Kreme in Oxnard opened last month.
Electioneering: It is illegal to promote a candidate or measure within 100 feet of a polling place. So if you see signs or other promotional materials in the parking lot at a polling place, that is illegal. And on a side note, California law makes it illegal to "photograph, video record, or otherwise record a voter entering or exiting a polling place." So you best not be selfie-ing at a crowded polling place.
Death and Voting: Hypothetically, let's just say my spouse passed away two weeks ago but I received her absentee ballot in the mail. I knew who she planned to vote for, so I turned in her ballot along with mine. This is o.k., right? WRONG! You cannot vote for your deceased spouse, nor anyone else that is deceased for that matter. That said, if your spouse had completed the ballot and signed the envelope before passing, that would a legitimate ballot, as the vote-by-mail voting period opens 29 days before the election.
Returning Vote by Mail Ballots (from the Ventura County Clerk/Recorder): If you mail your absentee ballot in, allow for seven days' delivery if you can; that said, the ballot must be postmarked by Election Day and received no later than November 14, 2016. Otherwise, you can return your ballot to any of the 10 City Clerk offices in Ventura County, to the Ventura County Government Center in Ventura or at the Thousand Oaks Library. Or, you can bring them to any polling place by 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Can I Watch? Yes, you can watch the entire process, from opening of the vote-by-mail ballot envelopes to the counting of ballots on election night, by law. But perhaps contact the Ventura County Clerk/Recorder first.
Use of State Seal: It is considered election fraud to use an official government seal in campaign literature. This should be reported to the Election Fraud Investigation Unit at 916.657.2166 or call the Ventura County Clerk/Recorder.
Paycheck Inserts: It is illegal in California to attempt to influence employees to vote for or against something by inserting something in your paycheck envelope.
These are just some of the elections laws in the State of California. For more complete information, visit www.sos.ca.gov/elections.
The four mile stretch of Highway 101 that connects the Conejo Valley with Pleasant Valley is the Conejo Grade. Originally constructed in 1915 with no less than 49 twists and turns, the Conejo Grade has been straightened and widened over the years to accommodate growing population needs.
The shot above was taken in 1957 by aerial photographer Walt Dibblee. You can clearly see remnants of prior iterations of the Conejo Grade from above. You also may notice the lack of, well, much of anything, at the top of the grade in Newbury Park.
Below is another shot, a bit closer up. As you can see, the Grade was not quite as wide in those days.
Thanks to Walt's son Steve Dibblee of VenturaViews.com.
We live in the Conejo Valley and like most folks, most of our grocery shopping is done at nearby stores...Albertsons, Trader Joe's, Costco, Ralphs, Sprouts, Smart & Final, and so on. But German grocery store ALDI opened in Simi Valley in June and we wanted to check it out.
ALDI is an abbreviation for Albrecht Diskont, or Albrecht Discount, named after founders Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946. You may already know that ALDI is the parent company to both the Trader Joe's chain (purchased in 1979) and the ALDI store chain. That said, this ALDI store looks and feels nothing like a Trader Joe's store (to me at least). ALDI is one of the world's largest privately-owned companies.
The Simi Valley ALDI store is located at 425 Cochran Street in Simi at the Plaza, next to PetSmart and Party City and sandwiched between nearby Walmart and Home Depot.
The first thing you'll notice is that you'll need a quarter as a deposit to get a shopping cart. Place the quarter in the slot and the cart is yours; the quarter will be returned when you return the cart. If you don't have a quarter handy, not to worry; the folks working at the store were happy to lend a quarter for a cart when I was there.
I found the store to be on the "spartan" side, to some degree like the Fresh & Easy stores that are long gone, but lighter and brighter and the shelves were not as high. To keep costs low, the chain does not carry anywhere near the number of items that a typical grocery store carries. This does seem to pay off in that pricing is quite low.
This particular visit I was not planning to do my complete grocery shopping, including refrigerated items, etc. This visit was mainly to acquire snacks for the household. The first aisle as you walk into the store has quite a large selection of items, most of which are ALDI brands. We enjoyed exploring the snacks and piled our cart with reasonably priced items.
As you can see in the image to the right, ALDI brands like Millville look quite a bit like well known brands. "Fruit Rounds" at only $1.19/box looks good to me. And "Crispy Oats" looks a bit like, ahem, Cheerios.
The snack and wine aisle. My favorite aisle.
As you can see above, the aisles are fairly wide and easy to navigate. We found a lot of great snacks and interesting items throughout the store, then went to pay.
ALDI does not provide paper or plastic bags, so do bring your own reusable bags or you can buy them at checkout. And when you check out, they do not bag your items for you. They scan the items off of the belt and place them back into your cart. From there, roll your cart a few feet away to the self-bagging area.
To learn more, visit www.aldi.us. The Simi Valley location is the only ALDI in Ventura County at this time. The next closest store is in Inglewood at 3330. W. Century Blvd. (about 6 miles from LAX).
Bag your items here and you're on your way.
Conejo Valley Guide covers events, activities and things to do throughout Ventura County and surrounding areas.
Conejo Valley Guide® covers thousands of events, activities and things to do throughout Ventura County, California and surrounding areas.
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