Social Justice, Spices, and the Party in My Kitchen at 2am

With some Ojai City Council meeting content as well. So let's call this one part XVI of that Series

Penzeys Care Gift Pack

First, Happy First New Moon of the New Year to you!

Intending that you receive health and happiness and prosperity and joy and satisfying creative adventures and so much more all year long. You deserve it simply because you exist.

Jon woke me out of a sound sleep early Monday morning to tell me the rats were having a popcorn party in the kitchen. There were three of them, stealing my unpopped kernels of rainbow-colored popcorn (my forever favorite snack, popped in olive oil with plenty of vegan butter and salt) and taking them up to the top shelf of our pantry and discoing down up there, completely ignoring the trap on the floor below baited with peanut butter and persimmons.

I’d finally caved and bought a lethal trap, one that zaps them when they enter to get the bait. I let them know I was resorting to this option due to them not politely leaving on their own as I had asked many times. “If you’d like to continue living, please stop invading our house,” was my final message to them as I set the trap on the floor just a couple of days before their party, a party we were not invited to in our own house. Ugh! The nerve!

“They ran right in front of me and under the dryer,” Jon said as he tried to rouse me on the very first night I needed to get a full night’s sleep in more than a couple of weeks as I was headed back to work in the morning. I mumbled something and fell back asleep to the sounds of him pulling the dryer out and stuffing steel wool in the area between the drywall and the gas line where they had chewed their way in. He duct-taped it all into place.

Monday night was blissfully quiet. Tuesday morning Jon cut a piece of wood and screwed it into the drywall with the steelwool still firmly in place. That night I was treated to the sound of gnawing on wood as they tried to get back in.

This morning just like yesterday morning the popcorn was safe. So, even though they are in the attic and the walls and our landlord won’t handle it, they are gone from our living area. Appartently the lethal trap worked, and it worked without me having to murder anyone.

Saturday morning I threw out all of our expired spices and the ones we hardly use. No food will be going onto the moving truck as will none of our furniture (except for the desk Jon built for his music studio) and maybe only half of our belongings.

While doing this, I got a prompt to call our friend Theresa in Chicago, whose building we are moving into. I followed it and got her voicemail making me think I had mis-intuited. She immediately texted me to let me know they had a family member in the ER and to please send Reiki.

I try to follow the prompts when I get them and let go of what I think I am doing once what I need to do reveals itself. A few months ago, in a mad dash, I ran to the computer store to buy an overpriced ethernet cable as I had convinced myself I needed it for better Zoom video. I even pulled a Tarot card on it which indicated to me that yes indeed I needed to go right at that moment. While there I spent fifteen minutes helping an aged and clearly-in-pain man walk to his car and get in while the dudes working at the store just watched.

I returned the cable the next day.

A high school bestie, Heather, came up from L.A. on Saturday with her husband, child, and doggie. She brought me a gift, fresh spices, arriving about an hour after I had thrown our old and tired ones out. The images at the top of this piece are from the spice box. Penzeys, it seems, has taken social justice and democracy seriously. Not only are these spice combos delicious, but the messaging is as well. The “Release the old to welcome in the new” message was also received. I don’t ever recall a turnaround happening as quickly as this one did.

Last week Max joked that the tent blown to the front of our house was the wind bringing us temporary shelter. I know I just said this on Monday, and yet am repeating it here due to our landlord giving us one more month in this house. Right on, Max! We’ll be here until May 1st, which was our move-in day in 2009 and also our move-in day on Oakley Street in Chicago twenty-one years ago. More on the Oaks in another piece at some point,

And finally, there was another showdown at City Hall on Tuesday. I was not there to witness it in person as the meeting started earlier than usual and I could not attend at that time due to work. I just finished watching the video of it on YouTube.

This is Part XVI of my continuing series on Ojai Politics. (If you’re just coming into this series, you can start here with Part I - Pluto Misogyny Showdown at City Hall)

It was a special meeting scheduled on the day a regular meeting would normally happen with the instruction that public comments would only be heard on the one agenda item which was the hiring of a new city manager. The council would be headed into a closed meeting forty-five minutes after the start of the public meeting to interview several top-tier applicants.

The conspiracy theories and complaining about Brown Act violations and taking away of free speech began on Facebook a few days before the meeting all fostered by those who hate our mayor. It’s exhausting and disingenuous as all of the hand-wringing is cover for a group of people who lost sorely over a year ago now in our small-town election. Sounds familiar, right?

The Ceasefire Now activists were there, approximately twenty-five of them were present and disrupted the meeting by standing in front of the dais as a group with the chant, “We the people, on behalf of Gaza demand you hear our public comment!”

Mayor Pro Tem Francina wanted to allow one member of the group to make a three-minute statement.

City Attorney Summers advised against this due to the illegality of breaking set protocol by allowing one group to speak without allowing any others to speak on any other issues. This would be discriminatory. So, it was either keep it to public comments only about the hiring of a city manager or open up to all public comments.

Mayor Stix reiterated why this special meeting had been called - we need a city manager and that they stick to the protocol laid out regarding public comment.

“We the people, on behalf of Gaza demand you hear our public comment!”

Councilmember Rule wanted to know about the scheduling of a special meeting instead of a regular meeting and why she had not been consulted, her tone suggesting that there was something nefarious going on, suggesting, as well, that this may be a Brown Act violation.

Attorney Summers then explained that the mayor along with his and the interim city manager’s advice scheduled this special meeting to hire a city manager. Special meetings can be scheduled in two ways, by a three-council member vote or by the mayor. She has sole discretion to do this as mayor, and it is perfectly legal.

“We the people, on behalf of Gaza demand you hear our public comment!”

Councilmember Whitman was in support of upholding the protocols already set in place regarding public comments for the special meeting.

“We the people, on behalf of Gaza demand you hear our public comment!”

“If you won’t listen to anybody else speak, why would we listen to you speak,” replied Whitman.

“We the people, on behalf of Gaza demand you hear our public comment!”

Councilmember Lang was in support of following the protocols as well as it would not be fair…………….

“We the people, on behalf of Gaza demand you hear our public comment!”

“I hear you,” she said. “It’s not fair for one person or one group of people to have a voice when the rest of the community knows this is a special meeting, and there aren’t other voices represented and so, I am going to stand by tha….

“We the people, on behalf of Gaza demand you hear our public comment!”

……………t”

Councilmember Rule was “still stuck on how we’re having a special meeting” and pushed back, taking more time at the mic than anyone else as she often does, framing it as “it looks bad and as if we did not want to hear from the Ceasefire Now group and the pickleball folks……………” feeding the negativity in the room.

The Mayor had already commented that the first full meeting of the city council would be on Tuesday, January 23rd, and would have open public comment as is regular at REGULAR MEETINGS.

The mayor also reminded them of the time constraints they were under in hiring a city manager, which is a vital act for our city.

“We the people, on behalf of Gaza demand you hear our public comment!”

It was like Rule became part of the disruptors, as her pushback seemed to embolden them to get louder and louder.

“We the people, on behalf of Gaza demand you hear our public comment!”

Mayor Pro Tem Francina kept pushing for public comment.

“We the people, on behalf of Gaza demand you hear our public comment!”

As the mayor spoke on the fact that they had a majority decision regarding the protocols the Ceasefire Now group continued to chant over her.

One community member had submitted a comment card to speak on the agenda item. She stood at the lectern as, “We the people, on behalf of Gaza demand you hear our public comment!” was chanted again and again and more loudly disabling her from speaking.

The Mayor adjourned the council into their closed session.

The person at the lectern was one of the people who had been creating and fueling the fervor on Facebook regarding the issue of not allowing general comments. It was ironic watching her stand there, being overrode and finally silenced by the people there en masse demanding public comment.

They had their interviews behind closed doors and then returned to talk about future agenda items. Councilmember Rule wanted a special meeting about the pickleball courts. She turned the discussion about putting this on the calendar into a discussion about the issue itself which was not on that night’s agenda. It is illegal per the Brown Act for a council to discuss something not on the agenda due to both no public notice of the item and no opportunity for public comment.

She also began to refer to the council as “This Council” which is something I have seen her do before when she does not feel in alignment with her fellow councilmembers as if they are a body she is not a part of.

Mayor Stix finally reminded her that this conversation was only about future agenda items and Councilmember Rule relinquished the mic, again after taking an inordinate amount of time.

“Can we have a special meeting on glue traps?” was Rule’s final comment to Mayor Stix as a way to diss her. The Mayor wants to put the banning of glue traps for rodent removal on the agenda. I am all for it. They are terribly inhumane.

And yet we are overrun with rats.

Read Part XVII Here

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