Conejo Post

I started the Conejo Post to create a Conejo Valley forum.  I wanted a place where we could exchange views on issues, opportunities and challenges that affect us all, no matter where we live in the valley, from Agoura Hills and Las Virgenes, to Newbury Park.

So that you know my views, I support competent, transparent government, fiscal responsibility, balanced growth, along with green practices, and saving open space.

For fun, I enjoy tie-dyeing shirts, silk screening, picking lemons from the garden, listening to classical music, or going for a walk.  Visiting with grandchildren is a special joy, whether playing in the sand with the younger ones, or playing a hot game of gin rummy with the older ones.

For work, I have been a radio DJ in Oregon, and owned a public relations and advertising business.  I have also sold real estate and been an office manager and bookkeeper.  Now I am serving in non-partisan politics, but you could say I am a late bloomer in that regard!

I ran for public office for the first time in the fall of 2006 and was elected to the Triunfo Sanitation District board, where I currently (2010) serve as Vice Chair.  Triunfo provides wastewater collection and treatment for 30,000 residents of east Ventura County, including Oak Park, the T.O. part of Westlake, Lake Sherwood, Bell Canyon, and part of North Ranch.  We also produce recycled water and compost in partnership with the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District.  Triunfo owns Oak Park Water Service too.

I have become very interested in water policy and conservation since being elected to the TSD board, which goes with my lifelong appreciation of nature and the outdoors.  I joined in the campaign to save Ahmanson Ranch for parkland in 2002, and participated in the Rally for the Ranch bus trip to Seattle to lobby shareholders of Washington Mutual to sell the property to the state. 

Prior to that, in Oregon, I worked to save old growth moderate rain forests.  These forests of the Northwest are incredible ecosystems that we have not even begun to study, and there is less than 10% of the old growth forests left!  (The rest were destroyed by clear cutting.)  In southern California, we tend to focus on tropical rain forests in the Amazon, but we have incredible forests in the north of our state,as well as in the Pacific Northwest.  I so hope that the remaining moderate rain forests in our country can be preserved for future generations!

Wishing you the best, and inviting you to take part in the Conejo Post,

Janna Orkney, Editor, admin@conejopost.com