Matt LaVere: Supervising Ojai

Matt LaVere is Ventura County's First District Supervisor, representing much of Ojai and Ventura with more than 160,000 constituents. He is also former mayor of Ventura and replaced Steve Bennett, now California State Assemblyman. Elected to office just as the pandemic swept through the world, LaVere was on the front lines of the local response, working closely with Ojai city and hospital officials to disburse resources for hospitals, testing stations, health information, vaccines and more. He was elected in March 2020 and took office in December. Not to mention the water litigation issues that took the valley by storm when he was Ventura' mayor. Locally Matt has been working diligently on housing issues, including with Brad Parziale of Mesa Farms, the transition housing in Ojai for children aging out of the foster system with no other assistance to rely on. He is also focusing on the drug issues, specifically with the shocking number of local overdoses from fentanyl, the new killer opiate that's replaced oxycontin as public enemy no. 1. We talked about his early years being raised in Ojai and attending Villanova Preparatory Academy, of the joys and not-so-joys of raising young children, what it was like to be a kid himself in Ojai, the changes in our population, what the future holds for Ojai and Ventura County, plus much more. We did not talk about Ken Jennings replacing Alex Trebek, the New York Jets with Aaron Rodgers as QB or the Barbenheimer phenomenon.