Local Buzz covers new businesses, restaurants, closures, local politics, goings on around town and other buzzworthy items in the Conejo Valley and Greater Ventura County. Have a lead? Contact us. Click here for an archive of Local Buzz postings.
Local Buzz covers new restaurants, closures, local politics, goings on around town and other buzzworthy items in the Conejo Valley and Greater Ventura County. Have a lead? Contact us. Click here for an archive of Local Buzz postings.
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Throwback Thursday Food Truck Fest at the Camarillo Ranch is planned from 5-8PM on Thursday, June 27th and Thursday, July 25th, 2024. Events feature food trucks, including beer and wine, live music, house tours and kids’ activities. Free admission. Located at 201 Camarillo Ranch Road.
For more information, visit camarilloranchfoundation.com/tbt-food-truck-festival..
Kaia Tollefson, Jenn Perry, Asha Ramachandra, Matthew Vestuto, Richard Yao, Salvador Tumamait-Ambriz
A Chumash dialect spoken by the Barbareño/Ventureño Band of Mission Indians thousands of years ago is alive and thriving with a new online Chumash language dictionary hosted by CSU Channel Islands (CSUCI).
Ventureño Chumash, also called mitsqanaqan, is one of six (some say seven) documented Chumashan languages, each named after a mission. There have been other Chumashan dictionaries, but this is the first online dictionary specific to the Barbareño/Ventureño Chumash. These are the indigenous people who lived in Ventura County and the northern Channel Islands for thousands of years.
Matthew Vestuto, Chairman of the Barbareño/Ventureño Band of Mission Indians (BVBMI) Tribal Council who is a self-trained linguist, has been working for years to get an online presence for the mitsqanaqan dictionary, which was developed by Cal State Fullerton (CSUF) Linguistics Lecturer Timothy Henry-Rodriguez and released in 2019.
Henry-Rodriguez began developing the dictionary when he was in graduate school in 2005 and was later aided by a National Science Foundation Documenting Endangered Languages award for $25,000. He studied the notes of linguist and ethnologist John Peabody Harrington (1884-1961), who specialized in California indigenous people.
After graduate school, Henry-Rodriguez met Vestuto, who helped do more research with the aid of other members of the BVBMI.
“Our last native speakers died in the 1960s and so we’re reliant upon the archival record,” Vestuto said.
When the dictionary was released in 2019, Henry-Rodriguez described it as a labor of love for him, his student researchers, and the researchers from the Barbareño/Ventureño tribe.
“First and foremost are the various Chumash speakers who, despite oppressive social conditions and economic constraints, still understood the importance of recording their language and the urgency to do so,” Henry-Rodriguez wrote. “While they may not have known that all their hard work would come to fruition in the form of a dictionary, it is my hope that this work will honor all the hard work they did. Their bravery and strength truly inspire me continually.”
Although Henry-Rodriguez did the initial research and created the dictionary, he credits the BVBMI with working to get it online, which took place recently thanks to the expertise of CSUCI’s Information Technology Services team and the John Spoor Broome Library staff.
Vestuto and fellow researcher Salvador Tumamait-Ambriz were guests at a recent campus event in which the first phase of the dictionary was rolled out, with phases two, three and four to follow in the future.
CSUCI President Richard Yao took the podium to talk about the campus tradition of honoring the place where the University now sits, and the people who dwelled here. Yao also spoke about the President’s Chumash Advisory Council (PCAC), which was formed in 2023 between CSUCI and the BVBMI.
“In creating this Council, we acknowledge that the Chumash are the first people of the lands on which the University operates, and that CSUCI’s campus is on the unceded territory of the BVBMI,” Yao announced when the council was formed. “CSUCI has the responsibility and desire to maintain strong relationships with the BVBMI, and together we share a commitment to working in collaboration to be stewards of the land and of its natural and cultural heritage.”
The language began to disappear when the Spanish missionaries arrived in 1769 to build 21 missions up the California coast, forcing Chumash to work for them and introducing European diseases to which the Chumash had no natural immunity. The Chumash way of life - and their language - changed.
“The age-old American story is that when indigenous people went to boarding schools, they were taught their language was savage and not worthy and to not speak it,” Vestuto said. “That affects people. For a university to say, we hold your language in high esteem - to say it’s something we want to support - also affects us in a good way.”
CSUCI Professor of Anthropology and Executive Director of Regional Educational Partnerships Jennifer Perry, explained why this project is named the “House of Language.”
“By calling it the House of Language, we are referring to a living repository,” Perry said. “It’s not intended to preserve a static language, but to keep it alive and in practice and constantly evolving.”
Plans are underway to incorporate the Chumash language into the signage around campus, offering the name of a tree or plant, for example, in both English and Chumash. There are also plans to incorporate the Chumash language into the University curriculum.
“To us, the language is not imposed upon the land it comes from the land,” Vestuto said. “Language all around the world is like a living entity that pulses through the ages carrying crucial knowledge through the centuries, but it requires new breath. Our language was disrupted. We’ve developed a partnership with this campus and in doing so, we’ve also developed a friendship. The hosting of an online dictionary in our language is a major step toward assisting us in our healing.”
To access the mitsqanaqan (Barbareño/Ventureño Band of Mission Indians) dictionary, visit ciapps.csuci.edu/ChumashDictionary.
The grand reopening of the Calabasas Community Center is planned for Saturday, March 16th from 8am to 6pm. Event will feature facility tours, food trucks, DJ, science and reptile tours, free classes and more. Visit www.cityofcalabasas.com/ccc for more information about this 30,000 sq ft community center. Located at 27040 Malibu Hills Road.
Every year we cover unique, bright and/or particularly entertaining residential holiday displays. See the current year list at THIS LINK.
One such home has been the fun Disney character display at the corner of Timberlane Ave and Fearing St in Simi Valley. It’s a bit out of the way to get to for Conejo Valley residents, but as you can see from the photos before, it has been worth it.
This year, there’s a sign up on the side of the home that reads “The Disney House Has Retired - Thanks for the Memories.” Sad to see it go after all these years, but it is understandable, as it must have been quite a bit of work over the years. Thank you and all local area residents that go the extra mile to make their residences extra fun for the winter holiday season.
Side view of home at Timberlane and fearing in prior years.
Sign up at home in 2023 Christmas Season
Front of Disney home in 2022
Side of Disney home in December 2022.
Conejo Creek North Park (next to the T.O. Library) is the last of eight parks that have gone, or are going through, renovations by the Conejo Recreation and Park District in 2023. The other seven park renovations that have been completed this year are at Newbury Gateway Park, Russell Park, Wildflower Playfield, Dos Vientos Community Park, Banyan Park, Sycamore Neighborhood Park, and Suburbia Park.
More information about 51 parks and other recreational programs overseen by CRPD at crpd.org.
Source: Los Angeles Rams
As anticipated, the Los Angeles Rams today announced that they will be moving to their new regular season practice facility in Woodland Hills in 2024. The facility will be located at the corner of West Oxnard Street and Canoga Avenue, part of 100 acres acquired by the owner of the Rams in 2022.
Cal Lutheran has provided temporary practice facilities to the Rams since their move to Los Angeles in 2016. It’s been a great ride hosting the team here in the Conejo Valley for the last seven years.
" Over the next few months, the Rams will set up a facility on this land consisting of modular trailers that will include office space and meeting rooms for coaches, players, scouts and staff, a weight room and training room, locker room, media room, and meal room. Adjacent to the trailers will be two football fields where the team will train and practice.
This is the first step of Kroenke's long-term vision for the land, which is part of the tremendous development envisioned for Woodland Hills under the Warner Center 2035 plan. Once the practice facility is set up, the organization will begin exploring a larger development that will include the permanent headquarters and practice facility for the team, as well as a plan to include residential, commercial, and retail uses along with green spaces and other community-serving amenities."
More information at www.therams.com.
This is a rendering of the new hotel that was included in the Planning Commission meeting agenda on October 23rd. This is a view from the courtyard fountain near Buca Di Peppo and Sharky's.
There are plans in the works for a 5-story, 216 room Homewood Suites & Home2 Suites Hotel at Janss Marketplace that will be situated in the space previously occupied by Marshall's (until 2017) and dental offices (until 2019) and currently used for the Reign of Terror Haunted House.
Irvine-based Greens Development will develop and operate the hotel. There will be 173 rooms with king beds and 43 rooms with double-queen beds. Each suite will have a full kitchen. There will be 13,000 sq ft of retail space on the bottom floor. The 2nd floor will have an outdoor pool, deck and planter area.
On October 23rd, city staff and the Planning Commission recommended that the City Council approve a zoning change from 35 feet to 75 feet for the hotel. Several other structures at Janss have received zoning changes in the past, including the former Burlington (44'), Regal Cinemas (40.5') and parking structure (47' 9"). Other tenants at Janss have given a thumbs up for this development.
If the zoning overlay is approved, construction is anticipated to begin next spring with a target opening date of winter 2025. The last new hotel in Thousand Oaks opened in 2009 (Hampton Inn).
View of front of hotel, across from the parking structure in another rendering from developers.
Peter Mullin, businessman, passionate car collector and renowned philanthropist, passed away on Monday, Sept. 18. He was 82. Peter was the founder of Mullin Consulting and the founder and director of the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard. Peter was also a founding board member and former board chair at the Petersen Automotive Museum. The Mullin Automotive Museum, a crown jewel of Ventura County, will continue to share his passion with the world. The museum is an homage to French culture, automobiles, architecture, visual arts and design, furniture, lighting and sculpture of the Art Deco period that Peter felt was the apex of industrial and fine arts design. The museum is open to the public Fri/Sat from 10am to 3pm. www.mullinautomotivemuseum.com
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