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It’s been a touchy subject in Santa Barbara County.

Tight state funding forced Santa Barbara City College to re-think its popular adult education programs.

The district looked at cutting some of the classes, and charging fees when they had been free, ideas which drew criticism from people who liked the enrichment classes. District officials have said their priority in tough times has to be core educational classes.

Now, a task force is recommending reorganization, with classes no longer funded by the state to be offered on a fee basis through a new Center for Lifelong Learning.

Because the program would operate independently, it could even beef up offerings.

Tonight, beginning at 5:30, the first in a series of three community forums on the proposal will be held. It will take place at the Thornton Auditorium, on Turnpike Road in Santa Barbara.

The Oxnard Fire Department is getting a gift from an insurance company today to improve the bilingual abilities of firefighters.

State Farm Insurance is presenting the department with a check for more than $10,000 to fund bilingual training. The money will be used to make the Rosetta Stone language program available to firefighters on electronic tablets. Having the dual language capability is especially important in communities like Oxnard, with large Spanish speaking populations.

Efforts to stop a vehicle carrying two wanted men turned into quite an adventure for Ventura Police.

Officers spotted the vehicle just before 4 p.m. yesterday, near Telegraph Road, and College Avenue in Ventura.

One of the men, Robert Taylor, jumped out of the moving vehicle, but was arrested after a short foot chase.

The driver, Kelly Copus, led officers on a slow speed chase through the neighborhood, before finally stopping, and surrendering. Both Ventura men were arrested on multiple charges, ranging from evading officers, to drug possession, and parole warrants.

A Ventura County community is joining forces with its police department to become one of a handful in the state to equip patrol units with defibrillators, to help, and possibly save the lives of people who’ve had heart attacks.

Yesterday, the Simi Valley Police Department received enough of the units to put A-E-D’s in half of its patrol cars, and motorcycles, and a drive is underway to raise the money for the other half.

KCLU’s Lance Orozco has the story.

Click on link to listen to/download story: Simi Valley AED Program

Link to Simi Valley Police Foundation Automated External Defibrillator Campaign: http://www.svpf.org/AED.html

A school resources officer at a South Coast high school who responded to a report someone was threatening staff members say she found the man was armed with a knife, and selling drugs on campus.

Santa Barbara Police say when the officer arrived on the scene at Santa Barbara High School Monday, Christian Ariel Hernandez tried to flee on his skateboard.

The officer, and school staff caught the 19 year old man, who wasn’t a student.

They found he was armed with a knife, was carrying marijuana, and bags of cocaine, and marijuana. Police say Hernandez is a gang member.

He was arrested on a half dozen charges, from possession of drugs and weapons on a school campus, to drug dealing.
No one was hurt in the incident.

There’s been a huge shakeup in the City of Ventura, with the ouster of the City’s longtime City Manager.

The Ventura City Council decided to replace Rick Cole.

The decision by a majority of council members came as a part of the annual job performance review for Cole.
He then offered to resign, and retire under terms of his current contract.

City officials say they’ll name an interim City Manager on September 10th, and Cole’s last day will be September 15th.
Cole has been City Manager for more than eight years.

He came to Ventura from the City of Azuza, and is well known, and respected in the world of local government for his innovative approach to planning policy.

There were no major hints that Cole might be removed, unlike some other local cities where there were prolonged clashes between their city councils, and city managers.

Simi Valley Police are saying they’ve cited a school bus driver school who district officials say left a special needs students in a parked, unattended bus for more than three hours.

Simi Valley School District officials told police that the driver had picked up, and delivered students to Crestview Elementary School students on the morning of August 22nd.

They say she left the bus parking lot at 9 a.m., but when she returned to the bus at 12:30, she discovered a five year old girl was still on the bus. The girl was thirsty, but otherwise okay.

Police say they cited the driver for leaving an unattended minor in a vehicle, which is a misdemeanor, and have also turned the case over to the Ventura County District Attorney’s office for further review.

The driver has been suspended, pending the outcome of the investigation. The driver’s name hasn’t been released.

Temperatures reached the 100 degree mark on parts of the South Coast today, on what forecasters say should be the hottest part of a heat wave hitting the region.

It hit 80 degrees before 8 a.m. this morning in Moorpark, and highs were in the 90’s for many inland areas of Ventura County, and even into the upper 80’s for some coastal areas of Santa Barbara County.

The high pressure that’s been giving Southern California above average temperatures is breaking down, and a cooling trend is in the forecast for the next few days.

Santa Barbara Police detectives say they’ve arrested a 36 year old man on charges he raped a teenage girl at a party earlier this summer.

Investigators say they just recently learned about the attack on the girl, which occurred in mid-July.

They say based on the description of the man, and his tattoos, they recognized him as Roger Navarro Pulido.

After getting an arrest warrant, they took the Santa Barbara man into custody. The detectives say when the questioned Pulido, he admitted having sex with the teenage girl, but claimed it was consensual.

Authorities are investigating the discovery of a body of a man in a lake at a Santa Barbara County guest ranch.

An employee at the Alisal Guest Ranch was walking around the ranch’s lake around eight this morning, and spotted the body in the water. Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s department detectives, coroner’s investigators, and members of the dive team recovered the body.

The body hasn’t been identified yet. An autopsy is pending.

On August 18th, a Los Angeles area man disappeared in the area. Kurt Brimberry’s car had hit a tree nearby, and witnesses say they though they saw someone matching the missing man’s description walking towards the guest ranch. However, authorities aren’t speculating on whether the body might be that of the missing 55 year old San Marino man.