COUNTYWIDE : Seats Available in Senior Legislature

Ventura County residents who are 60 or older have until Dec. 27 to file petitions to run for the California Senior Legislature. Members for the next two years will be elected March 12.

Two Senior Assembly members and one member of the Senior Senate represent the county in four-day sessions in Sacramento each October, according to Joann Wilson, a spokeswoman for the county’s Area Agency on Aging.

In addition to developing priorities for bills affecting older Californians, members lobby the state Legislature on behalf of the measures, Wilson said.

Leigh Strohbehn of Ojai, one of the county’s two current Senior Assembly members, said health-care reform has been the top concern of the senior legislators for the past five years. “Specifically, we’ve sought improvements in long-term care,” he said.

Other proposals backed in the past year by the 120 unpaid participants from throughout the state included multipurpose senior centers, mobile rural clinics, shared housing, veterans’ benefits and improved transportation.

Strohbehn, 74, who said he plans to run for reelection, described the Senior Legislature as “the legislative branch of the California Commission on Aging, which is an advisory commission to the Department of Aging.”

The county’s other Senior Legislature members are Joe Gaynes of Camarillo, a senior senator, and Maxine Culp of Ventura, a Senior Assembly member.

Nominating papers may be obtained at the Area Agency on Aging, 505 Poli St., Ventura. Nominees must obtain the signatures of 50 county senior citizens to qualify.