Countywide : 30 Nominated to Serve on Grand Jury

Ventura County’s Superior Court judges have nominated 30 residents as potential members of the 1991-92 grand jury. Nineteen of the nominees will be selected by lot July 1 to serve on the panel, which runs until July 1, 1992.

The grand jury’s primary function is to serve as watchdog on county government. Each year, the panel looks at the operations of county agencies and recommends improvements.

In the past year, however, the panel has increasingly been used to hear evidence and issue indictments in criminal cases.

Members are paid $20 per day and meet several days a week, always in secret.

By law, each of the county’s five supervisorial districts has six representatives on the 30-member panel of nominees. Those not chosen for the 19-member grand jury will be designated as alternates in case a vacancy arises.

From District 1 (west Ventura County), the nominees are James F. Giles, Alphonse Marra, Claude L. Nichols, Ann Overton, Donald Schweitzer and Margaret P. Shinn, all of Ventura.

The nominees from District 2 (southeast county) are Dorothy J. Engel, Robert J. Gallagher, Catherine C. Koch, Arthur B. Schmaling and John Schneider, all of Thousand Oaks, and Lewis E. Drolet of Westlake Village.

From District 3 (northern and central county), the nominees are Jane Brewster, Karen Doherty, Barbara Hill and Morris Wilson, all of Camarillo; William M. Etchart of Ojai, and Robert Ponce of Santa Paula.

The nominees from District 4 (northeast county) are Audie Callaway, Richard W. Cooper Sr., David Donovan, Lawrence Gratton, David Santa Ana and Bill B. Tilden, all of Simi Valley.

The nominees from District 5 (southwest county) are Richard Steven Day, Roy Furr, Hope Holcomb, Mildred Murphy, William D. Price and Toshiko Ring, all of Oxnard.