BLAZING AUDIT: For the Ventura County Fire...

BLAZING AUDIT: For the Ventura County Fire Department, last spring’s doomsday prophecies never came true. Fire services suffered no major budget cuts, and only one station was closed. . . . But the department is still on the hot seat: The county auditor says it’s top-heavy with management, lax about sick leave and overly generous with overtime (B1). . . . Fire Chief George Lund said auditors don’t understand his agency. . . . County firefighters protect all east county cities as well as Ojai, Camarillo and Port Hueneme.

TALK FEST: The topic was how to shorten Thousand Oaks City Council meetings and Mayor Elois Zeanah had a suggestion for her council colleagues: Quit talking so much. . . . “A majority of the time during public meetings is taken by council comments,” Zeanah said. . . . The mayor also proposed that council members stop reading reports aloud, since they all get copies anyway. Zeanah apparently did not mean to include her own reports: She spent six minutes Tuesday night reading the memo containing her suggestions. The mayor’s comments provoked 15 minutes of bitter debate about whether council members talk too much. . . . The meeting began at 5 p.m. and ended near midnight.

MYTHOLOGIST: Follow your bliss, Joseph Campbell said. Such catchy lines, along with his knack for introducing mythology to a mass audience, made Campbell a pop-culture hero even as academics dismissed his work (Ventura County Life, J6). . . . Now his 5,000-volume collection of world literature is housed at the Joseph Campbell Library in Carpinteria.

NO REFILLS: Coffeehouses usually adopt terms like roast, grind, Java and bean in their names. So how did Jeff Smith and his partners come up with Vampyre Lounge for their Simi Valley espresso shop? “It’s for those who only come out at night,” Smith explained. . . . Daytime visitors will see an incongruous sight on Oct. 30: a bloodmobile parked in front of the Vampyre. The lounge signed up 50 donors for United Blood Services.