HOME FREE: Rep. Elton Gallegly got the...

HOME FREE: Rep. Elton Gallegly got the news Monday afternoon: Ventura County’s two military bases have survived the Pentagon’s latest round of base closings. Neither Point Mugu nor Port Hueneme naval bases show up on the list being released today (B1). . . . But the folks at the county’s BRAC-95 task force don’t plan to let their guard down. A federal commission could add the bases to the list later. “We’ll still be putting data together, because it’s very hard to do it at the 11th hour,” Co-Chairman Cal Carrera says.

MEASURING UP: If the concept of National Weights and Measures Week starting Wednesday doesn’t grab you, think about this: Someone has to make sure that the scale at the grocery store is giving out a pound of hamburger. Or that the gas pump is dispensing a gallon of gas. Or that a roll of toilet paper has the right number of sheets. . . . In Ventura County, five field inspectors check scales, scanners, meters and, yes, toilet paper rolls. Director Bill Korth recalls finding rolls running three sheets short. That saved the manufacturer seven rolls for every 1,000 sold. . . . “Nobody would ever miss it, but when you start to multiply, it’s big bucks,” Korth says.

BROKEN BOTTLES: It has drawn architects, fine arts experts, even appraisers from the J. Paul Getty Museum--all to examine a pile of junk that one woman turned into folk art. . . . Simi Valley’s Bottle Village, 33 buildings pieced together from bottles and other discards, could finally receive the restoration needed since the Northridge earthquake (B6). Experts are applying for a federal grant and could spend as much as $300,000.

CONDO LIVING: Also hard hit by the earthquake, many condominium buildings remain uninhabitable more than a year later (Valley Business, Page 8). But not the Springtime at Hunter’s Field complex in Simi Valley. There, the condo board charged owners $4,000 to $7,000 for each unit so that the repairs could be completed more quickly. The owners are moving back into their units and expecting the federal government to reimburse them.