GRAY MAY: Now for June gloom? After...

GRAY MAY: Now for June gloom? After drifting through a dreary month of fog and low clouds, Ventura County must hope for tropical ocean currents to bring a brilliant summer. . . . “I think we really have to get the ocean to warm up for that to happen,” meteorologist Rae Strange said. . . . Last year, flows from Baja warmed the surf by 10 degrees the first week of June. “That’s the thing to watch for,” Strange said. “Chances are it will happen again.”

GOTHAM GIG: Once a pleasant spring jaunt to tout their fiscal conservatism, Ventura County officials carry a sense of urgency this week as they meet with bond-rating firms in New York City (B1). . . . After Orange County’s bankruptcy, the markets are jittery. . . . “In the past, we made the statement that we were conservative and everything was OK,” said county Treasurer-Tax Collector Hal Pittman. “They’re waiting for me this time.”

WHERE THE GIRLS ARE: A classically trained Oxnard ballerina has started a ballet program at local elementary schools (B1). But Linda Strangio-Hedberg is frustrated because only two of her 77 dancers are boys. . . . “You know how it is with boys in America,” she said. “They still have to overcome the sissy stigma.” In Europe, said the German-born instructor, “a male ballet dancer is considered very athletic.”

MUGU REVISITED: As luck would have it, a onetime Seabee at Port Hueneme is one of eight commissioners who will decide which of the nation’s military bases should be closed to save money (B1). As a young officer he once considered Ventura County home, Commissioner Benjamin F. Montoya said before touring the targeted Point Mugu weapons testing station. . . . In the 1960s, he played on the beaches of Point Mugu, Montoya said, and “had the pleasure of seeing both of these bases . . . [become] the modern bases that they are today.”