LOW-TECH: Ventura County transportation officials are shopping...

LOW-TECH: Ventura County transportation officials are shopping around for grant money to fund an $800,000 traffic-watching system, but planners insist that the network of speed sensors and video cameras is not meant to catch law breakers (B1). “These cameras are not sophisticated enough to read license plates,” traffic planner Steve DeGeorge says. “We only want to monitor traffic better.”

LIGHT FIGHT: First there was the “Black Orb”--the Sulphur Mountain radar tower that had Ojai Valley residents up in arms. Now Ojai downtowners have something else to stir them up--and it’s green, red and yellow (B1). . . . The council is expected to approve the city’s fourth traffic signal next week, which some say will push the burg one step closer to that concrete jungle. “It’s seen by some as the urbanization of Ojai, which is something people want to resist,” City Manager Andy Belknap said.

A NEW LIFE: Tori Anderson, a sophomore on Ventura College’s basketball team, moved in with her aunt and uncle five years ago after spending her sometimes rocky childhood with her grandparents in New Orleans (C10). . . . Anderson says she felt mostly OK about the fact that her mother often was absent. “When I was in elementary school, it didn’t bother me, and in high school, I was into sports and my friends. It didn’t start bothering me until I came out here.” . . . Now, she hopes to be adopted by the uncle and aunt who took her in.

BIRD BAROMETER: The annual Audubon Society bird count, held nationwide in December, showed that county avians apparently held their own last year. Elliott McClure, who coordinates Audubon’s Conejo Valley chapter, says 49 spotters toted up 70,000 birds on their day in the sun last month. . . . There were no big surprises: “It’s been pretty static here,” McClure said, unlike the East Coast, which has reported decreases in a number of species.