COUNTING EVERY VOTE: It was bad enough...

COUNTING EVERY VOTE: It was bad enough that Ojai’s library tax measure lost by only 67 votes in November. But then boosters found out some supporters, even politicians who endorsed the measure, had failed to vote. . . . “It’s the typical American problem of people not voting, even when they support the issue,” said George Berg of Save Our Libraries. . . . With the measure on the ballot again March 26 (B1), boosters are contacting the laggards and reminding them to go to the polls--or get absentee ballots.

PRIMARY CONCERN: The March 26 ballot will also give Republicans a chance to choose their presidential nominee. But you’d hardly know it. . . . There are no ads on TV, no candidates on the hustings. The only Ventura County appearance that GOP chief Karen Kurta knows about is a March 24 debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Kurta chalks it up to timing. California may have moved its primary from June to March, “but everyone who was behind us just leapfrogged ahead of us,” she says. She’s looking for the first sign of the GOP contenders after Super Tuesday today.

NEW START: The idea was simple: Market upscale children’s clothing and gear to ultra-busy parents through a catalog. That’s how The Right Start in Westlake Village made its mark--and how co-founder and Chief Executive Lenny Targon made his name (D7C). . . . Now Targon is retiring at age 50. But he won’t be bored. He plans to work as a consultant, lending his creative thinking to other start-up businesses.

REVOLUTIONARIES: California may have been just a sprinkling of Spanish missions and Chumash villages when the 13 colonies were fighting the Revolutionary War, but plenty of the descendants of those fighting men have settled here. . . . The Daughters of the American Revolution chapter in Ventura boasts 125 members and recently won first-place awards for contributing to the group’s museum and schools.