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Assembly Bill 506, introduced by Assemblymember Steve Bennett of Ventura County, voids contracts with non-refundable deposits or those that don't disclose the pet's origin or medical history. It also requires sellers to refund buyers within 30 days if the contract is voided.

"We're trying to make it clear that nonrefundable deposits are illegal, and then we're also requiring that all the appropriate information come with the animal from the other state when the animal is actually delivered," Bennett said.

It's been more than seven years since fire hydrants in southern Ventura County rapidly ran dry as the Thomas fire exploded — something Assemblymember Steve Bennett hoped he would never see repeated.

But in November, firefighters again found themselves short on water as the Mountain fire roared through the foothills of Camarillo.

"I've been working on this idea ever since the Mountain Fire. We had the same thing happen that happened during the Thomas Fire. When you don't have backup power, you can't fill the tanks, and when the tanks run dry, you're not able to fill those back up," said Democratic Assemblyman Steve Bennett of Ventura.

He introduced legislation which would address the concern specifically in Ventura County, but could also serve as a model to do it statewide.

Assemblymember Steve Bennett, D-Ventura, proposed legislation last week to require local districts to better prepare and protect water supplies for wildfires.

The bill, introduced on Thursday, calls for Ventura County water districts in high fire risk areas to top off tanks during fire weather, provide reliable backup power for pumps and make sure areas around those tanks and pumps are hardened against flames.

AB560, a bill sponsored by state Assemblyman Steve Bennett (D-Ventura) would require the parties to any proposed settlement agreement in an adjudication to submit their proposal to the state Water Resources Control Board before the judge makes a ruling.

Assemblymember Steve Bennett (D-Ventura), who introduced the bill, said it was intended to address a significant loophole in California’s groundwater law. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, passed in 2014, created local agencies tasked with developing plans for curbing overpumping in many areas of the state, but left counties in charge of issuing permits for new wells.

Mike Barber is board president of the Garden Acres Mutual Water Company serving the unincorporated community of Nyeland Acres next to the 101 Freeway. He is probably better known, however, as the person who rescued a huge Santa Claus statue slated for demolition in Carpinteria, moving it to its new home on water district property near Oxnard in 2003. He’s also the founder of the Santa to the Sea Half Marathon.

On Friday, May 17, Barber’s tiny utility serving around half the homes in Nyeland Acres hosted a news conference detailing how $17.6 million in state funding will be spent on several projects across Ventura County, while also honoring the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) grant funding recipients.

For three years, Nathanael Gonzales-Siemens drove up California's coast for 14 hours every month for a routine task: milling his grain into flour. "I was literally not able to find a flour mill at my scale, and we're not tiny," he said. "We've got 150 acres of grain." He found this disconcerting, not only for himself but the future of small-scale grain farming in California, once known for its golden hills of grain.

As California has lost much of its grain to higher value crops, small flour mills and grain cleaning businesses have disappeared, too. It's a symptom of what Gonzales-Siemens sees as a larger problem facing many farmers, awash in a marketplace dominated by highly concentrated operations as regional farm infrastructure atrophies.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Today, Environment California Research and Policy Center announced petitions at an event on the UCSB campus, calling for the expansion and strengthening of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). The proposals called for in the petitions align with Governor Newsom’s 30×30 goal, to protect 30% of lands and coastal waters by 2030.

On Saturday, December 9, California State Senator MONIQUE LIMÓN and Assemblymember STEVE BENNETT presented a check for $1.5 million to Rubicon Theatre Company, Ventura's not-for-profit professional theatre company in Ventura, California.

The funds were announced to cheers from Rubicon's opening night audience for The World Goes ‘Round, a revue of the music of Kander & Ebb (Chicago, Cabaret, Kiss of the Spider Woman, New York, New York, etc.).