According to http://losangeles.blogger.cbslocal.com/most-valuable-blogger/vote/local/ , CBS Los Angeles' web site has named Westlake Revelations as the People's Choice winner in the Most Valuable Blogger Awards 2011 for Local Affairs. The People's Choice award is a popular vote. Other sites in the category include Jane Fonda's blog, Venice 311, and several other sites about Los Angeles news, politics, LAPD, and more.

One point to clarify on the questions submitted for both the Agoura Hills and Westlake Revelations debates.

The source of the questions is kept confidential. Your name will not be released as part of the question being asked, or otherwise. In addition, often, questions are combined with those from others in the community, or edited for clarity.

Please make sure to state what town you live in, or if you are asking on behalf of a business, where it's located.

Do you live in Westlake Village or Agoura Hills? If so, we want to hear what questions you have for City Council Candidates in the cities of Westlake Village and Agoura Hills ... read on.

As Westlake Revelations has done in the past, we're proud to produce the Candidates Forum for the City of Westlake Village City Council (three candidates). The event, held Monday, October 3, 2011, at 7pm at Oak Forest Estates Clubhouse, is sponsored by: Westlake Revelations, Oak Forest HOA, League of Women Voters and Westlake Village Boy Scout Troop 485.

[This post is an editorial and, therefore, unlike typical Westlake Revelations posts to date. I was watching a story about September 11. The US Coast Guard put a radio call out asking all available boats to help evacuate the island of Manhattan. Within minutes, countless boats of every shape and size converged on the island in one of the greatest examples of people selflessly helping people ever to be seen. The story so moved me, I wrote the following. --Neil]

This weekend not only has the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 with a variety of events taking place in the area, but also a couple of other community events on Saturday: Triunfo YMCA Family Program signups, and an End-of-Summer Picnic and Fall-Into-School Supply Drive.

There's a great deal of confusion as to what is considered recyclable and what is not. Westlake Revelations reader Beth Fiance helped get to the bottom of this and the following information was provided to us by Waste Management. (The answers should be similar for all providers in the area.) If you have additional questions, contact your provider.

Recyclable Materials
-----------------------
Paper:
Newspaper Paper - All colors (staples in paper okay)
Shredded Paper (put in plastic bag and tie securely)
Paper Grocery Bags
Envelopes (windows okay)
Junk Mail
Phone Books

Synopsis

On September 17 at 10am, the City of Westlake Village will dedicate a twelve foot, bronze "Oh Great Spirit" sculpture donated by Don, Teri, Taylor, and Alison Ernst, and sculpted by nationally acclaimed artist, Nell Banister Scruggs. For more details and information, see the full announcement from the City below.

With the election coming up in November, we're proud to tell you that there will be a Candidates Forum (aka "debate") for the three candidates running for the Westlake Village City Council. The forum is sponsored by:

* Westlake Revelations
* Oak Forest HOA
* League of Women Voters
* Westlake Village Boy Scout Troop 485

The event will be held at Oak Forest (on Triunfo near Lindero) in the Oak Forest Estates Clubhouse, on:

Monday, October 3, 2011, at 7pm

All three candidates have confirmed that they will attend.

Westlake Revelations readers have been telling us that we should remind people to vote for Westlake Revelations in the CBS LA's Most Valuable Blogger Awards 2011. (See http://www.westlakerevelations.com/?q=node/334).

We're going to start reminding people, but we're going to do it in a way that you can easily ignore. You'll get an email that the subject line says "Vote Reminder" and there will be nothing other than the link in the email. That way, people can delete the messages without thinking that they are missing something if they don't want to vote.

Synopsis

On Friday, First California Bank (32100 Agoura Road) had an armed robbery at 11:40am. This was the latest in a string of nine robberies that the FBI has been pursuing in the area. Sheriff Deputy Foss heard the broadcast with descriptions, spotted a vehicle matching the description and stopped the car. The suspects, bank money and recovered evidence were all taken into custody.

Just a reminder that the City of Westlake Village continues it's 30th anniversary celebration tonight with a special Saturday night "TGIF" Concert. The event is from 5:30 pm to 9:00 pm at Berniece Bennett Park. The event will feature free hot dogs and cotton candy for the first 1500 people in attendance. Special commemorative anniversary beach balls and buttons will be given away throughout the evening and residents will have an opportunity to purchase and design their own 30th anniversary tiles as a fundraiser for White Oak Elementary School.

CBSLosAngeles.com -- which is made up of CBS Channel 2, KCAL 9, KNX1070, and KFWB 980 -- has launched Most Valuable Blogger Awards 2011. Nominations have been going on since late July and ended last Friday. Westlake Revelations has now been named a finalist in the "Local Affairs" category. According to CBS' web site, "After much deliberation and careful consideration of many nominees, CBS Los Angeles has narrowed the field of Finalists down for this year’s MVB. Let your voice be heard – vote now!"

The Las Virgenes Municipal Water District held a workshop on July 30 regarding the proposed 5 million gallon water tank at the Three Springs Reservoir. During that time, they gave a presentation (slides available from LVMWD), and had a controlled set of questions and answers at the end. Q&A was limited to those in writing (with a few exceptions) that LVMWD deemed relevant to the construction of the tank.

Those interested can view the meeting online or on Westlake Village TV (Channel 10).

The meeting can be viewed on WLVTV Channel 10 during the following times:
Sunday 7:30 pm

The deadline has now come and gone for candidates to file their papers to run for City Council Member of the City of Westlake Village. The election in November will be for two of the five seats.

Mayor Ned Davis and Councilperson Philippa Klessig's seats are up for election, and both incumbents (Davis for his second term, and Klessig for her third term) have filed papers for re-election. A third candidate, former Westlake Village councilman Chris Mann, has also filed his papers (he was actually first to pull and file papers).

Synopsis

On Monday, the LVUSD Board of Education voted to move forward with putting a parcel tax before voters in November. The new parcel tax would be $95 per year for eight years, with exemptions for seniors and those with disabilities, and would specifically have "independent fiscal oversight, no funds for administrator salaries, and guaranteeing every dollar stays within our community preserving quality education."

Launch Alert (http://www.spacearchive.info/newsletter.htm) reports that the Air Force will launch a Minotaur IV from Space Launch Complex-8 at Vandenberg Air Force Base tomorrow, Aug. 10, between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. This is the second flight of the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Synopsis

Starting this weekend, Westlake Village now has its own Relay For Life -- an event to support the American Cancer Society. At the 24-hour event, team members take turns walking or running around the track, relay-style while also enjoying "fun activities and entertainment off the track." The event is August 6-7 from 10am-10am (24 hours) at Oaks Christian School.

Synopsis

The City of Westlake Village has released the following announcement about a special Saturday night TGIF. See full release below. 

Synopsis

At the end of the 2010-11 school year, LVUSD announced that Ron Kaiser was retiring as principal from Lindero Canyon Middle School. Several days later, LVUSD announced that White Oak Elementary principal Dr. Abbe Irshay would take the LCMS principal position.

Last night, LVUSD announced publicly that Dr. Sarah Medler has been named principal of White Oak Elementary school, and Rosemarie Hibler has been named principal of Chaparral Elementary.

See the full press release from LVUSD.

Synopsis

When it comes to the Las Virgenes Metropolitan Water District and Three Springs, there are two issues that readers ask us about: the progress of an AT&T cell site, and the proposed 5 million gallon water tank.

First, the cell site (since that's what readers ask about most). While the T-Mobile antenna is installed and operational (the 4% of residents that have T-Mobile report it's working quite well for them), the AT&T site is now on indefinite hold (AT&T serves 57% of Three Springs residents, with Verizon serving most of the balance). In short, here's what happened. AT&T is now reviewing all sites in the area to decide if they will continue forward or not. The process with LVMWD moved slowly enough that the site had not progressed much, and fell into a regional hold for all sites that weren't beyond a certain stage. More details below.

Second, LVMWD would like to build a 5 million gallon water storage tank on their reservoir property off of Torchwood in Three Springs. As best as we can determine, the water district believes it needs the tank for a couple of reasons: to improve efficiency of water treatment at the reservoir, and to relieve the burden of the pumping station "upstream" from Westlake Village's supply. The tank, which does not have even a preliminary design as of yet, would need to be substantive in size. For example, assuming 20' high, it would be a little over 200' in diameter. While the City of Westlake Village has no say on whether the tank can be built, it can put restrictions on the access through public streets (e.g., hours of construction, number of truck trips per day, etc...). It's impossible to know how much concrete will be needed without a design, but to give an idea, one set of assumptions (see below) estimates 680 concrete truck trips (340 concrete trucks, one trip in, one trip out). This is in addition to workmen vehicles, grading equipment, excavators, etc... To reduce the impact, the City may need to temporarily remove the seven speed humps, and stage construction traffic on Triunfo Canyon. More details below.

On Saturday, July 30, LVMWD is having a "Board Workshop" on site in Three Springs to share information and to gather community input on the storage tank. The residents and public are invited to attend. Since there's no public parking at the site, LVMWD will be running bus service starting at 8am. See the full announcement. (Note: This is NOT at the LVMWD main office, but at the reservoir site in Three Springs.)