Senseless ShootingThe life of Mildred Wilson, a...

Senseless Shooting

The life of Mildred Wilson, a 65-year-old widow, was not the kind that seemed destined for a violent end. She liked ballroom dancing. She traveled. She lived in a quiet Oxnard mobile home park and drove a 1986 Crown Victoria. Similarly, Ventura’s Poinsettia Shopping Center on a bright Saturday afternoon is too busy, too upscale, too normal for violence to intrude. But somehow it did, and now that Mildred Wilson has been shot to death by carjackers, her neighbors are left to wonder who is really safe (B1).

Projects Galore

Times are tight, money is scarce, budgets are squeaking . . . you’ve heard the drill. Except in the city of Ventura, leaders are looking at an almost unprecedented menu of development proposals and public investment (B1). The coming weeks will find the City Council voting on a downtown movie theater, Centerplex, a skateboard park and various other projects that could rack up a public tab of some $27 million.

Street Smart

Something is wrong in Moorpark, and it’s not the day laborer situation or the lack of business downtown. It’s traffic lights. Specifically, the light at Liberty Bell Road and Park Lane, where drivers wait interminably for a green arrow to turn left into the K mart/Albertson’s shopping center. The good news is that the city traffic engineer fully agrees that something needs to be done. The bad news is that all he can do is bug Caltrans to do it (B1).