The Ojai Valley Green Coalition has chosen a new executive director, Tim Nafziger, following the resignation of Russell Sydney, who served in the post for a year and a half. Nafziger plans to serve for six to nine months in an interim role to help the organization find a long term executive director.
“We appreciate Russell’s service over the last 18 months to the work of the Coalition,” said Ched Myers, a long-time member of the Board of Directors. “He has worked hard during a challenging transition period, and helped open up a new chapter for our mission. As our Interim E.D., Tim Nafziger brings to our circle activist energy, organizational skills and management experience, and the passion and perspective of the next generation. The Board sincerely thanks Russell, and looks forward to partnering with Tim to deepen and broaden the work of the OVGC.”
Tim Nafziger has been a reservist and organizer for years for the Christian Peacemaker Teams that work in small teams to reduce harm in conflict zones around the world, including Iraq. He spent 6 years on staff with the organization as outreach coordinator and then as assistant director. He identifies as a Mennonite, and has been active as an organizer in the Carnival de Resistance, a traveling arts carnival and ceremonial theater dramatizing themes of ecological justice and radical theology. He also is a leader with Showing Up for Racial Justice Ventura County, or SURJ VC, a local chapter of a national group that does education and advocacy for racial justice He runs a web design company called Congruity Works that helps nonprofits with their web strategy.
“I look forward to working with the Board of the Ojai Valley Green Coalition,” said Nafziger. “We are fortunate in the Ojai Valley to live in an extremely charismatic watershed, and I am eager to bring new voices into the ecological conversation in this valley.”
For over ten years the Green Coalition has spearheaded recycling, green living, water conservation, electric vehicles, and other forms of conservation in the Ojai Valley, most recently helping sponsor a showing of “The Cat That Changed America,” about the effort to build the world’s largest wildlife crossing to save the mountain lions of Ventura County.
“It has been one of my goals to build the Board’s capacity to take on the task of running the Coalition,” said outgoing director Sydney. “This is the perfect time for me to step back from a very public role that was thrust upon me. I am delighted that this transition is happening.”
Tim Nafziger can be reached at tim@ojaivalleygreencoalition.org
VanLeit Joins Ojai Valley Green Coalition Board
Betsy VanLeit, who joined the Ojai Valley Green Coalition’s Board this August, brings years of experience in administration of different sorts, from working in health issues (while teaching at the University of New Mexico, and administering federal grants for underserved people in the state) and the environment (while working for the US Forest Service, in earlier years in Oregon).
Betsy is eager to dive in and help the Coalition, and thinks tentative plans to revive the demonstration garden near City Hall, and manage it as a water-wise garden and as a community garden, make a lot of sense, both for the City and for the Coalition.
“I would love for us to become the leaders of that effort, to do something tangible for people and to bring people together,” she said. “I think we need to be bringing people together around questions of sustainability and local food, and this garden was the specific piece that made me want to roll up my sleeves and help to create something exciting here.”
Betsy retired from academia and came to Ojai in part to be closer to her parents, but has already been busy volunteering not just with the Coalition, but with Food Forward and the Land Conservancy. She thinks the town especially needs to pay attention to water and how to keep it on the land, after being certified in permaculture techniques.
“I think affordable housing and water are at the heart of the things that Ojai needs to grapple with right now,” she said. “I’m not saying I have all the answers, but I do think the Green Coalition could help bring people together, and have the kind of conversations that could allow us to do things differently.”
Betsy stressed her eagerness to help, as well as her lengthy experience on one of the largest and most successful of food co-ops in the country, La Montanita in Albuquerque.
“There just seem to be a lot of wonderful and very caring people here, paying attention and trying to do good work and make it a better community,” she said. “And lots of people in spiritual practice as well. As a Buddhist practioner I like that connection to place and a certain sense of sacredness about life. In a lot of ways it feels very special to me, and I must say the farmer’s market is awesome. In Albuquerque we had a farmer’s market, but it began in May and ended in October, so to see the abundance of foods here week after week is quite amazing!”