BIG DIP: Ventura County’s slow climb out...

BIG DIP: Ventura County’s slow climb out of the recession may have slowed even further, if the latest real estate figures are any indication (B1). . . . Housing sales plunged 29% in the past year, according to trendwatchers TRW-REDI Data Inc. . . . TRW analyst Nima Mattagh offered some comfort: “What is interesting is that Ventura County is doing better than the rest of Southern California.”

THE MAIN DRAG: Ventura’s venerable Main Street, a hodgepodge of eateries, consignment shops and one-of-a-kind stores, is hardly the model of a modern business district (Valley Business, Page 10). . . . But in this age of mega-malls and dying downtowns, the motley strip survives almost in spite of itself--and despite Ventura shoppers. Says City Councilman Gregory L. Carson, a Telegraph Road nursery owner: “Venturans are not very supportive of locally owned businesses. . . . I have people come in to look around and then they will drive to Oxnard because they think they can save $1.”

MISCHA’S NEEDS: Ballet great Mikhail Baryshnikov requires not Beluga caviar and chilled Stolichnaya, merely humble coffee, doughnuts and fresh fruit in the dressing room for his sold-out shows tonight and Wednesday at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. . . . But he is a real stickler on lights and sound. Production manager Gary Mintz’s crew rigged the theater for five-channel sound, and lighting cues came on a floppy disk that “taught” the theater’s computer the timing, intensity and pattern of 170 lights.

LOCAL PROTESTERS: As the Oklahoma bombing probe focuses on anti-government activists, new light is falling on the Simi Valley-based “state citizens” (B1). . . . Leader Richard J. McDonald urges followers to shrug off federal control by turning in Social Security cards, driver’s licenses and license plates. . . . McDonald, 66, says police have stopped his plateless 1972 BMW nine times, but ticketed him only once.