I want to respond to the letters that have been sent to the T.O. Acorn regarding the Conejo Valley Days parade and rodeo.

The City Council has unfairly been taking a lot of heat over the decision to discontinue the annual CVD parade and rodeo.

The City Council has no input or influence on the decisions made by the Conejo Valley Days committee. In fact, had it not been for the City Council's generosity in waving certain fees in the past, the parade probably would have been discontinued years ago. The police bill alone is enormous.

The city has donated meeting space, space for the kickoff picnic and children's parade and use of the parking structure, to name a few. Believe me when I say the City Council has been very supportive of CVD and is getting a bum rap for the mismanagement you see currently taking place.

Perhaps a bit of history is called for. Until 1995, Conejo Valley Days was put on by the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber decided to discontinue Conejo Valley Days altogether (a totally different unpleasant story). At that time, a handful of local nonprofit organizations put the money together to apply for incorporation and nonprofit status as a single organization, the Conejo Valley Activities Corporation (CVAC).

We did that in an effort to continue the CVD tradition. So many local groups, many of them being youth groups, rely on CVD as their main annual fundraiser.

CVD has two guiding boards and the CVD committee. The CVAC board is made up of representatives of the individual member clubs.

The CVAC board mostly deals with major financial decisions but usually takes the advice of the CVD executive board. Each and every position takes hundreds of hours to do right and they are all volunteers. Each year it gets harder and harder to find people willing to put in that many hours of volunteer work.

Service clubs have seen their membership numbers decline for various reasons. Until recently the members of the CVD executive board had different club affiliations. One of the hardest transitions to make is to take off your "club" hat and put on your "CVD" hat.

When you have been a member of a service organization for many years the tendency is to put your club first. When you become a CVD executive board member, you have to put Conejo Valley Days first.

If you go strictly by the profit and loss, the parade costs CVD tens of thousands of dollars with no income. For many in the Conejo Valley the value of the parade is not measured in dollars. That being said, the bills still have to be paid.

I hate to hear the City Council being blamed for something out of their control. For information about Conejo Valley Days, get it from the horse's mouth. It's not a secret: the general chairman for 2007 is Jean Duffy Mathews. The CVD phone number is (805) 371-8730. If you call the office, please don't take your frustration out on the office secretary, Dorothy Alberts. The address is P.O. Box 4589, Thousand Oaks, CA 91359. Carol Oberle Thousand Oaks