COUNTYWIDE : Presiding Judges Elected for 2 Courts

The Ventura County Superior and Municipal courts have elected presiding judges to oversee the two courts in 1992.

The Superior Court judges last week chose Judge Steven Z. Perren to replace Judge Edwin M. Osborne as presiding judge, and named Judge Melinda A. Johnson to replace Perren as assistant presiding judge.

Perren, who has worked as a private attorney and a county prosecutor since being admitted to the bar in 1967, was appointed directly to the Superior Court in 1983 by then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. Brown also appointed Johnson, in 1982, to the Municipal Court after she worked as a private attorney and county prosecutor.

The Municipal Court judges last week elected Judge Bruce A. Clark to replace Judge Herbert Curtis III as presiding judge and named Judge John R. Smiley to replace Clark as assistant presiding judge.

Clark won election to the court in 1979 after serving as a county prosecutor since 1970. Smiley worked in private practice from 1973 to 1986, when then-Gov. George Deukmejian appointed him to the Municipal Court.

The new presiding judges will oversee the courts’ workload, assigning the judges in their courts to handle various types of cases. The Superior Court presiding judges make assignments once a year, and Municipal Court judges four times a year, beginning in the first week of January, 1992, said Vince Ordonez Jr., assistant executive officer of the courts.