OLYMPIC HOPE: A national boxing champion last...

OLYMPIC HOPE: A national boxing champion last year at 16, Oxnard’s Fernando Vargas has been named the outstanding male athlete of the 1995 U.S. Olympic Festival after winning a second title. . . . But, as the 139-pounder trains for the Olympics next summer, he faces a second important challenge--graduating from high school. . . . “Being the first one in the family to graduate is a big accomplishment,” Vargas said. “But winning the Olympics is certainly something that not just anybody can do.”

MAIN DRAG: Frustrated they could not pave main streets before last weekend’s grand reopening of the downtown area, Ventura city engineers helped turn a bad situation good. . . . “Paving Delayed Due to Strike, Material Workers Took a Hike” read one of five humorous messages flashed to visitors. . . . “It was a minor catastrophe in our mind,” engineer Mark Watkins said. “So we wanted to throw a little humor into the mix.”

HOME TOWN: Ventura is the only county in the region where housing prices have stopped falling. Buyers like the lower crime, cleaner air and sense of community. (Valley Business, Page 3). . . . Marisa and Vincent DeFalco bought in Thousand Oaks in December, and plan to stay, even though they recently won a share of a $29-million state lottery and could move anywhere. . . . “People [in Thousand Oaks] are so friendly,” Marisa DeFalco said. “They don’t fight over parking spaces.”

LAND POOR: For 15 years, state and federal agencies have bought vast stretches of parkland in eastern Ventura County and the undeveloped periphery of the San Fernando Valley. . . . But this year neither the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area nor the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has even one new dollar to spend on more land. (B1) . . . “We got zip, zero, nada “ from the Legislature, said Rorie Skei of Thousand Oaks, spokeswoman for the conservancy.