Veterans look to succeed as entrepreneurs

Making a transition out of the military can be challenging for service members as they look to translate their military skill set into civilian work.

But as increasing resources become available, prospective veterans are more easily connecting leadership and task-oriented characteristics they have as military members with the mindset of an entrepreneur.

A joint collaboration between the Defense Department and the Small Business Association produced a new course, Boots to Business, to give military members the tools they need to become entrepreneurs.

An estimated 1,000 people transition out of the military through Naval Base Ventura County annually, said Kirstin Davy, a transition coordinator for Naval Base Ventura County.

Boots to Business is one of three optional workshops on easing veterans into civilian life, whether it is entrepreneurship, vocational training or higher education.

About 45 local active military members and veterans have participated in Boots to Business since it launched at Naval Base Ventura County in September.

The quarterly two-day workshops are led by Patrick Rodriguez, a Los Angeles-based economic development specialist for the Small Business Administration.

Rodriguez, who served in the Army for eight years, started the recent workshop at the base’s Fleet and Family Support Center in Port Hueneme by telling the class of 10 that moving from being enlisted in the military to being a business owner is not a long leap.

“The majority of folks who are coming out of the service have a lot of discipline, motivation. They’re very task-oriented,” Rodriguez said. “They have a lot of the same skill sets that entrepreneurs have so they’re not really having to climb that hill. They’re at the top of that hill. Now they just kind of have to get over and get their idea in place and get their business plan in place.”

Veterans make up 6 percent of the U.S. population and nearly 14 percent of the country’s small-business owners, Rodriguez said.

“Just being a veteran in that network is tremendous. It’s a really great starting point,” Rodriguez said. “They know that they don’t want to work for anybody else. They’re tired of taking orders from anybody so they have that mentality of doing it themselves, working for themselves.”

The course uses a curriculum developed by the Syracuse University Institute for Veterans and Military Families and offers an introduction to business development, ownership and planning; the economics of small businesses and startups; an understanding of markets and competitive space; the selection of the correct legal entity; and the use of resources.

Boots to Business participants include active-duty and retired military members, Rodriguez said. Some come in not knowing what they want to do after leaving the military, while others are ready to develop a business plan, he added.

“It’s always a challenge to hit that right note for those folks who are already kind of more sophisticated and know more about business,” Rodriguez said.

Hector Calderon, 40, spent the past 20 years in the Navy, serving two tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. For the past three years, he worked as a construction facilities manager at the Port Hueneme base.

But the Oxnard father of three said starting a business has been on his mind for the past decade. Through the Navy, he received his bachelor’s degree in business administration, and he’s one class away from finishing his master’s in business administration.

Calderon, who attended the Boots to Business workshop, said he hopes to launch a security company after he completely separates from the military at the end of July.

“There are so many resources in this country that we can take advantage of,” said Calderon, who moved to the U.S. from Colombia at age 18. “I want to accomplish something that I built, that I constructed.”

Calderon said he chose a security guard business because of the skills he learned in the military and after researching its market growth. But he said he has concerns about obtaining the money to get the business up and running.

“The hardest thing is to get the financial help that you require,” he said. “Not a lot of banks or companies loan on a new business.”

Typically about half of the Boots to Business lessons are led by members of the Ventura County chapter of Score, most of whom have owned or run a business and offer a variety of expertise.

Along with Score, the Small Business Association has a national resource partnership with the Small Business Development Center Network and the Women’s Business Center.

Larry Willett, chairman of the local chapter of Score, said the nonprofit’s involvement in Boots to Business is going well and that he hopes to establish more ongoing opportunities with the base to connect with military members as they continue to build their business.

“The service people that are taking that Boots to Business program at the base are basically personnel looking to be mustered out in the future and thinking about going into business, so, to me, that’s kind of a limited opportunity,” Willett said.

Willett said it would be effective to connect interested military members with regular seminars hosted by the nonprofit that are more in-depth than Boots to Business. Score also provides free business counseling with any of its 63 members, Willett added.

“If they contact us for counseling, that’s really the best way to start,” he said. “Then it’s according to their schedule. ... We work out a time and place to meet, and at that point we’re working one-on-one.”

Some local veterans are taking advantage of Score resources, including a recent all-day small-business seminar in Camarillo.

Ventura resident J.P. Budd retired from the Marine Corps in 2005 after nearly six years of service as a communications officer that included tours in Kuwait, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Budd is one of 120 franchise owners of Unishippers, a national freight-shipping company that focuses on small to midsize businesses.

“I like the franchise model because it’s a proven business model and you have a support network. You’re not reinventing the wheel,” he said. “Within shipping, even in a down economy, companies are still going to need to ship, and so there’s always going to be a need for it. It’s just when things are slow, they might not be shipping as much.”

Budd said he worried about finding a way to translate his military skills to a civilian job but quickly realized the intangibles he gained from the Marines were invaluable to becoming an entrepreneur.

“There’s a lot of grind to running your business,” he said. “If you have the discipline to get up and do what you need to do on a daily basis and work toward a goal and work with people — whether it’s your vendors, customers or employees — you’ll be successful. A lot of that stuff is kind of driven into you in the military.”

Link to Ventura County Star article

School Watch report: No easy solution to school violence

If you met Lucas Brown a few years ago, you would not have expected him, now at age 17, to be months away from graduating from high school, let alone acting as co-editor of his school’s literary magazine and expressing himself as a slam poet.

Not long before Brown started his sophomore year at Ventura High School, he spent six months in juvenile hall after a fight at his old high school in Lancaster ended with him kicking another student in the face. He was expelled and arrested on suspicion of assault and battery with a deadly weapon.

“I was just another teenager trying to fit in — making up stories, fabrications, you know, exaggerations, just to have kids like me,” Brown said. “These kids cornered me about some of my exaggerations, and I got very defensive about it. I ended up punching one of ‘em. One punch turned into a lot of punches.”

His first year at Ventura High, Brown was suspended a few times for fighting and marijuana possession. But with guidance from teachers and administrators, he found his place, discovered his passions and learned how to spend his time productively.

“Like my resurrection,” he said. “I was dying and then I got reborn.”

High schools throughout Ventura County must provide solutions every day for students with behaviors and backgrounds like Brown’s to maintain a safe campus.

When you have up to 3,000 teenagers or more constantly interacting with each other, some will fight. They will bring weapons onto school property, intentionally or not. They will make mistakes.

“Like anywhere else in the world, Ventura County is not immune to these incidents,” said Stan Mantooth, county superintendent of schools. “I like to think we’re a pretty safe place, but violence is endemic in our society.”

Behind the numbers

When the Ventura County Star’s School Watch team polled readers about their top education concerns, school safety was near the top of their list. In response, The Star analyzed two years of violence and weapons data reported by Ventura County’s 22 comprehensive public high schools and compiled by the California Department of Education.

Schools with the highest rates of violent incidents in which students or employees were injured were concentrated in the Oxnard Union High School District, although one Ventura school had the highest rate.

Buena, Oxnard, Hueneme, Channel Islands and Rio Mesa high schools, respectively, had the highest average rates of violence over the 2011-12 and 2012-13 school years, according to the state data. The violence rates were calculated using the number of injury-causing incidents at each school and its cumulative enrollment.

Buena and Oxnard were the only schools with an average of more than 40 violent incidents a year, with 41.5 and 40.5, respectively.

Violent incidents, as defined by the California Education Code, include those that cause physical injury, involve the use of force or violence, cause injury through sexual battery or assault, injure a school employee through assault or battery, or are acts of hate violence or hazing.

School administrators must apply a specific code to every incident that results in a student being disciplined. All disciplined actions are recorded by the state in a suspension and expulsion database, which includes the school violence data.

The data, however, could be skewed depending on how high schools interpret the different codes. For example, the state code defined as “caused, attempted or threatened physical injury” is “usually used to cite a student when they attempt, but are unsuccessful, or threaten to cause physical injury,” according to Department of Education spokeswoman Pam Slater.

The state considers the code a “violent incident without injury,” so it was not used to calculate local violence rates. But because the code includes “caused” physical injury in its definition, some Ventura County high schools might apply it to students involved in a fight.

In addition, more than two years of data could not be compared, because the state changed the way disciplined incidents were counted starting with 2011-12. And the numbers can vary widely from year to year.

Search the complete database

New state law may help

While Oxnard Union schools had among the highest violence rates in 2012-13, three Conejo Valley Unified high schools were among the top five in 2011-12.

Westlake and Newbury Park highs had the third- and fourth-highest violence rates in the county that year. Thousand Oaks High had the third-highest rate of weapons incidents.

The highest weapons rate in 2011-12 belonged to Nordhoff High School in Ojai, even though it only had five incidents. Weapons incidents include possession of a knife, firearm, dangerous object or explosive; or the sale or furnishing of a firearm or knife.

Oxnard Union schools had some of the highest rates of weapon incidents over the two-year period. Channel Islands, Oxnard and Pacifica, along with Fillmore and Santa Paula high schools, comprised the top five.

The 2012-13 data was released by the state at the end of January. Across the state, suspensions dropped 14 percent and expulsions dropped 12 percent.

Among the 22 Ventura County schools, total suspensions dropped 22 percent, to about 2,550. Total expulsions remained steady, however, at 125.

Those numbers could drop this school year because of a state law that took effect in 2013. It requires schools to demonstrate they’ve exhausted every option to correct some types of behavior before suspending or expelling a student.

“Kids are kids, and they make mistakes,” Mantooth said. “We’re educators and we want our kids to learn, but we want our kids to learn a lot of things, not just the subject matter. They need to learn how to get along in this world — that’s the kind of adults they’re going to become.”

Another perspective

Ventura County districts and schools are “working very hard to be proactive and provide a counterweight” to the typical violence that can be expected in a high school, Mantooth said.

Programs like restorative justice are being implemented, Mantooth said. If an incident occurs, the school will bring together the students, parents and faculty involved to discuss what happened.

“It’s recognition of what one person did to the other and looking inside each other to understand what may have motivated the fight or the assault and to find a way to fix it, so it doesn’t stay an open wound,” he said.

But Mantooth said “schools can’t do everything,” and without cooperation from students and parents, it is difficult to help a student develop emotional and social values.

Ron Avi Astor, a USC social work and education professor and school violence expert, said schools “need to become places that get students through some of the difficulties in their communities and their families and integrate them into society in a much better way.”

He cautioned against relying too heavily on one source of information about school safety, especially when the data is reported by the schools themselves.

“Suspension and expulsion data is really important ... but there are really wide variations with how principals and vice principals deal with expulsions and suspensions,” Astor said. “Look at it with a grain of salt — there may be more going on.”

Astor recommended the California Healthy Kids Survey as a way to gauge how students view their school environment. The most recent survey was taken during the 2011-12 school year.

In the Oxnard Union district, 30 percent of surveyed freshmen reported being pushed, shoved or hit at least once in the previous year. One of five freshmen said they had been in a physical fight, and one of four said they had seen someone with a weapon on campus.

Mantooth said educators pay attention to the Healthy Kids Survey “because that’s the actual students’ perception” and it reveals incidents that do not necessarily “rise to the level of formal action.”

Schools should pay close attention to bullying and harassment, rather than focusing too much on worst-case scenarios such as a mass shooting, said Scott Poland, a psychology professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and a nationally recognized expert on school safety. It can make kids feel unsafe in “what statistically is probably the safest place they can possibly be,” he said.

“The lower-level things really are the tip of the iceberg and what we need to be working on,” said Poland, who has responded to 13 school shootings.

Poland said the key to maintaining a safe school is cultivating relationships between students and teachers.

“That’s the piece we’re missing,” he said. “If the teacher doesn’t know your name, how likely are you to be going to them to tell them of a possible threat of violence?”

‘An awesome man’

Charles Cornwell, an assistant principal at Ventura High School, said becoming a high school administrator was the furthest thing from his mind when he earned his law degree and passed the California State Bar.

But when the opportunity arose for him to return to his alma mater, Cornwell said, he “took it in a heartbeat.” He wanted to be a role model for students in his community — the children of his former classmates and neighbors along Ventura Avenue.

Cornwell went to middle and high school with Lucas Brown’s father. The understanding Cornwell has of Brown’s home life clearly strengthens their connection.

Brown’s parents separated when he was 3, and he has been living in foster care or with relatives for the past decade. “I don’t want to be a doubting individual, but for some reason or another, my life and how I was raised ... it created my low self-esteem,” Brown said.

Cornwell reassured him. “But you did it, mijo,” he said, using the Spanish word for “my son.”

“No matter what you’ve done, all the trouble you’ve faced — that’s how strong you are. And you’re going to be an awesome man, no matter what. You’re going to be a great father.”

Brown said his confidence has been restored knowing “there are people — adults — who really, truly believe” in him. He will be the first person in his family to graduate from high school and he’ll start studying at Ventura College in the fall, with plans to eventually become a teacher.

Maybe even an assistant principal, Cornwell suggested. “With your wealth of experience, mijo, you can do anything you want in this world,” Cornwell said.

Read the complete Ventura County Star special report

J.D. Power and Associates: Global influence close to home

Global marketing firm J.D. Power and Associates has been successfully influencing consumers on what products to purchase for more than 45 years.

But the Westlake Village-headquartered company has come a long way to producing customer satisfaction and merchandise quality surveys across 12 industries with offices throughout the United States, the Asia Pacific region, Europe, South America, Canada and Mexico.

J.D. "Dave" Power III founded the company sitting at his Calabasas kitchen table in 1968, less than 10 years after earning his graduate degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Power had been working in Los Angeles for a few years when he ran into a roommate from Wharton who had just quit his job at General Electric and — with two other young professionals — planned to start his own company.

Power said, "You've got to be crazy ... You're giving up good jobs with good companies and you've got your families."

But his friend's perspective intrigued Power.

He told Power that "the big danger for an employee out of graduate school is that he spends his time taking steps up the ladder and before he knows it is a captive of the company ... if this doesn't work out, we'll find another job.' "

That night Power went home and told his wife about the conversation. She encouraged him to take the same path and start his own company, so that's exactly what he did.

With three young children and a fourth not far away, Power said he left his job with Marplan, the research arm of advertising agency McCann-Erickson, to provide better "market research than what the industry was providing to their clients."

"They weren't doing the right kind of research, they weren't listening and they were directing it so it would come back with data that was just what they wanted to hear," Power said. "We saw real weakness in that."

During the company's first few months of operation and with a staff of about 12 employees, the firm landed its first automobile client — a Japanese car company newly headquartered in the Los Angeles area that was seeking research on how to market cars to Americans.

After persistent phone calls and unscheduled office visits, Power was introduced to Tatsuro Toyoda, the Japanese executive in charge of Toyota's automotive division and son of the Toyota Motor Corp. founder.

Not much time passed before Power looked to expand.

"We were becoming so dependent on Toyota," Power said. "It would be 75 percent of our revenue, 100 percent of our profits and about 150 percent of my time. We had to do something different."

INDEPENDENCE

The company decided to produce its own study on the Mazda rotary engine, which Power said was "the hottest product in 1972" and "the fastest growing import ever in the United States." J.D. Power and Associates would own the data, so it could sell the results to any automobile firm, instead of doing research for one company within the industry.

"We did 2,000 mailings and before we knew it we had a over 50 percent response rate — it was a big success and we owned the data," Power said. "This is the first-time that we felt free to do what we wanted to do and we sold it to all of the car companies that wanted it."

The study yielded more than anticipated. Power's wife, who did much of the tabulations, discovered that after 30,000 miles, one out of five users reported a specific part of the engine started to fail.

After the report was leaked to The Wall Street Journal, J.D. Power and Associates quickly garnered national media attention for its highlight of the problem.

Power "did things that improved the automobiles that we all drive today," said Ernie Pomerantz, who served on the company's board from 1999 to 2005.

"It was his real diligence and thoughtfulness about surveying the consumer that generated so much information for the manufacturers that forced them to make improvements more quickly than they otherwise would have," Pomerantz said.

Pomerantz, current chairman of Stonewater Capital LLC in New York City, said he met Power in 1990 while he was making investments in the automobile industry on behalf of a private equity firm.

He "was just amazingly well-respected and well-liked," Pomerantz said. "It didn't matter whether it was Ford or Chevrolet or Chrysler or Toyota — everyone talked the world of him and respected him and that's not easy to do in a competitive industry."

J.D. Power and Associates expanded far beyond automotive, permeating industries including travel, home improvement, retail and product, health care, travel and leisure, energy, financial services, real estate, telecommunications, insurance and homes.

As the company grew, Power made a conscious effort to maintain his business ethics based on integrity, independence and impact.

The native of Worcester, Mass., said much of his character was developed as an undergraduate student studying English at College of the Holy Cross in his hometown.

"My education in college was to teach you how to live a life, whereas when I went to graduate school, I was taught how to earn a living," Power said.

Power said he was inspired by William Shakespeare and quoted an excerpt from Hamlet, when Polonius advises his son Laertes, to "'Above all: to thine ownself be true.'"

"If you're not true to yourself, you're not going to be true to much of anything else," Power added.

FAMILY BUSINESS

Whether it was his wife calculating data results or children stuffing envelopes with surveys and later joining the company as adults, Power strived to maintain a family-oriented environment — even with around 700 employees by the time he sold the company in 2005 to McGraw Hill Financial.

"We treated everyone like family," he said "It was truly a family business — it wasn't just my wife and the four children, it was anyone that came in and I think that's almost a unique situation to have and it attracted more people that were interested in that kind of environment."

Linda Hirneise was one of those people. Before being asked to join J.D. Power and Associates, Hirneise was a business teacher at Westlake High School, where she taught several of the Power children and was introduced to the company's founder as she invited local business leaders to speak to her students.

"He's an entrepreneur who always aspired to independence, creativity and excellence," said Hirneise, who stayed at the company for 26 years. "The world needs more Dave Power's. There's just not enough — from a personal and professional point of view."

While Power retired from J.D. Power and Associates in 2008, he continues — at 82 years old — to share his story with the public — whether it's members of the Conejo Valley community, where he has been a resident since 1975, or students across the country. A biography of the business leader was published in 2013.

Peter Marlow, current vice president and general manager for corporate communications and marketing, said he views Power as his mentor and has aimed to "continue the legacy that he established and stick to the values that he put in place"

"There's no sugar coating, you tell it like it is — that was the maxim of the organization and his actions reflected that," Marlow said. "The reason why the brand continues to grow in influence is because the business community, with the media and the consumers, realize that this is an unfiltered voice."

Link to Ventura County Star article

Loss of extended jobless aid affects Ventura County residents

Steven Sawyer, 40, has been laid off three times since 2009, but the past 14 months have been his longest period of unemployment.

Sawyer, who lives in Ventura with his wife and 9- and 10-year-old daughters, said he remained hopeful a job was just around the corner, but losing his weekly $370 unemployment check just after Christmas has shifted his perspective.

Nearly 4,700 Ventura County residents lost their federal unemployment benefits Dec. 28 after Congress did not extend the program for 1.3 million long-term unemployed workers.

"I knew it wasn't going to last forever. My biggest gripe I have is it really came with very little notice," Sawyer said. "I was shocked. I'm frustrated with the government, obviously because they can't seem to agree on anything."

Several bills that would continue the federal extension benefits have been introduced in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, but Congress has yet to act. Discussions to reinstate the long-term aid are not expected to resume until congressional representatives return Jan. 27 from a weeklong recess.

About 222,000 unemployed Californians were among those in the same position after the federally funded extended benefits expired, according to the California Employment Development Department. An additional 17,000 unemployed workers have exhausted their state unemployment benefits since the end of 2013 and would have qualified for a federal extension, according to the agency.

The state provides unemployment benefits to California residents for up to 26 weeks, but the economic slowdown prompted the federal government to provide tiers of continued assistance to those who remained without a job for more than six months.

The extended federal aid that Congress did not renew would have provided unemployed workers with an additional 37 to 63 weeks of benefits, depending on how recently the unemployment claim was filed.

Sawyer said his family had managed to cover the mortgage, food and utilities with his wife's salary and his unemployment check, but they also depleted their savings and retirement funds in the process.

"It's the long-term ramifications for us that we're concerned about," said Sawyer, including paying for his children to go to college and the length of time the couple will have to remain in the workforce.

Even by spending 15 to 20 hours per week applying for jobs, expanding his search geographically and working on earning his bachelor's degree in business, Sawyer said the number of job interviews he lands has declined drastically as the time he has been unemployed drags on.

"I'm still trying, but I don't know," he said. "I just don't know how successful I'm going to be."

Ventura County's unemployment rate is at 7.2 percent — a group of 31,700 people, according to November 2013 data released at the end of December. The county unemployment rate reached 11.3 percent in August 2010.

Vivian Pettit, a program manager overseeing the county's performance with the Workforce Investment Act, said she has seen a lot of people who lost their federal benefits come to the county's job and career centers.

"They basically needed a safety net," she said. "That's the basis of unemployment — to give people a safety net so they can continue to pay their bills while they look for work."

The job centers — in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Ventura, Santa Paula and Oxnard — do not house a division of the Employment Development Department, but Pettit said they are "close cousins" and help connect people with state and local services.

"The majority of people who are looking for work in this area are actually what you would call middle-aged, in their 40s, 50s, 60s," she said. "Seniors over 65 have also been affected by the stock market crash. They had their nest egg, but that's kind of been obliterated. They are now looking for work. Maybe they're on Social Security, but they need some supplementary income."

The job centers hold training programs and offer workshops in English and Spanish that help people learn how to search for jobs, create a résumé and cover letter, and gain interview skills.

"You have a lot of people who were long-term employed. ... They don't know how to look for work," she said. "Job searches 25, 30 years ago — it was different. You could do it by word-of-mouth. Now you have to do everything electronic."

Steven Goodmanson, 55, spent three days this week at the West Oxnard Job and Career Center, where he met with his counselor to complete self-assessments, attended workshops to improve his résumé and cover letter, and brushed up on interview skills.

Goodmanson, of Santa Paula, had been working as a mechanical inspector for Tyco Electronics Connectivity, now TE Connectivity, for more than 30 years in Carpinteria until the company decided to relocate out of state and abroad.

The marine, aerospace and defense manufacturer gave Goodmanson a one-year notice of his November 2013 exit date. Goodmanson said he stayed until the end of his employment to receive his severance package. He is living off that and state unemployment.

Goodmanson said he plans to retrain in a different industry, such as accounting or medicine.

"I just feel that manufacturing — a lot of companies are moving out of state," he said. "But medical, business — there's a real strong workforce there. ... It's kind of scary in a way. It's all for the good. I'm excited."

Antonio Amezcua, 60, was at the same resume-writing workshop Thursday in Oxnard, a city in which he's lived for more than 35 years.

Amezcua has been working at a warehouse distribution center through a temporary employment agency for the past four years, but he consistently gets laid off at the end of every December and has to live off unemployment benefits until he is rehired in April or May.

This year is no different for Amezcua and his wife, who is not working.

"It affects me. We have to watch out with our bank account," he said. "We're tight for at least the three months that I'm laid off, while I'm looking for a second job or something more steady."

Before the recession, Amezcua said, he had never been laid off. He worked for several different companies, but always had a job.

Now he is working on completing a paid vocational training program to help pay the bills and lead to a steady job.

"Like Cesar Chavez said, ‘Sí, se puede,' " Amezcua said, meaning "Yes, we can," in Spanish.

Link to Ventura County Star article

Rules keep Ventura County air pollution agency from inspecting residences

Nearly all of California’s 35 air pollution control districts respond to air quality complaints at homes and often send an inspector onto the property or into a house to verify the problem.

But the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District is one of three that will not allow inspectors, even those invited by the homeowner, to set foot onto residential property — whether to do something such as enter private land to check on accumulating dust, go into a backyard to watch a neighbor burn toxic fumes or check to ensure asbestos is removed safely.

Eighteen California districts allow inspectors to go into private homes, and 14 only let staff go onto the property’s land or backyard.

Three districts — Ventura County, San Joaquin Valley Unified and Antelope Valley — have policies barring inspectors from going onto residential property.

Ventura County is among few in another respect: the Ventura County, Bay Area and South Coast districts regulate single-family homes for removal of asbestos, a fibrous material that was widely used in building materials and has been linked to lung cancer.

But the Bay Area and South Coast districts let inspectors enter homes for inspections, such as asbestos notifications.

Ventura County Air Pollution Control Officer Michael Villegas, who manages the district, said the policy to forbid residential property inspections was not approved by the local Air Pollution Control Board, which consists of the five county supervisors and five city officials. The board is tasked with establishing policy and approving rules.

An internal policy memo sent to inspectors in February 2011 says they “should go no further onto or into a property than the front porch or driveway,” but Compliance Division Manager Dan Searcy said the policy has been in place since at least 2002.

Searcy said the rule was established for safety reasons, even though no particular incident prompted the memo.

INSPECTOR SAFETY

Searcy said he saw “some weird things” during his 22 years as an inspector, including intoxicated people, pit bulls and a situation in which “the person clearly has a lot of mental problems.”

“Things can get really strange, and they can get crazy,” he said. “We’re not armed. ... We don’t carry mace; we don’t have clubs; we don’t have any vests on. ... I can’t ask any of my inspectors to do anything that would put them in danger. ... Most of the time it’s not going to be a problem, but you never know.”

The Ventura County district has the equivalent of seven full-time inspectors to complete annual inspections of more than 1,400 permitted facilities, 300 retail gas stations and 300 agricultural engines, among answering hundreds of complaints.

Inspectors with the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District respond to complaints at homes and go into residences, possibly to refer the issue to another agency, said Compliance Division Manager Craig Strommen.

Strommen said feeling unsafe during a residential inspection is “not uncommon.”

“We’ve had guns drawn on us before or people threatening and yelling at us,” he said. “If there’s any threat of bodily damage, we’ll only go with a police escort. If there’s any inclination of guns or unsafe access, we back off.”

Strommen said problems are rare and that it “doesn’t make any sense” to have a policy preventing inspectors from going to homes.

“The citizenry deserves the ability to complain about air pollution sources and have an agency that is working on their behalf to eliminate their air pollution sources,” Strommen said. “That’s what we do.”

NO APPROVAL

The Ventura County air pollution board “establishes policy and approves new rules,” according to the district website. But Villegas, who is appointed by the board, said that is a “general statement.”

“The board has to put some trust in the management team to operate the district,” Villegas said. “If we had to run every policy by the board ... we wouldn’t get anything done.”

Villegas said “the day-to-day minutiae of running the agency belongs to the management team” and that the district frequently creates rules without board approval.

David Clegern, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, which monitors the state’s 35 local air districts, said “an internal policy in place for employee safety” would not be required to go to the district’s governing board for approval.

Carmen Ramirez, chairwoman of the local air pollution board and an Oxnard City Council member, said the “long-standing policy that the district does not go in and investigate homes or problems with homes” has not been an issue while she has been on the board.

“We have a limited staff,” she said. “We have a lot of permits out there that we have to do for the public interest, and getting involved with people’s homes is a little beyond that.”

Ramirez said she was unaware that more than 90 percent of air pollution control districts respond to residential air quality complaints.

“This thing has not been brought to my attention,” she said, adding that she would “talk to staff about their staffing ability” and “consider whether it’s something we should take a look at in terms of change.”

The 10-member board meets with district staff members every other month. The next meeting will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the County Government Center in Ventura.

ASBESTOS

Most air pollution control districts follow federal asbestos removal regulations that require notifications for demolition and renovation projects of buildings that are commercial, industrial or residential and have more than four dwellings.

But three districts, including Ventura County, go beyond federal standards and regulate asbestos removal in single-family homes.

Although the district requires homeowners or occupants to tell it if a contractor is completing a renovation or demolition project involving asbestos, inspectors will never visit the site if an issue arises.

Officials with the city of Ventura’s Building and Safety Department found it “disturbing” to learn of this policy in the case of a Ventura couple who had a contractor leave behind asbestos and debris after removing an old furnace.

After Ventura city inspector Tim Dunn assessed the home and saw evidence of asbestos, he contacted the Air Pollution Control District. He said the solution he received was for the homeowners to call a licensed asbestos abatement contractor and pursue a case against the original contractor in small claims court.

“We were very concerned about that because throughout all these years, we have been sending people there under the impression that they would take care of any inspections on asbestos or to fine contractors that are not certified in this work,” Dunn said.

Villegas said he understood people were confused because the website says “asbestos renovation and demolition projects are reviewed and inspected by district inspectors.”

The Bay Area and South Coast districts have fees associated with the required asbestos removal notifications that are “quite expensive” and “not popular” but help fund inspection programs,” said Jay Nicholas, a Ventura County air quality inspector.

But to Searcy, the potential danger is enough to forbid residential inspections.

“It isn’t worth it for somebody to get hurt. It isn’t,” he said. “I go home to my wife and kids every day, and I’d like them to go home to their wife and kids, too.”

Asked whether the district is concerned about residents who fear they have asbestos or other air quality issues, Searcy paused and said, “That’s a problem.”

Link to Ventura County Star article 

Local law schools endure changes to legal industry

Law schools — whether elite or inclusive — saw a significant decline in enrollment over the last few years, but one of Ventura County's two law colleges accredited by the California State Bar experienced some relief in first-year enrollment this fall.

The Ventura and Santa Barbara Colleges of Law — one school with two campuses — had a 9 percent increase in first-year student enrollment for Fall 2013 after several years of decline, President and Dean Heather Georgakis said.

Even with dropping enrollment, Georgakis said the school's focus on affordability and accessibility helped protect it from "the same negative impacts" faced by elite law schools accredited by the American Bar Association.

First-year enrollment at American Bar Association-accredited schools saw a 15.2 percent drop in Fall 2012 compared to the decade high of 52,500 students in 2010, according to the Law School Admission Council, a nonprofit organization.

From Fall 2010 to Fall 2013, the number of students applying to law schools accredited by the American Bar Association dropped by 32.4 percent, according to the Law School Admission Council.

Enrollment started dropping as newly graduated law students tried to find their way into the legal industry and were faced with an inundated labor force fighting over few available jobs — a situation worsened for those that attended an elite law school with a high price tag attached to earning a law degree.

The Ventura and Santa Barbara Colleges of Law — with 199 current students — is catered toward full-time employees and exclusively offers classes three nights per week. The school does not require prospective students to take the LSAT and has not sought accreditation from the American Bar Association.

Georgakis said the school did not alter selectivity or academic standards to account for a decline in applications. Rather, she said, the recent enrollment increase was caused by the economic turnaround, the school's new policy to lock-in a student's tuition rate to ensure it does not rise while the degree is completed, and a mandatory bar review program included with tuition costs to cover the approximately $4,000 needed to take the bar exam.

Students typically take four years to complete the program, which costs $48,000.

"Students graduating from our program do not incur that very high debt load that students at the ABA schools incur," Georgakis said. "They graduate with very little debt and that means they have options that students from those elite schools don't have. Students graduating from elite law schools leave with $200,000 to $250,000 in debt."

Despite the recent enrollment increase at the Colleges of Law, Ventura County's other law school is still on the decline.

The Southern California Institute of Law — also with campuses in Ventura and Santa Barbara — has higher student enrollment this fall compared to five years ago when it hit an all-time low, but overall enrollment is still down by 12 percent compared to its usual student body of 100 people, President and Dean Stanislaus Pulle said.

Both local law school deans, however, agreed their practical curriculums are ahead of new admission requirements for the California State Bar.

State makes changes

The California State Bar Board of Trustees adopted in mid-October new admissions reform recommendations that will require lawyers complete additional practical legal training before or shortly after being admitted.

The new requirements — to be implemented between 2015 and 2017 — include 10 hours of additional legal education courses for new lawyers, 50 hours of legal services devoted to pro-bono or "modest-means clients" supervised by a licensed legal practitioner, and taking at least 15 units of practice-based courses during law school or an apprenticeship after law school.

Georgakis said the State Bar is emphasizing that new lawyers and applicants have certain practical skills, including writing, oral advocacy and client counseling, which are "radical" changes for schools accredited by the American Bar Association but have been commonplace for the local law school.

"The idea is that new lawyers would be more well-prepared, not just with the abstract thinking and analytical skills that they need, but also the practical skills necessary to zealously represent a client," she said.

Local Industry

Wendy Cole Lascher has spent the last 40 years working as a Ventura-based lawyer — 37 of those years were consumed running her own law firm and she has worked the last three years as an attorney for the county's largest law firm, Ferguson Case Orr Paterson LLP. Lascher said she has seen many changes to the local legal industry since the recession — including more industry growth in the East County and less participation in the Ventura County Bar Association, but "the biggest thing that's happened locally in the last three years was the demise of Nordman Cormany" Hair and Compton. The firm, founded in 1939 and once the county's largest, closed its doors earlier this year.

But "the issue isn't local, it's the statewide influx of lawyers entering the system," Lascher said. "It had nothing to do with the local law schools. There's a glut of new lawyers on the market."

Even the top 20 percent of graduates from University of California Hastings College of the Law and UCLA School of Law were having a hard time getting jobs, Lascher said.

Lascher said some of the problems faced by the legal industry are due to law firms getting "too big" and "over-lawyering resulting in overbilling." Other contributing factors, she said, include consumers not wanting to spend money on litigation, mediation being an increasingly used alternative to legal action and larger corporations doing more in-house legal work.

But the Ventura County legal industry has not been as adversely affected because the largest local law firms would be considered small firms if they were located anywhere else, she added.

Small firms are able to change and move faster than the "big behemoth" law firm with hundreds of lawyers and multiple offices, Lascher said. "They have taken many more hits than small law firms."

Lascher, who served on the Ventura and Santa Barbara Colleges of Law board of directors for 10 years until summer 2012, said local law students "have a great advantage over people who come out of UCLA at age 22" because many are older, more mature, second-career students with community connections and "are better equipped — with some mentoring — to set up on their own."

"People focused on individual and family-business oriented law should not be concerned," she said. "There's a huge underserved percentage of the population who can't afford big law firm fees and can't afford big law firm representation."

Pursuing service

Jessica Jimenez, 32, started pursuing her law degree at the Ventura College of Law in August to hopefully achieve her dream of running her own law firm or working within another that assists the community, advocates for equal rights and works with juveniles.

"There's a need within the community to advocate for the youth, so I would like to be a conduit of change — if I can — to help with healthy institutions that benefit all of us in the long run," she said.

Jimenez works as a full-time human resources employee for the Ventura County Human Services Agency and drives down the street three times a week to attend three-hour law school after work.

"There was no other school that I considered that would meet my needs because I'm a full-time employee," she said. "It's nice that it's community-based here, it's right in Ventura. Many attorneys that I've heard that come here are members of the community and are helping out, so that's important to me."

The married Port Hueneme resident has been entrenched in the Ventura County community her entire life — she was born and raised in Oxnard, earned her bachelor's degree from California Lutheran University, previously worked at a local law office and both worked and volunteered for Ventura County Probation.

"It took me a while to realize that I wanted to go to law school to be an advocate, but I think being a woman and being a minority, we're at a disadvantage and it would benefit me to have a law degree to not only help myself and my community, but to fight for the things I believe in," Jimenez said.

Link to Ventura County Star article

Economist: Better national and global growth without Washington 'shenanigans'

Economist Sung Won Sohn — once ranked as the most accurate economist in the country by The Wall Street Journal — said in his semiannual forecast Friday that he expects the local, national and global economies to continue growing slowly.

Sohn, of the Institute for Global Economic Research at CSU Channel Islands in Camarillo, said while economic fundamentals in the United States are "pretty good," the "shenanigans" surrounding Congress are hindering success both within the country and abroad.

"We are creating more jobs, people are being more optimistic, but the biggest liability we have right now is political uncertainty coming out of Washington," he said. "If it weren't for the political uncertainty that I'm talking about here, I think the U.S. economy and the global economy would be much better than it is today."

The former chief economist for Wells Fargo told a group of 65 business leaders, community members, professors and students gathered in Thousand Oaks that job gains, the housing market recovery and increases in domestic oil and gas production are contributing to the country's improving economy.

But Sohn said the progress is hurt by issues like the recent federal government shutdown and continual delays over raising the debt limit, which he said amounts to $53,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

"Uncertainties are very, very detrimental to economic growth," he said. "Businesses are saying, ‘Economists are telling me we could have a recession because of Washington — why should I hire people? Why should I build another plant?' "

Meanwhile, Sohn said, "Consumers are saying, ‘If we do have a recession, I could lose my job. Why should I spend money? Why should I buy a car or a house?' "

John Griffin, a business professor at CSU Channel Islands, challenged Sohn on whether government-caused uncertainties are anything more than "short-term disruptions."

"Uncertainty is always a part of our lives," Griffin said. "Businesses generally deal with that pretty well."

Businesses would hire more people and raise wages if they saw greater demand and were selling their products, Griffin said.

"We're not growing very fast, and I attribute that more to a slowing in demand," he said. "Much of that slowing in demand, I think, is because many of the young people — they're not finding work, they're saddled with college debt, and salaries haven't risen that much."

Despite the country's slow growth, Sohn said, the United States is in a better economic situation than other advanced nations, such as Japan and many European countries.

Sohn said he is "reasonably sure the stock market will continue to do reasonably well." Interest rates hit a historic low, and Sohn does not expect them to significantly rise for a "long time" — as much as 100 years.

But the U.S. could improve its economic globalization, he said.

"We have been doing well and we will continue to do very well," Sohn said. "But there's a whole new world out there. We can export, we can import, we can find jobs overseas and we can bring people from overseas and have them work here. We can do more trading. The global economy is very, very important whether you like it or not."

More than just broadening the U.S. economy, Sohn said, Ventura County should also place greater focus on globalizing its local economy.

Ventura County has the second-lowest unemployment rate in Southern California behind Orange County, and its housing market has rebounded, Sohn said.

"Ventura County is a wonderful place to be," he said, "but we can still look beyond Ventura County and do better."

Gary Trow, an Oxnard-based City National Bank vice president, said Sohn's forecast was a confirmation of the increased caution he has seen in the local market compared with the past.

Trow, who has spent his entire 34-year banking career in Ventura County, said a lot of his clients have reduced spending or delayed expansions because of economic uncertainty.

"The economy's still pretty flat," Trow said. "We're seeing some growth, albeit slow. I think the global side obviously impacts more and more the banking world today than it ever has."

Sohn said China's high rate of economic growth has started to level out because of its real estate bubble and growing debt. Meanwhile, Europe is gradually recovering after hitting bottom, and emerging markets such as Russia, India and Brazil are slowing, he said.

Link to Ventura County Star article 

Latest census data shows income drops in Ventura County

Ventura County poverty rates refused to budge and household income saw a significant drop last year despite broader economic gains across the country, according to U.S. census data released Thursday.

While state and national average incomes experienced slight but statistically insignificant increases, Ventura County's median household income dropped from $76,060 in 2011 to $71,517 in 2012, according to annual estimates from the U.S. Bureau's American Community Survey.

"Average working families are not sharing in the gains of the economic recovery," said Lucas Zucker, a researcher for the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy. "Ventura County just happened to be one of those places where it got a little bit worse."

Approximately 11.5 percent of local residents in 2012 lived in poverty — defined as an annual household income of less than $23,283 for a family of four.

But poverty rates and annual income varied widely across the county, according to the survey that includes data from cities with at least 65,000 residents.

Oxnard had a $57,351 median household income with 17.1 percent living in poverty; Ventura had $62,077 annual income with 9.6 percent poverty; Simi Valley had $82,223 annual income with 8.3 percent poverty; Camarillo had $86,735 annual income with 5.1 percent poverty; and Thousand Oaks had $87,402 annual income with 7.9 percent poverty.

Disparities among race, education level and citizenship status also were pervasive regarding poverty rates in Ventura County.

For example, while non-Hispanic whites in Ventura County had a poverty rate of 5.9 percent and median household income of $78,457, with 9.4 percent lacking health insurance — the data painted a much different picture for local Hispanics. In 2012, Hispanic residents had a poverty rate of 18.9 percent and household income of $54,751, with 25.3 percent lacking health insurance.

The overall poverty rate for county residents who were born in the U.S. was 10.6 percent, but only 7 percent of residents who were born in a foreign country and became naturalized citizens lived in poverty in 2012.

However, 20.4 percent of Ventura County residents who were born in another country and do not have citizenship status are living in poverty.

Zucker said this statistic could change drastically if the U.S. House of Representatives moves forward with comprehensive immigration reform that provides a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the country without legal permission.

Ventura County would see a "significant reduction in its poverty rate over time" if an opportunity to become citizens was presented to the approximately 71,000 immigrants living locally without legal permission, Zucker said.

"There are huge economic benefits of immigration reform," Zucker said. Immigrants working without legal status are often paid lower rates, but as citizens, they would have greater purchasing power that would lead to consumer spending throughout the community and local economic growth, he added.

But the census data shows immigrant status is far from the only indicator of local poverty.

The number of Ventura County residents receiving food stamp benefits has been rising steadily since 2008 — going from 4.1 percent in 2008 to 7.5 percent in 2012.

Susan Haverland, vice president of programs and services for FOOD Share of Ventura County, said the nonprofit saw a "significant increase in people seeking to enroll in food stamps — mostly working families looking to make ends meet."

There are more than 100,000 people living in Ventura County who are food-insecure — meaning they can't afford to buy enough food to support their family's need for nutrition, Haverland said.

"We are serving the working poor — just because people have jobs doesn't mean they're making a living wage," she said. "Many of those that are eligible for food stamps work full time and yet they still qualify because working full time doesn't mean they can pay their bills and have enough left to feed their families."

While Haverland said food insecurity extends throughout all local communities, the recent census figures show Oxnard had the greatest percentage of the population receiving food stamp benefits at 15.6 percent in 2012 — compared to 9 percent in 2008.

"The recession ends top down," she said. "While things are improving, I'm not sure that improvement has been felt by all the working people in the county."

Not all of the 2012 statistics were discouraging.

A greater pool of local young adults and children are covered by health insurance, which Zucker said could be attributed to provisions under President Barack Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The rate of uninsured 18- to 24-year-olds in Ventura County, for example, dropped to 25.9 percent in 2012 from 32.4 percent in 2009. The rate of local uninsured children now stands at 5.6 percent, while it was 9 percent in 2011.

About 16 percent of Ventura County's overall population does not have health insurance, but that is expected to continue to drop as the state's health insurance exchange opens Oct. 1

"It's really important for low- and middle-income families to consider enrolling in the health exchanges," Zucker said. "It's a key way for folks to supplement their income and help provide basic necessities like health insurance for their family when the economic recovery is not benefiting them."

Link to Ventura County Star article

Ventura County's rising rents force people to tear up wish lists

It took Cathy Canzano and her fiancé nearly four months to find their affordable 450-square-foot studio in Port Hueneme, where they pay $780 each month, including utilities.

But after more than six months in the small space, the 23-year-old caregiver hopes they can move to a bigger apartment in Camarillo to avoid driving almost 30 miles to-and-from work.

Canzano has spent the last few weeks scouring Craigslist during her spare time and the least-expensive option she has come across was $1,200 per month for a 500-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment.

"It's been a frustrating search," she said. "I definitely noticed an extreme rise in rent costs between different cities."

Canzano is not alone. Ventura County renters saw about a 3 percent rise in rent prices since last year and are now forking over an average of $1,532 every month to live in apartments or town homes, according to the combined findings of national and local data firms. The national firm noted the county is the fifth most expensive market in California.

Even with increasing rents, the competition for an available unit — even one that's cramped and overpriced — is fierce because the average occupancy rate stands at nearly 97 percent. If you don't seize it, there's a good chance you'll lose out.

Dyer Sheehan Group Inc. in Ventura surveys 188 apartment properties throughout the county ranging in size from three units to 608 units — a total of nearly 20,800 units.

Its semiannual report is expected to be completed by mid-August, but preliminary results show a little lower county average rent of $1,509, a 2.9 percent increase from last year.

(View the Interactive Google map: Ventura County average rent by city and the Infographic: Renting in Ventura County.)

The local market "is solid and we expect modest rent growth to continue over the foreseeable future — whatever that is, two or three years," Vice President and CFO Paul Sheehan said. "We don't see anything happening that is going to change that trajectory."

Rents and occupancy rates are generally increasing slowly in Ventura County, but "it fluctuates back and forth a little bit and each market has its own characteristics," Sheehan said.

Thousand Oaks and Westlake Village had the highest average rent at $1,722 — a 6 percent increase from last year — and the average rate for three-bedroom units jumped 12 percent since January, Sheehan said.

Fillmore had the lowest rent with a monthly average of $978, a year-over-year increase of about 6 percent, he added.

Sheehan said his best bet for cities that will see a greater rent increase are Camarillo, Moorpark and Thousand Oaks, but that can depend on economic growth.

"One of the biggest limitations to how much rent people can charge — beside competition and things like that — is simply people's income," he said. "People have to qualify and until we get better job growth and the kind of jobs that pay good money, you're going to see, to some degree, a cap to how high these things can go. If people had more money to spend, these rents would be higher now."

RealFacts, a San Francisco-based firm, calculated an average Ventura County rent of $1,554 after tracking 76 local developments with at least 100 rental units. The overall cost was calculated by averaging the typical rents for different types of units — from $1,046 for a studio to $2,172 for a three-bedroom town home.

Dyer Sheehan Group's results usually vary from those produced by RealFacts because the national company focuses on large apartment complexes that tend to run on the high-end of the market and offer more amenities than the typical "mom-and-pop" properties, Dyer Sheehan Group President Dawn Dyer said.

The RealFacts average rent ranks Ventura County behind San Jose, $2,128; San Francisco, $1,971; Santa Cruz, $1,743; and Los Angeles, $1,727.

HIGH DEMAND

The rise in rent extends beyond California, however. There was a national year-over-year average rent increase of 4.4 percent to $1,075 and only one of the 41 markets surveyed by RealFacts in June experienced a decrease — Albuquerque, N.M., with a drop of $4.

"The economy is getting better, employment is up but there wasn't a lot of development in the last number of years and that's pent up demand," RealFacts spokesman Nick Grotjahn said.

But Grotjahn said relief could come sooner rather than later to renters nationwide. Rent prices were going up "pretty dramatically" since 2010, but the steep rise in rents has started to flatten over the last few quarters.

"In the last six months — the real estate market has come back" and the supply available to renters is increasing, Grotjahn said.

Developers had to play catch up after a lack of construction from 2007 to 2009 following the mortgage crisis and onslaught of foreclosures that sent homeowners into rental properties — increasing the demand, Grotjahn said.

Apartment complexes that started construction in 2010 and 2011 are beginning to become available because it can take as long as two years of finish a project, he added.

By 2014, Grotjahn said rent prices could actually start to drop or at least remain steady because supply will start to meet demand with new developments coming online.

While Grotjahn said most urban cores have skylines dotted with cranes building new apartment complexes, Sheehan said that is not exactly the case in Ventura County.

"There's a lot of people that want to build apartment complexes out here — including big national companies — but the barriers for entry are high and it's hard to get approvals," he said. "Both economically and in terms of entitlement processing, these things take a long time so there's not a whole lot of stuff that's coming online."

There are a number of other factors contributing to the rise in rental prices, Grotjahn said, including a new trend of more people choosing the "lifestyle" of renting properties rather than becoming homeowners.

"There's a lot of young people not looking to buy a house any time soon," he said. "They're renters by choice."

FADING DREAM

Vita Sondors, 23, and her boyfriend have been renters since 2009, but it's not a lifestyle she hopes to stick with for much longer.

"Every month that we pay rent it's like, ‘I wish that this could be going toward a mortgage,'" Sondors said. "It's always heartbreaking that we're putting all this work into our rental and we're just going to leave it."

The couple has been living in a midtown Ventura duplex for the past year and spend countless weekends on home-improvement projects, whether it's putting in new wood floors, building a small garden of succulents and pepper plants, or replacing screen doors.

Sondors went from paying $900 per month for a large two-bedroom in Santa Paula, but was willing to pay more to live in Ventura.

Sondors said they fell in love with the area and have no intention to leave, but would rather be in a home they can call their own. However, she said coming up with a 10 percent down payment for nearby two-bedroom houses priced at $350,000 is daunting.

"We have decent jobs and we're both educated," said Sondors, a marketing coordinator for a Carpinteria insurance company. "We maybe would be able to save $500 a month. I don't know how people do it anymore."

The National Low Income Housing Coalition ranked the region covering Oxnard, Ventura and Thousand Oaks as the eighth most-expensive metropolitan area in the United States — behind other districts in Hawaii, California, Connecticut and New York, according to its annual March report.

The rank is determined by the hourly wage — nearly $29 per hour in Ventura County — that a household must earn to afford a two-bedroom unit priced at fair market rent without giving up more than 30 percent of their monthly income.

The report determined that Ventura County households need to hold more than 3.5 minimum wage jobs to comfortably afford a local two-bedroom unit rented for $1,499 per month, which is the fair market rent determined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

FORCED TO ADAPT

Coletta Herbold, 43, has been living in Ventura on and off for more than two decades, but her chances of renting an apartment diminished when she went from a two-income household to one. Herbold was going through a divorce at the same time her mother decided to move to Ventura seven months ago, bringing with her only a small Social Security stipend.

"She couldn't afford to live by herself," Herbold said. "She qualifies for housing assistance but there's a three-year waiting list."

Unable to rent a one-bedroom apartment going for about $1,500 per month while supporting her 70-year-old mother, Herbold now pays a monthly mortgage of $350 for a two-bedroom mobile home and between $600 and $700 per month for space rental at a senior park in east Ventura.

"It's ridiculous to be in your 40s and still have a roommate or live with your parents," she said.

Herbold, a title assistant for a Ventura title escrow company, had hoped to be out of her current living situation after one year, but the rise in rents paired with the mobile home mortgage will keep her there longer than expected.

"I don't see it ending any time soon," she said. "The rents that they're charging here in Ventura, if you could save up enough money — a mortgage is cheaper. Most people are struggling just to pay their rent, so they can't set money aside to pay for a down payment. You're just kind of stuck."

Link to Ventura County Star article

Minimum-wage increase: Boost for workers or bane for businesses?

By Timm Herdt and Stephanie Snyder

SACRAMENTO — There may be no question that economists have probed more exhaustively than the one that asks whether an increase in the minimum wage has a negative effect on employment.

Information has been examined regionally, nationally, internationally and, in one seminal 2010 study, in 318 pairs of neighboring state-line counties that sit in U.S. states with different wage standards.

There have been many studies, lots of data, different methodologies — but not much variation in their conclusions. A 2009 "meta-study" by two Australian economists of 64 separate minimum-wage studies found that estimates on employment effects were heavily clustered very close to zero.

It appears, says economist Sylvia Allegretto of the UC Berkeley Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, that something close to a consensus has emerged.

"The range of answers has become so narrow that the debate has effectively been settled," she said. "At this point, we're arguing over whether it results in no negative employment effects or very small negative effects."

Judging from the arguments that are raging in Sacramento this summer, however, the question about the economic wisdom of increasing the minimum wage hardly appears settled.

The Legislature may be poised to approve a five-stage increase that would raise California's current $8 an hour minimum wage in annual increments until it reaches $10 an hour in 2018, and the prospect of such a raise has stirred emotional responses among both business groups and advocates for workers.

Income debate

The arguments involve much more than just potential effects on employment. They constitute a passionate debate about the plight of the working poor, the meddling hand of government in private enterprise, the growing gap in income inequality and the struggles of small-business owners.

To John Kabateck, executive director of the state chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, a minimum-wage increase could be one more straw that could break the backs of California small businesses already dealing with a state income tax increase and the imminent implementation of federal health care reform.

"Small business doesn't have much of anything left in the till," he said. "Make no mistake: Our members see this as a tax increase on Main Street."

Tom Lucas, owner of Performance Nursery, which has locations in Somis, in Moorpark and near Redondo Beach, affirms that assessment. Of his 85 employees, half earn minimum wage, which is a higher percentage than five years ago because he said he can't afford to pay much more than the state-mandated rate and still keep his doors open.

"It's frustrating. I'm barely hanging on," said Lucas, who notes that he hasn't paid himself for two years. "It's just getting to that tipping point. Should we be in business or not?"

Lucas said it is the wrong time to raise the minimum wage because the state is "barely pulling out of a recession."

But if small businesses are struggling, so, too, are low-income workers.

"Even with a small negative effect on jobs, workers would still do better," Allegretto said. "There is a lot of research that shows minimum-wage increases have reduced working poverty."

The California Budget Project, a nonpartisan group that advocates for interests of low-income residents, reports that the purchasing power of the state minimum wage is nearly one-third below its value in 1968, when it stood at $1.65 an hour. The group further notes that a mother with two children working full time at the 2013 minimum wage would fall $2,890 below the federal poverty level.

"Raising it to $10 an hour would be essentially equal to the federal poverty level," said Executive Director Chris Hoene. "We're trying to make sure wages keep up with the economy, and trying to raise the living standards for an adult working population who are largely women."

Using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the UC Berkeley Institute estimates that 13 percent of California's hourly wage workers are paid somewhere between the $8 minimum and $8.80 an hour.

In Ventura County, the federal figures show 10 percent of hourly workers make $9 an hour or less.

Not only teens

Of California workers at or near the minimum wage, 12.5 percent are teenagers, 34.9 percent are in their 20s and 52.6 percent are over 30. A clear majority, 53.1 percent, are women.

Those statistics, Allegretto said, disprove the widely held notion that the minimum wage is something that applies only to teenagers and entry-level workers.

"There is this idea that these are beginning jobs, but you'd think that by the time you're 30, most people have been working for a while," she said.

Alejandra Reyes, 37, has been working as a house cleaner earning $8 per hour for the past six months, but because her hours were recently cut from nearly 25 hours per week down to 12, she also has to pick up weekend shifts working as a security guard — a job that pays $10 per hour.

(View the Potential changes to the minimum wage infogr.am.)

Despite holding multiple jobs, Reyes said everything she earns goes toward food and paying rent for a Port Hueneme garage converted into a small home she shares with her 15- and 16-year-old sons. Reyes also has split custody of her four youngest children, ranging in age from 8 to 11.

"Only God knows how I do it," she said in Spanish.

The measure that would provide a raise to Reyes and the estimated 139,000 other minimum-wage workers in California is Assembly Bill 10, by Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Salinas. It has already passed the Assembly and one Senate committee and awaits final action before lawmakers adjourn Sept. 13.

California is one of 18 states that mandate a minimum wage above the federal standard of $7.25 per hour. The state rate of $8 per hour ranks fifth-highest among the states, but has been unchanged since 2008.

The bill proposes to raise the state minimum wage to $8.25 per hour on Jan. 1, 2014, and then raise it again in 25-cent and 50-cent increments each year through 2018, when it would reach $10 per hour.

Voter support

Politically, minimum-wage increases have long been popular among voters. When a statewide initiative was placed on the ballot in 1996, it passed with 61 percent of the vote. Last fall, 58 percent of San Jose voters passed a ballot measure that raised the citywide minimum wage to $10 an hour.

More recently, a Gallup poll conducted in March found 71 percent support nationally for President Barack Obama's proposal to raise the federal standard to $9 per hour.

Among the California bill's biggest backers is the California Labor Federation, the statewide umbrella organization for labor unions.

"It's really a moral issue for us," spokesman Steve Smith said. "We have a lot of low-wage workers in this state who are falling behind."

Smith said he believes the Democrat-controlled Legislature is poised to approve the measure and that it will likely be well-received by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown.

"This is a core issue for a Democrat, and it is not a controversial issue to the public," he said.

Even one of the measure's biggest opponents — the California Restaurant Association, whose industry would be most affected by the bill — concedes that some sort of increase seems inevitable.

But spokeswoman Angie Pappas said the association is pushing for changes, including carving out an exception for tipped employees. The federal law and those of 37 states permit lower hourly wages for waiters, waitresses, bartenders and others whose income is largely from tips.

But in California, she said, "It's a challenge to get people to think about the industry as a special case."

Since the wage has been unchanged for five years, "at some point, it's going to go up," she said.

Pappas said it's time for those in her industry and other business advocates "to have a conversation" with the Brown administration. One major talking point will be the proposed five years of mandated increases.

"We should consider future increases in context with what's happening in the economic environment of the state at that time," she said.

The minimum-wage debate is being waged against a backdrop of public concern over widening income inequality and persistent wage stagnation that has hit low-wage workers hardest.

Allegretto charted average wages among California workers from 1979 through 2012, broken down by income groups. What she found is that, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the bottom half of workers were making less than they were 33 years earlier. Only the top 30 percent have recorded significant increases, with the top 10 percent making about a third more they were in 1979.

"The problem is our wage structure in the United States," she said. "There is huge income inequality at the top. That low-wage workers are making too much is not a problem. The fact that they're paid far too little certainly is."

Income gap

Lucas Zucker, a researcher with the Ventura-based community organizing group CAUSE, which advocates for low-income workers, said even the proposed increases would not bring minimum-wage workers close to the income level needed to pay for necessities without relying on government assistance.

"There's a long way to go before all workers in California and all workers in Ventura County are making a living wage," he said.

But arguments about the plight of the working poor seem to have little or no bearing on the ability of small businesses to meet their payroll, keep their doors open and turn a profit.

If mandated to increase the minimum wage, said Kabateck of National Federation of Independent Business, small businesses will have three choices: raise prices, cut payroll or close.

"Our members are fearful about any new cost that they don't have the ability to make up," he said.

As for the politics, Kabateck is hopeful that Brown, who held firm this year against any proposed new tax increases on top of those he helped persuade voters to approve last year, will stay true to that philosophy if a bill to increase the minimum wage reaches his desk.

"Our hope is that the governor appreciates the very bitter pill of Proposition 30," he said. "It should give our leaders cause to push the pause button."

Lucas, the Ventura County nurseryman, hopes low-wage workers and their advocates will pause to think about the broader economic implications. He fears a wage increase would lead to higher prices and a decline in job creation.

"You've got to watch what you ask for in life," he said. "Let the market determine what the value of your labor is."

Link to Ventura County Star article

First-time homebuyers face growing competition

Brandie Gaines and her husband, Fred, have both lived in Oxnard their entire lives. Just like their parents, they wanted their 4-year-old daughter to continue calling the city home like several family generations before her.

But after searching four months for a home to call their own, it was starting to look like the couple would have to break that tradition — expanding their search to neighboring cities Ventura and Camarillo.

"The inventory really went down," said Brandie Gaines, a 35-year-old accountant who works in Carpinteria. "In November, hardly anything was coming out. It was like we were looking at houses and we were never the only people looking. ... It seemed like either investors or people that just have cash were coming and blowing us out of the water."

THR California, an affiliate of a giant private-equity firm, was one of those investors. The Gaineses competed directly against THR on the sixth house they put a bid on in Oxnard. The bids were the same — $385,000 — but THR offered cash.

"It's been very frustrating," Gaines said. "You go to this house and you liked it and you start thinking of yourself there ... and they turn around and say no. You just have to let it go and move on, but it's hard."

THR California has purchased 101 distressed single-family homes and condominiums throughout Ventura County — spending more than $34 million over nearly the past five months with no indication of slowing. The company has purchased 42 properties in Oxnard, where the value of THR's purchases represented 9 percent of all November residential sales in the city.

"People are talking about this group and what they're doing," said B.J. Ward, a Ventura County Realtor and owner of Ventura-based Comfort Real Estate Services. "Realtors are torn with it. They're sending in offers that no one else can compete with ... that's the best-case scenario when we're representing sellers. The buyers' end can be a little bit frustrating."

Representing a seller, Ward recently closed a sale with THR after the company made a cash offer on an Oxnard home $11,000 higher than the asking price. There were about 12 offers on the home — half were investors, the other half were families or couples hoping to move into the house at 616 Calle Laguna, Ward said.

"As Realtors, we're proponents of homeownership and having a roof over your head," Ward said. THR is "buying these cases and providing rental housing. THR is coming in and kind of filling that void. They're still providing an opportunity for people to have a roof over their head."

But when it comes to Ward's clients looking to become first-time homebuyers, including the Gaineses, THR's "strong presence in the market" is another factor hindering buyers in a local housing market already plagued with low supply, Ward said.

"THR is just more competition," he added. "It's an overwhelming number of buyers that are out there and a very diminished number of homes that are viable for sale. THR or no THR, it is difficult to get buyers into (homes)."

After months without success, the Gaineses took Ward's advice and started increasing their starting bids over the listed price to make their offers more competitive.

The couple's luck finally turned with the eighth house they had bid on since August. After making an initial offer slightly higher than the list price, Gaines and her 37-year-old husband increased their offer by $17,000 over the asking price.

"It wasn't my No. 1 location, but it had some other things that made it worth it," Gaines said — including a nearby school that would carry her daughter through eighth grade, a park around the block and a cul-de-sac location with less traffic. "It didn't matter where it was; we were ready to go to battle for it."

And they did. The Gaineses will move into their new home at the end of January and Bailey, 4, will grow up in Oxnard, just like her parents, grandparents and great grandparents.

Giant investment firm plans to convert scores of county homes to rentals

By Timm Herdt and Stephanie Snyder

One of the world's largest private-equity firms is making a $34 million bet on residential real estate in Ventura County, buying up homes at a pace of nearly one a day for the past three months.

Ventura County is one of 10 markets nationwide in which Invitation Homes, an arm of the New York-based Blackstone Group, has spent $2.2 billion this year to purchase more than 12,500 distressed homes. The plan, company executives say, is to establish the nation's first large-scale platform to rent single-family homes.

The rate of acquisitions in the county has been swift and has accelerated in just the past three weeks.

Recorded sales filed with the Ventura County Clerk and Recorder's Office show that Invitation Homes, through a corporation called THR California, has purchased 101 homes in the county since Aug. 3, with the frequency picking up in September and peaking with 26 transactions in the first 17 days of December.

THR's purchases accounted for 3 percent of all home sales in the county in November, and more than 9 percent of the value of all real estate purchases in the city of Oxnard.

READ: First-time home buyers face growing competition

Blackstone, a giant investment firm with worldwide real estate assets of more than $50 billion, owns 600 community shopping centers across the United States and has high-profile holdings such as Hilton Hotels, the Waldorf-Astoria and San Diego's historic Hotel del Coronado.

The Blackstone shopping spree, coming on top of spirited buying activity by other investors large and small, accelerates a trend that has seen the nature of residential neighborhoods in Ventura County and across California begin to shift away from owner-occupied enclaves.

County Assessor Dan Goodwin reports that the number of households in which a homeowner's property tax exemption is claimed has dropped by 6,522 since 2008, a 5 percent decline. To qualify for the exemption, a home must be occupied by its owner.

Seizing opportunity

The business strategy of Invitation Homes is unlike that of so-called "house-flippers" who purchase homes in need of repair, make improvements and then quickly sell a home at a profit.

"This is not a short-term play for us. We're not quick-flipping," said Mark Beisswanger, chief operating officer for Invitation Homes and a former Ventura County homebuilder. Rather, the goal is to develop a company "that can provide single-family rentals under a brand name."

The company has been similarly aggressive in acquiring homes in other California markets. County recorders' records show that, through early this month, THR had purchased nearly 450 homes in San Bernardino County and more than 120 in Riverside County. Additionally, the Sacramento Bee reported in late November that THR had acquired more than 550 homes in the Sacramento region.

It is not known how long this home-buying splurge will continue. Company officials say they have no numeric targets for the number of homes the firm ultimately will purchase, but the intent is to continue buying as long as market conditions provide good investment opportunities.

In addition to spending its own vast cash resources, Blackstone has secured a loan for at least $300 million from Deutsche Bank to leverage additional purchases, The Wall Street Journal reports.

"We've certainly seen a whole lot of investment activity, especially in California," said Svenja Gudell, senior economist for the online real estate analytical firm Zillow. "But I'm not aware of anyone else that has that model. It certainly is a niche opportunity."

What made it possible, of course, was the financial meltdown of 2008 and the accompanying collapse in the housing market that spawned a wave of foreclosures.

Top bidder

Invitation Homes officials say the overwhelming majority of the 96 detached homes and five condominiums the company has acquired in Ventura County have been through foreclosure auctions and purchases made directly from banks. The officials assert the firm is not directly competing with families, which have had a difficult time of late buying homes because of limited inventory and intense competition from investors armed with cash.

But in some cases, the competition has been direct. Ventura real estate agent B.J. Ward said he recently handled a sale in which six investors competed with six hopeful homebuyers in Oxnard. Among them was THR, which made an offer $11,000 above the asking price (see accompanying story).

THR pays cash for the homes, and company officials say it typically pays a 10 percent to 15 premium to acquire targeted properties. Additionally, the firm is committed to spending at least 10 percent of the purchase price to make immediate renovations on each property. The homes it has targeted in Ventura County are all modestly sized, post-foreclosure properties. County records show it has paid an average of price of $336,670.

Most of its local purchases have been in Oxnard (42 percent) and Simi Valley (35 percent).

New Territory

What will be the long-term effect of the outsized presence of Invitation Homes in the county's single-family home market and its intent to convert all its homes into rentals? Observers say there are potentially positive and negative consequences.

Oxnard Mayor Tim Flynn has long been concerned about the spike in investor-owned rentals in his city, saying a flood of rental properties inevitably will depress home values.

"The higher the owner-occupancy rate, the higher the value of homes in any neighborhood," he said.

Flynn said unscrupulous small investors have been buying Oxnard homes, illegally converting them to duplexes or triplexes and then renting them to multiple families to boost their return on investment.

"It's high time we had a rental inspection program," he said.

Flynn said it's likely, however, that a large firm such as Invitation Homes will abide by city housing codes, in part because "the stakes are too high" for it to do otherwise.

"I hope people invest in properties, make a lot of money and do something to invest in the neighborhoods," he said.

Company officials say they will insist that their rentals meet industry standards for occupancy, which call for a maximum of two residents per bedroom plus one additional person. In other words, no more than seven people could reside in a three-bedroom home.

Whatever the long-term effect of having more rentals in residential neighborhoods will be, real estate experts say the wave of purchases by Invitation Homes and other investors has played a major role in stabilizing Southern California home prices, which have recorded monthly year-over-year increases for most of 2012.

"So many people did foreclosures and short sales, and those homes are going to institutional investors who are almost controlling the market right now," said agent Brian Graver, of the Thousand Oaks office of Keller Williams Realty. "I don't know if it's necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. It's certainly where we are right now. It's truly keeping the prices stable."

Potential Returns

Because investors are purchasing many distressed properties before they come to market, Graver said, those properties are not being factored into sales prices considered by real estate appraisers. As a result, "houses are being appraised at higher levels."

The November report from the real estate analytical firm DataQuick confirms that analysis. It shows Ventura County home sales were up 31.2 percent and prices rose 5.9 percent from the same month a year earlier.

The report also notes that cash purchases accounted for a third of all Southern California home sales in November, just shy of a record set in February.

"Investor activity and cash purchases remain unusually high, and more buyers feel confident about their jobs, the economy and the likelihood housing prices have bottomed and are likely to rise," DataQuick President John Walsh said.

Financial experts agree that Blackstone, by jumping into the market just after it appears home prices have bottomed out, could reap significant returns from a robust rental market and also enjoy the benefits of price appreciation on its assets.

George Leis, head of Union Bank's Central Coast region and former CEO of the bank's recently acquired Santa Barbara Bank and Trust, said Blackstone appears to have developed a winning strategy.

"For them, it's brilliant," he said. "They get to enjoy the stream of rental income, and as the housing market rebounds, they will do pretty well if they decide to exit that strategy and sell the homes."

The housing rental market is strong and has remained so throughout the economic slowdown.

"Rents have been climbing," said Gudell, the Zillow economist. "You had all those families who had been foreclosed upon, creating a whole lot of demand that was soaking up available units."

She noted that rents in Ventura County are up 1.6 percent from this time last year.

"We'll see increased demand linger around for at least another couple of years," she said.

Zillow reports that the median rent for a single-family home in Oxnard, a city in which Invitation Homes now owns 42 homes, was $2,015 per month in November, up from $1,984 in March.

An Invitation Homes property on Will Avenue in El Rio provides an example of the company's investment prospects. The home was purchased for $221,000 on Sept. 7, improvements were completed on Dec. 12 and the home was offered for rent at $2,000 per month. Using the midpoint of a Zillow investment formula, Invitation Homes might receive a 6.5 percent return on investment from rental income.

Possible Trend

Gudell said buying opportunities for distressed homes should remain for some time, although the selling price in many markets for post-foreclosure homes is now at or near the prices in the traditional market.

"At some point, we will see the foreclosure inventory being worked down, but we're not there yet. There's a fairly long pipeline," she said. "The distressed market will start to fade out, but we will not see it dry up for another three or four years."

One reason demand is high for single-family home rentals, she noted, is that former homeowners who sold their homes through so-called "short sales" cannot qualify for another mortgage for at least two years. A "short sale" is one in which the lender agrees to a sale price of less than the mortgage owed and then forgives the remaining debt.

Those whose homes were foreclosed upon will have to wait even longer to qualify for another home loan.

Beisswanger, of Invitation Homes, acknowledges these factors, but also believes there could be a long-term trend toward more families preferring to rent, rather than own, homes.

"We're seeing very positive rental demands and rates," he said. "We think this is still a factor of the housing crisis, but also reflects a demographic shift toward more Americans favoring the flexibility of renting."

Leis, of Union Bank, agrees that the housing market might change in the years ahead, to the benefit of Invitation Homes and other landlords.

"For this generation, it may not be as important to own a home as it was for previous generations," he said. "A rental affords them a level of flexibility, saves them a down payment and allows them to be a little more free-spirited."

For those who maintain the traditional American dream of homeownership, however, institutional investors such as Invitation Homes are making that dream very difficult to realize, said Graver, the Thousand Oaks realty agent.

"For homes under $500,000, it's incredible how many buyers there are," he said.

Graver said he recently showed such a home and within 45 minutes had eight offers — half of them from investors. In that case, the seller preferred that the home go to a family, turned down the investors and waited for the family to secure a mortgage.

It was, he said, a rare event.

"You're seeing it very clearly," he said. "In most cases, the better-looking offer is the cash offer."

Link to Ventura County Star article