Unlikely Allies Form Group to Fight Myriad Regulations : Government: A leader of the lobbying bloc says too many rules are hurting businesses. A county official calls the organization redundant.

For Ed Frost, empty pesticide containers have become a symbol of all that’s wrong in government.

Because anywhere he puts them, someone starts to holler.

Water quality inspectors want them stored inside, out of the rain and off the ground. But fire code enforcers want them kept outside, since state law prohibits trash inside buildings.

“We’re just being regulated to death,” said Frost, manager of Oxnard Pest Control.

And Frost intends to do something about it.

Cobbling together an unlikely coalition of farmers, laborers and businessmen, Frost and 10 partners have founded a Ventura County lobbying force to fight what they see as unreasonable government regulation. The group includes representatives of the Farm Bureau, an electrical workers’ union and the construction industry.

“We’re not against clean air, clean water or safe working conditions, but give us some breathing room so we can remain viable,” Frost said, rattling off a list of more than 50 federal, state and local groups that regulate Oxnard Pest Control.

While he agrees that empty pesticide cans must be treated carefully, Frost becomes infuriated just thinking about the conflicting regulations. The discrepancy between the water and fire departments on this issue, he says, illuminates a larger problem: regulatory bodies often issue contradictory or confusing laws that stymie the very businesses they are designed to guide.

Modeled after a powerful Santa Barbara group, the Ventura County Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business, or COLAB, aims to attract a diverse crowd of members, from individual strawberry growers to fast-food restaurants to cattle ranchers. Organizers will ask unions, executives and farmers to put aside their historical antagonisms and unite into a forceful bloc.

An 11-member steering committee began a membership drive last week, but the group has not yet set dues or elected a board of directors.

In Santa Barbara, the local COLAB chapter has successfully pressured county legislators to drop some regulations, such as a proposed ordinance that would have required homeowners to apply for permits to chop or trim any tree on their property, Executive Director Andy Caldwell said.

But in its two years of operation, the Santa Barbara coalition has also made enemies with its aggressive, take-no-prisoners, accept-no-compromise tactics.

“They argue with any and all regulations, whether they make sense or not,” said Jim Ryerson, who heads Santa Barbara’s air pollution control district. “They have also been very active in trying to disrupt our environmental health and toxic-cleanup programs.”

Although angry at the coalition’s strategy, Ryerson credited the group with helping “speed up a self-analysis among the regulatory community here--we’re asking questions like, at what point does effective regulation become burdensome?”

Prompting just such introspection will be the Ventura County coalition’s main mission, Frost said.

By gathering farmers, executives and workers in one lobbying group, the coalition hopes to scare legislators into reining in the various regulatory bodies that require reports on everything from hazardous waste disposal to illegal immigrant workers.

A lemon grower and oil driller might not seem to share the same concerns. But Frost, who serves as COLAB’s spokesman, said a single regulation often affects a host of industries.

For example, COLAB hopes to strengthen private property rights to allow landowners to maintain their grounds as they see fit without interference from state bodies that might prohibit tree pruning in an effort to preserve wildlife habitats.

In addition to fighting what it sees as unfair regulations, the group will push government bodies to streamline permitting processes and eliminate overlapping paper work.

“We’re going to be asking questions, pushing issues and getting involved in all decision-making processes that affect the interests of business, agriculture or labor,” Frost said. “We want to be proactive, not reactive.”

Skeptics note that several regional lobbying groups already exist, including the Ventura County Economic Development Assn., a 44-year-old business organization that has drawn in labor and agriculture representatives over the past five years.

“It’s redundant,” Richard Baldwin, head of Ventura’s air pollution control district, said of COLAB. “They ought to be talking to the other folks who have been doing this for a long time.”

The existing channels don’t satisfy coalition leaders, however. They vow to be more aggressive than current groups in attacking the status quo.

Indeed, even some potential competitors in the lobbying business agree that the county’s regulatory bodies could use a good shaking.

“There are people in the county who are frustrated and angry,” said Nancy Williams, executive director of the Economic Development Assn., a more conciliatory group that seeks compromises by working with government.

“They could get together and be a more outspoken, go-for-the-jugular group,” she said. “There’s always room for different formulas.”