CAMARILLO : Task Force Will Press to Attract Business

In the face of Mercedes-Benz’s decision to build a factory outside Ventura County, a group of local officials and business leaders will continue trying to attract new industry to the county, Assemblyman Nao Takasugi (R-Oxnard) said Friday.

“We’re a little disappointed, but we are not going to stop trying to attract jobs here,” Takasugi said at an early morning press conference outside his district office in Camarillo. “We will go project by project, job by job.”

Takasugi said the county’s Red Team--a group of about 35 politicians and business people--will try to woo companies to the county and help local firms seeking to expand.

Red Team members worked with state officials to try to persuade Mercedes-Benz to build a manufacturing plant that would employ 1,500 people in Ventura County.

But on Thursday, a state official said Mercedes-Benz had decided to build its factory east of the Mississippi River because it will cost less to ship cars to Europe from the East Coast.

About 70% of the 60,000 cars made annually at the new plant will be exported to Europe, Takasugi said.

Red Team Chairman Dick Spencer, executive vice president of an Oxnard property development and leasing company, said the group has held preliminary discussions with five other companies interested in locating to Ventura County, including high-tech and manufacturing firms.