Cities Share Costs, Boons of Economic Plan

With cities across Ventura County competing over everything from shopping malls to a baseball stadium, it may seem unusual for them to be joining together in a countywide economic development effort.

But that’s exactly what they are doing.

Late Monday, the Ventura and Simi Valley city councils were discussing chipping in about $65,000 each over the next three years. Camarillo officials ponied up $49,000 earlier this month.

This afternoon, the Oxnard City Council is expected to kick in more than $80,000, and the remaining cities will be asked to follow suit over the next several weeks.

The reason: to provide start-up money for Supervisor Frank Schillo’s public-private economic development strategy. The prize: $2.8 million in federal grants to spur defense-industry and economic investment in Ventura County.

“As the military cuts continue, we will continue to be at risk,” Ventura Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures said. “That’s why retention and conversion are eminently essential.”

For nearly a year, Schillo has quietly been assembling the framework of what he now calls the Economic Development Collaborative of Ventura County, a corporation directed by local officials and business leaders that is designed to lure investment dollars to Ventura County.

It is an economic growth project new to Ventura County. But similar efforts have proved successful in Riverside County, Santa Clara County and elsewhere in California.

The idea is for each city to buy into the corporation to raise the local share, which would be matched by industry groups. That total would be used to apply for the $2.8 million in federal grants available to the collaborative.

The deadline for applying for the grants, which would be disbursed by a 23-member board, is June 5.

Much of the money would be spent safeguarding the $2-billion-plus defense-related economy in Ventura County--more than twice the dollars that agriculture brings to the area each year.

But Schillo said the collaborative also will be able to lend money to entrepreneurs, share information about using technology in businesses and market the county to companies across the globe.

Already, Schillo said, an Australian paper-products firm has agreed to open a plant--with 450 jobs--in Santa Paula, Fillmore or Oxnard.

“We’re just going like gangbusters,” Schillo said. “Every day, there’s something new that’s positive.”

Some money will be used to train defense contractors and others on reorienting their product or service to the private sector. UC Santa Barbara economist Mark Schneipp calls that a tricky business.

“Everybody talks about conversion, but when it gets down to it, conversions are not smooth. They’re bumpy,” said Schneipp, who directs the university’s Economic Forecast Project.

“It’s very difficult to take a contractor and a company and retrofit it from government to the private sector,” he said. “In many cases, that’s virtually impossible.”

But that doesn’t deter those who have voted to join the corporation.

“The end-product is a countywide economic development engine,” Camarillo Mayor David M. Smith said. “That engine will have the ability to leverage its funds and qualify for federal funds. In the past, we had no way to do that. We couldn’t even get a grant written.”

Smith said competition between cities, such as the three-way race between Oxnard, Ventura and Camarillo for a minor-league ballpark, would not hinder the collaborative’s efforts.

Rather, Smith said, when the panel finds companies that may want to move into the county, each member city will be alerted. At that point, it is up to the cities to recruit the firms and close the deal.

“At the point that we hear ABC Manufacturing is interested in relocating to Ventura County, it’s up to each city to respond appropriately,” he said.

Even Tom Holden, the Oxnard council member who voted to sue the city of Ventura over plans to upgrade the Buenaventura Mall, said the collaborative would help all sides.

“Perhaps through this collaborative we will have access to companies that are interested in the general area,” Holden said. “Then we cities can have the dialogue with the companies.”

Simi Valley officials are sold on the concept. But Assistant City Manager Don Penman said he is not sure his city should have to contribute more than $60,000.

“We have some concerns about the amount as well as the funding formula,” Penman said Monday. “We’re recommending that the council approve the incorporation but take no action on the funding requests.”

Among other concerns, Penman said he is not sure that Simi Valley would benefit from defense-industry investments. “The west county cities are more likely to be impacted by defense conversion,” Penman said.

Nonetheless, “the concept is a good one,” he said. “There are things that the county, the cities and business can do working together much better than individual cities.”