County to Seek U.S. Aid for Farm Workers

Spurred by the success of other counties that have secured federal assistance for farm workers, Ventura County officials Tuesday reversed their previous stance and decided to pursue aid for local field workers left jobless after the pre-Christmas freeze.

The decision came hours after Supervisor John Flynn lashed out at county emergency services officials for suggesting that farm workers’ job losses were not severe enough during the cold spell to warrant federal emergency aid.

Flynn urged officials at the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services to reconsider the position, and ordered a more thorough study on the adverse effects of the freeze on the county’s roughly 20,000 farm workers.

Late last month 18 counties, including Ventura County, were declared federal disaster areas, opening the door for farmers who sustained heavy losses to apply for low-interest loans. Farm workers should be given the same opportunity, Flynn said.

“We’ve got to be sensitive about the fact that some farm workers have been hit pretty hard,” said Flynn, whose district--which includes Oxnard, Silver Strand, El Rio and the surrounding areas--represents about half of the county’s farm workers.

Shortly after Flynn made those comments, the Clinton administration declared six counties--Fresno, Madera, Tulare, Kern, King and Monterey--federal disaster areas, paving the way for field workers to receive federal aid.

Ventura County will apply for a similar proclamation as early as today, said Laura Hernandez, assistant director of the office of emergency services. The county must apply to the state Office of Emergency Services.

“It’s not too late to make the request,” Hernandez said. “We were just gathering preliminary information and based on what we were finding, we were not leaning in this direction, but the door had never been closed.”

A spokesman for Gov. Gray Davis agreed it is not too late for Ventura County or any other freeze-affected county to assess the impact to farm workers and apply for federal assistance.

Spokesman Chris Campana said because there are no hard and fast criteria for making such an application, each county has a good deal of latitude in determining whether to pursue disaster relief.

In some cases, he said, counties won’t know for weeks or months the full impact of the freeze on farm workers.

“In some California counties, damage assessments are being done on a weekly basis as more workers become unemployed and more crop damage is found,” Campana said. “The impact of those freezing conditions are going to be felt for weeks if not months.”

That same argument was advanced by farm worker advocates, who had blasted the county’s decision not to pursue federal assistance.

“Although the estimated impact in Ventura County was not as great as it was in the Central Valley . . . there are still many farm workers without work and in need of assistance,” said Erin Alvarez, spokeswoman for the United Farm Workers union in Oxnard. “If the growers are able to receive [federal] assistance, then why shouldn’t the workers be able to do the same?”

Other advocates cheered the decision, saying they believe county officials failed to fully evaluate the effects of the winter cold snap on local laborers.

They estimate that 15% to 25% of the county’s farm labor force--or as many as 5,000 workers--were affected by the freeze, either through job losses or reduced hours. For those workers and their families, federal aid, in the form of temporary housing assistance and extended unemployment benefits, could be of tremendous help, advocates said.

“As is all too often the case, it appears here that farm-worker needs have been marginalized and overlooked,” said Eileen McCarthy, an attorney with the Oxnard office of California Rural Legal Assistance. “That is especially insulting in this instance where the growers’ problems have been paid attention to while the farm workers’ problems have been ignored.”

In the wake of the brutal cold spell--which caused $74.3 million in damage to citrus and avocado crops throughout the county--state authorities had directed local officials to determine whether Ventura County should be included in a request for federal farm worker aid being prepared for the six Central Valley counties.

Initially, the county determined the freeze wasn’t harsh enough to seek federal assistance for field workers.

On Tuesday, Flynn implored officials to aggressively pursue federal aid for the workers. He expressed anger that no one had bothered to call and ask him about the effect of the weather on laborers in his district.

“We need to get our legislative delegation to help us; we need to get the White House to help us,” Flynn said. “We need to do what we can because some people are in desperate shape.”

“There’s no question about that,” echoed county Agricultural Commissioner Earl McPhail, who later estimated the four-day freeze left about 1,200 countywide packinghouse employees without jobs.

“Unfortunately for a lot of government agencies, farm workers are the last people they think about. We need to correct that,” McPhail said.

Flynn elaborated.

“In my view, I think farm workers are sometimes brushed aside and this may have been an example of that.”