Minorities Represented, Panel Claims

Criticized months ago for not having any minority representation on its panel, a commission created to dole out $11.7 million a year in state cigarette tax money is responding by attempting to reach out to underserved communities and pointing to its more diverse subcommittees.

But various activists and politicians, while welcoming the subcommittee appointments, still have questions about the group’s diversity and its plans.

Supporters of the Children and Families First Commission say the group’s subcommittees, which are about one-third Latino, are in line with the county’s ethnic makeup. Subcommittee members are both volunteers and people recruited by commission administrators. They serve mainly as advisors.

Five of the nine commission members were chosen by the Board of Supervisors. The others are administrators whose offices provide services to children. Only Supervisor John Flynn’s appointee, Bedford Pinkard, who is black, is a racial minority.

“From the beginning, it’s been an open process and we have always sought diversity,” said Claudia Harrison, executive director of the commission. “We did a broad, but targeted, effort to net the right groups.”

Some Latino groups expressed cautious optimism about the commission’s subcommittees--which include groups for project evaluation, finance and community outreach--while continuing to decry the racial makeup of the commission’s panel.

“If [the subcommittees] are acting as watchdogs, I’m not worried,” said Hank Lacayo, president of the Latino advocacy group El Concilio del Condado de Ventura. “But, we don’t want a rubber stamp.”

Flynn, the most vocal of the commission’s critics, said he thought the subcommittees, which have been in existence since the beginning of the commission, were a “step in the right direction,” but characterized the commission as “lily white.”

“It’s no matter if they have tremendous outreach. Their board doesn’t match the community,” Flynn said. “And what the community thinks, when you have people who are white, they think, ‘What’s the matter, don’t they think we’re capable?’ ”

While approving only $650,000 in grants so far, the commission has signaled the kinds of programs, from private to nonprofit, likely to benefit--everything from Spanish-language programs for day-care operators to money for an informational phone line for parents.

The commission explained the application process to grant-seekers at a meeting Monday. The county has been divided into seven regions. Each region will have rolling application deadlines throughout the year. About one-third of the people attending the meeting were Latino, said Felipe Santana, coordinator of the Neighborhoods for Learning program, which will disburse $6.5 million to programs that prepare children for school.

Santana said he has been actively recruiting applicants in the county, and trying to reach out to Latino groups in particular. Santana said he has strong roots in the county, and that he has spread the word through “stakeholders” in the Latino community. The commission has also run newspaper ads and sent out mailers to nonprofit organizations, Harrison said.

But some complained that outreach hasn’t been strong enough.

“We found out about [Monday’s meeting] from some other party,” said Roberto Juarez, who runs Clinicas Del Camino Real, a group of clinics for farm workers and their children in Oxnard and Ventura. “We’re not one of the county’s favorite programs.”

Local commissions were formed across the state after the passage of Proposition 10, a 1998 measure that added a 50-cent-per-pack tax on cigarettes to raise money to expand programs for children under 5.

Latino committee members in Ventura, who include leaders of advocacy organizations, teachers and government employees, say the committees do an excellent job of presenting diverse viewpoints, and say that the commission tends to take their advice.

“They’re not token positions,” said Barbara Marquez-O’Neill, a subcommittee member who studies cultural issues and was the director of a shelter for battered Spanish-speaking women. “My voice is heard. . . . I’m there to speak for” the Latino community.

Marquez-O’Neill said the commission has to listen to their recommendations: “Everything they do, the public is watching.”