Oxnard Educator Seeking Uses for GTE Funds

Yolanda Benitez has a bag of money and she’s trying to figure out what to do with it. She may not be Santa Claus, but for the next three years she’ll be an official good Samaritan.

The community activist and superintendent of the Rio School District in Oxnard has been appointed to a statewide board charged with distributing nearly $5 million in grant money to serve limited- and non-English-speaking communities throughout California.

The money is part of a 1998 settlement between Verizon, formerly GTE, and the Public Utilities Commission. It resulted from a claim against GTE over abusive marketing practices directed at non-English-speaking customers charged for optional services they did not order.

A PUC investigation found the abuses had occurred sporadically since 1989. In addition to repaying those customers, GTE was ordered to pay $4.85 million to the commission’s Telecommunications Consumer Protection Fund.

That money is designated for telecommunications education and consumer protection in Verizon service areas.

That’s where Benitez and the other four board members--based in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and San Francisco--come in. The board members were recommended by the Greenlining Institute, an advocacy organization that was a party to the suit against GTE.

“The purpose is to fund telecommunications consumer education and advocacy for non-English speakers,” Benitez said.

The educator wants nonprofit organizations and Latino community groups to contact her with suggestions on use of the money.

“Who has a great idea out there?” she asked. “What I want to hear are ideas, and they will start becoming our parameters. As I see what they’re thinking, it gives me more ideas.”

The board won’t create any programs itself; its purpose is to dole out the money to nonprofit groups for their programs. But when Benitez joined the board in December, she already had some thoughts on where the money should go.

“We have elderly Latinos in this county who still don’t have a telephone. They don’t have that basic lifeline,” she said. “I would love for a nonprofit to put up a grant application for that.”

Computer literacy for Latino adults, especially parents, is another area that Benitez would like to see receive funding. “Technology is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity,” she said.

Board President Pastor Herrera of Los Angeles said he and his board colleagues should be as open-minded as possible concerning grant applications.

“Telecommunications is such a dynamic area, with so many new products and new technology,” Herrera said. “This is a good opportunity to have some creative proposals and get interesting ideas to see how non- and limited-English-speaking communities can be educated.”

Board members hope to begin interviews for a fund administrator by mid-July. Several months later, grant applications are expected to be available for nonprofit groups and community organizations.

“Once the application is out, we will hold a meeting with nonprofits to walk them through the grant process,” Benitez said. “We want really grass-roots groups, and they don’t have fancy grant writers.”

The board will distribute about $1.6 million annually. Because the money will be distributed through a competitive grant process, Benitez is trying to drum up interest in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

She also plans to hit the Spanish-language airwaves to help get the word out.

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Yolanda Benitez, who will help distribute $4.8 million for programs to benefit non-English speakers, can be reached at P.O. Box 23418, Ventura, CA 93002-3448 or 389-8542. E-mail her at yobenitezgrants@yahoo.com.