Ojai Valley News Blog

Bennett talks about Ojai’s high unemployment rate, growing need for services

By Nancy Gross
Help of Ojai’s 2009 annual meeting combined efficiency with a warm sense of community, which is what Help is known for.

Dave Neville welcomed members and Jeff Holland, Ojai Presbyterian Church pastor, gave the invocation, offering thanks for “the privilege of serving our neighbors.”

Peggy Russell, who stocked the refreshments table with some of her famously good cookies, succinctly read the minutes from the 2008 annual meeting.

The firm of Soares, Sandall, Bernacchi and Petrovich was brought in to conduct this year’s audit, and Rick Heldwein, senior partner, went over the statements of financial activities, which is equivalent to a balance sheet in a for-profit company, and the statements of activities, which would be the income statement in a for-profit business.

Heldwein clarified the numbers, and addressed the gathering, “Good job to the whole organization. You came out with a positive result this year, which even many for-profits will not be able to say.” He commended the improved accounting practices, and new executive director Terri Wolfe, who has been with Help for nine months, later acknowledged the contribution of the board and the staff who “did some really hard work before I got there. Through controversial times they kept going and making things work, serving the community.”

The positive result does not mean Help of Ojai is without funding needs, by any means, but rather that this fiscal year which commenced in July, began in the black when in prior years it has been in the red. In a phone call Tuesday Wolfe said, “We’re healthy financially, and that is a good time to donate because your money is not going to fix accounting or administrative problems, but rather is able to go directly to services.”

Before Wolfe went over the mission and program update, 1st District Ventura County Supervisor Steve Bennett gave a presentation. He began by saying, “It’s a pleasure to be back here and to see a healthy Help. Help is one of the strongest and best safety nets in all of Ventura County, and one of the real measures of a civilization is how they take care of those who need help.”

Bennett went on to say, “The economy is in the worst shape since the Great Depression. Our latest figures show that Ojai has a 13.3 percent unemployment rate compared to 11.6 percent in California. In June of 2008, state unemployment was at 7.1 percent.

“There is no quick end to this. An artificially raised standard of living eventually has to drop,” Bennett said, and he continued with concern that as the United States changes economically, the hardship “will not be equally distributed.” He said Help is “a model I hold up over and over again to my fellow supervisors.”

The other statistics Bennett offered are that CalWorks recipients have grown approximately 13.5 percent in the county and the Ojai Valley, food stamps recipients are up 32 percent, which in Ojai translates to a jump from 600 to 900 individuals or households receiving food stamps this year.

In Home Support Services, which is a program that helps pay families and care givers to clean and shop for their elderly and disabled members is up by 11 percent, and active homeless cases are up 30 percent in Ventura County.

SSI has also been reduced on two occasions in the past year, and funding for Alzheimer’s day care centers has been cut by $68,000 in Ventura County.

The theme is one we are becoming familiar with. Local and state government has fewer resources to give out on a per-person basis. Ninety percent of revenue in Ventura County comes from property taxes, and Bennett said, “for the first time, property tax turned down. There is now question that demands are raging while resources are getting tighter and tighter. We want to continue to hold our head high when we say we live in a really civilized Ojai Valley.”

Senior Legislature Sen. Larry Hartmann spoke briefly and said that Ojai is famous at the state level. “Everyone knows of Help of Ojai, and we’re the only senior center that prepares its own food,” a testimony to the small-town heartfelt care Help offers.

Wolfe then presented and said, “We’re in the vortex of what’s going on in the community.” She gave special recognition to Community Assistance Program’s Karen Kaminsky, Jessica Murray and Laurie King.

As far as program numbers, Wolfe said, “We served 8,000 congregated meals, and 15,000 home-delivered meals. In transportation, we gave 7,400 rides. Oak Tree House provided 6,800 hours of care, which is not just care to the seniors, but rest and relief to the care givers at home.”

Wolfe said that the senior programs are alive, well and healthy, but reminded members of the mission of Help as a basic needs organization, stating that Help will continue to fund basic needs over activities when a choice must be made.

In 2008, 51 percent of Help’s budget went to fund senior programs; 34 percent went to income-based programs, and some of the beneficiaries of these programs are also seniors; 15 percent went to administration and development. “2009 was about the same,” Wolfe said.

But because of the “explosion of basic needs” among Ojai residents undergoing struggles in this economy, the budget for 2010 contains “an even distribution of 43 percent senior services to 43 percent income-based services. We were able to drop admin and development by 1 percent.”

Development director Chris Poynter spoke later in the evening saying, “The grant world is the most bleak it has been in my tenure of grant writing.” And both Poynter and Wolfe thanked those present for their generous support, while continuing to remind of the need for contributions. Wolfe said, “Outside Ojai, we’re not a very compelling story. That’s why we keep coming back to Ojai. Our commitment to our donors is that we take care of the Ojai community and the Ojai community funds us. You are our only donor base.”

She clarified that this specificity does not make it harder to get grants or stimulus money that came to Ventura County. “The fact that we serve Ojai is  considered a strong attribute, we’re very focused. It is just a numbers thing, sheer numbers competition for money, because we don’t have the population density.”

The meeting shifted to the focus on the board and the election of new members.

Two board members who are stepping down, Karen Evenden and Terry Twichell, were presented with gifts and got to speak about the way that serving has enriched them. Evenden will be missed for her talents of organizing special events and donor appreciation work, but she intends to continue to volunteer for Help. Twichell was honored for his “countless hours, common sense, knowledge, smile and enthusiasm.”

Other board members are Dave Neville, Peggy Russell, Karen Ghormley, Alan Rains, and the newly elected Tucker Adams, Jeff Holland, Kelly Randall and Katrina Rice Schmidt, who all garnered support from more than 50 percent of those who voted.

Before the voting, Adams spoke about coming into Help through the hospice team, and later doing yoga with the seniors. She feels the activities are very important to the well-being of the populations served by Help of Ojai, as things like the flexibility attained through yoga can aid in preventing injury.

Holland quoted a 90-year-old member of his congregation who told him, “If you do the things you think really matter, you won’t be bothered by worrying about all the things you won’t get done.”

Randall expressed appreciation for “the privilege of serving on the board for two years. I’m still learning the way it goes about doing the business of helping.” He wants to raise the visibility of Help in the community.

Rice Schmidt wants to bring additional energy to the board, and finds it heartwarming to have the safety net of Help in Ojai.

David Shor, chairman of the Ojai-Ventura International Film Festival, welcomes guests to the 2009 event Saturday night at the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa. Photo by Scott Wintermute

By Nancy Gross
The Ojai-Ventura Film Festival is no copycat film festival. Many times throughout the weekend, participants expressed pleasure at being part of this singular festival’s 2009 event.

At Saturday’s awards gala it was remarked that there really isn’t another film festival that kicks off with a golf tournament. Moreover, Mike Donohue conceived a clever plan that put the golf tournament in a class by itself. Donohue must be a father, because he said he “worked out the plan with care bears and mock-ups.” Players in the Celebrity Golf Classic rotated six times, giving them a chance to be grouped with six different celebrities during the course, with one participant commenting that he’s been in about 100 golf tournaments, and none were managed as well as this one.

Maureen McCormick, who was the “Brady Bunch’s” Marsha in family rooms all over America in the 1970s, said, “It’s been glorious. It’s been Shangri-La. They wanted me to golf. I don’t know how to golf and I didn’t want to hold up the game. So they decided I could just be there to cheer people on.”

Ojai’s own Malcolm McDowell, who heads up the golfing, is going to be in a film based on Michael Murphy’s book “Golf in the Kingdom,” a classic book in the style of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” and known by golfers. The filmmakers chose a Mackenzie golf bag to be carried by character Shivas Irons, and Todd Rohrer, president of Mackenzie Golf Bags, was happy to respond when McDowell requested he attend the Celebrity Golf Classic and bring a bag for the silent auction.

The first screening of “The Most Dangerous Man in America” kept a good part of the audience around for the question-and-answer period, and Daniel and Patricia Ellsberg managed to make the evening warm and intimate, even when it was getting colder and colder on the lawn at the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa. Ojai Valley News owner Bill Buchanan was eager to thank the Ellsbergs for having kept him out of Vietnam, as their bravery helped end the war when his draft time was approaching.

Filmmaker James Savoca, who brought “Around June” to the festival, enjoyed the friendliness of Ojai, and the generosity of Steve Grumette opening his home. Some other filmmakers echoed the sentiment from Saturday night’s awards ceremony podium that Ojai was the friendliest of the festivals they’ve attended.

Ojai Mayor Joe DeVito and Ventura Mayor Christy Weir were in attendance at the Lifetime Achievement and awards ceremony at the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa.

Sheila Dvorak, associate producer, assistant director and acting coach for the winner of Best Narrative Feature, “Children of Invention,” said, “Ojai is certainly the most enthusiastic crowd.” Dvorak has a long history working with director Tze Chun, and spoke of the timeliness of the film on account of the current economy: “It tells the story of what it is really like to struggle, not sure if you are going to get it.” The film is loosely autobiographical for Chun.

Dvorak told the audience at a Sunday morning screening of the film that the children who acted so convincingly in the film had no prior acting experience, and that freshness comes through in the low budget but high quality movie. She added, “They both have agents now, and 8-year-old Crystal Chiu has recently been on ‘Sesame Street’ and met Michelle Obama.” The “Sesame Street” segment has Mrs. Obama planting a garden along with Elmo and a few children, and can be found on You Tube.

“Fenceline” won for Best Narrative Short. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for Best Student Film went to “Acholiland,” and the Best Animated Film award went to “Red Rabbit,” a German film about a man coping with an enormous purple bunny in his apartment.

For the Best Student Film, Panavision gave a $60,000 package to “Acholiland,” and Suzanne Lazotte of Panavision said, “We really like to support this film festival because they have emphasized camera equipment usage and artistic vision.”

Grumette presented the award for the film that best fit the festival theme of “Enriching the Human Spirit Through Film”: “Garbage Dreams,” about two boys born into Cairo’s trash trade, and surviving by recycling in the world’s largest garbage village.

The Best Documentary Short honored Ojai and Rich Reid for the film “Watershed Revolution. Reid accepted the award, saying, “I did a short documentary about our water, and never expected this!”

Ojai’s three-time Oscar nominee Diane Ladd presented the Lifetime Achievement Award to Haskell Wexler, and she spoke of how, when in 1984, she was starring in “Alice,” she had been asked to visit Latin America with Bella Abzug and others. “What I saw, what we all saw, shattered our belief in our country’s policies, but not a voice was speaking up. Then in 1985 Haskell came out with ‘Latino.’ That I get to come here tonight and present an award to this incredible talent who has held a mirror up to us all … I’ve always thought that you could not do great works unless you let that greatness into yourself.”

And Ojai’s Peter Strauss, fondly remembered for his roles in “The Jericho Mile,” “Rich Man, Poor Man,” and others lit a match and encouraged the audience to join with him in mimicking the “Mission Impossible” theme as he brought Robert Hays onto the stage to present the festival’s other Lifetime Achievement Award to Peter Graves.

Graves’ business manager of 54 years also spoke about his first collaboration with Graves, and how Graves’ reply to the offer was, “Let’s do it.”

This has been the longest artist-manager relationship ever in Hollywood.

The 83-year-old Graves got his star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame on Oct. 30. He honored his wife Joan, of 59 years, from the Ojai-Ventura Film Festival podium, telling how “she was holding my hand when it needed holding, and there were certainly times it did, and applauding when things were going right.”

Graves also said, “The film industry has a uniqueness to it in that you live a whole number of lives, with each production you do. You become a member of an entity, a film company. It is exciting.

“And you become a family in the amount of time it takes you to wrap a project. And then you go through it again. With other kinds of work you don’t get that completeness of a subject that you get doing a picture.

“You never really retire from this business, unless they make you retire. I must be on a roll that I’m still doing this. Well, that’s a wrap!” Graves said as he descended the stage to visit with admirers and colleagues as dessert was served.