Copyright 2000 / Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
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September 5, 2000, Tuesday, Ventura County
Edition
SECTION: Metro; Part B; Page 1; Zones Desk
LENGTH: 1239 words
HEADLINE:
VENTURA COUNTY NEWS;
LOSS OF SERVICES FEARED AS LEGAL AID GROUPS MERGE
BYLINE: FRED ALVAREZ, TIMES STAFF WRITER
BODY:
A longtime legal aid program based in
Oxnard is set to shut down and merge with a statewide farm worker advocacy group
by the end of the year, prompting concerns about the loss of legal
services for Ventura County's poor.
Channel Counties
Legal Services Assn., which has represented indigent clients in
Ventura and Santa Barbara counties for nearly 40 years, is merging with
California Rural Legal Assistance, which does similar work from offices across
the state, including one in Oxnard.
The merger is part of a push by the
Legal Services Corp.--a private, nonprofit group created by
Congress to oversee and distribute money to legal aid programs nationwide--to
consolidate services and make programs more efficient and effective.
Details of the merger are being worked out, and it's possible that
Channel Counties will be able to retain its offices, attorneys and even its
name.
But there's no question that the program will come under the
control of California Rural Legal Assistance. That prospect has some at Channel
Counties worried about the loss of autonomy and local control, and what that
might mean for the thousands of clients who seek help each year from their
organization. "I think it's a real tragedy," said attorney Barbara Macri-Ortiz,
who during her decade-long tenure at Channel Counties has led landmark legal
battles to create affordable housing and extend a variety of social services to
poor people.
"This is not a knock against CRLA, but we're looking at two
organizations that are distinctly different," she said. "They are a statewide
organization with a huge bureaucracy and a top-down philosophy of policy
setting. The bottom line is, how do you set your priorities? We set our
priorities by who comes in the door and has a need."
Under the merger,
California Rural Legal Assistance will oversee a broad-based legal aid program
in a newly created service area that encompasses rural outposts from Imperial
County to Yuba County, including counties along the Central California coast.
Three Legal Services Corp.-funded agencies--Channel
Counties, California Rural Legal Assistance, and Legal Aid of the Central
Coast--have been providing services in those areas.
*
But following a pattern of consolidation established in other parts of
the state and the nation, Legal Services Corp. earlier this
year decided that one agency should represent that territory. And it gave the
three groups the option of competing for the service area or sharing it through
a merger.
Because California Rural Legal Assistance already represented
most of those areas and was the largest of the three programs, it has become the
lead agency and is creating a plan to take over the two smaller programs.
Mauricio Vivero, spokesman for Legal Services Corp. in
Washington, D.C., said such consolidations have been occurring since 1996, when
Legal Services launched an initiative to make legal aid
programs more efficient and effective in the face of severe budget cuts.
And he said many of the new partnerships have been very successful in
maximizing federal dollars and expanding services to clients.
"We felt
in this case that combining the resources of all three programs would be more
effective," Vivero said. "We don't care whose name is on the door, we just want
to provide the best service possible."
At California Rural Legal
Assistance, which for more than 30 years has provided legal
services to the poor in rural counties, officials say they are trying
to ease the concerns of their merger partners.
Board President Richard
Fajardo said it's only natural that an agency like Channel Counties, which has
been around a long time and has established a solid track record, would be
apprehensive.
Fajardo said he and others have been trying to convince
Channel Counties that the two groups will be able to work together to strengthen
legal services throughout the region.
And he said he
has tried to assure representatives that California Rural Legal Assistance will
do everything it can to preserve the identity of the community-based program,
including possible creation of an advisory board that would have a say about how
the local office operates.
But most of all, Fajardo said, he wants to
ensure Channel Counties that no clients will fall through the cracks as a result
of the merger, adding that California Rural Legal Assistance has established a
solid track record of its own for its work on behalf of farm workers and the
rural poor--the same client base Channel Counties serves.
"If we thought
this was a move to undermine the ability to provide services, we wouldn't have
any part of it," Fajardo said. "Our hope is that by doing this consolidation, we
will be able to free up more resources for more people."
Despite those
assurances, worries abound.
Oxnard attorney Greg Ramirez, president of
the board of directors for Channel Counties, said he and others are concerned
about everything from how much lawyers will be paid under the new structure to
whether they will now have to go through California Rural Legal Assistance
headquarters in San Francisco for permission to take new cases.
Pay is
an especially touchy subject, Ramirez said. Top-of-the-scale attorneys at
Channel Counties earn about $ 57,000 a year while their counterparts at
California Rural Legal Assistance earn about $ 9,000 less, according to
representatives of both agencies.
But Ramirez said he worries most about
what he considers a radically different focus at times on the part of the two
programs.
Ramirez said he believes California Rural Legal Assistance
tends to lean toward "impact cases"--those that affect the poor community as a
whole, not just individuals.
Channel Counties, he said, handles those
cases and a range of smaller matters, from resolving landlord-tenant disputes to
helping secure Social Security benefits for the elderly and disabled.
"We want to make sure that there's a commitment in writing to providing
services to the people we serve," Ramirez said. "We will continue to negotiate
vigorously to protect the rights of our clients and to ensure that legal aid is
provided in this community the way we've provided it for nearly 40 years."
Ramirez is not alone in his concerns.
In a letter last month,
the Ventura County Bar Assn. urged California Rural Legal Assistance to consider
these issues as it moves forward with merger negotiations.
"We are not
taking a position of trying to prevent the merger, but we would like the
services as we have known them to continue," said bar President Michael Case.
"We want the range of services to remain focused on the everyday needs of poor
people."
*
Channel Counties board member Viva Voutis
said she believes that's what Channel Counties could do better than another
legal aid program.
She is in a position to know. Before joining the
board two years ago, the 38-year-old Ventura mother of three was a Channel
Counties client. Disabled and living on a fixed income, she received help from
the program to resolve disputes over welfare benefits and housing.
Without the help, Voutis said she and her children would have been out
on the street.
"The people who stand to lose the most here are the
clients," she said. "I'm very disheartened by what's happening here. There's a
lot of little people like me out there, and if they don't have representation
they're going to get screwed."
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Channel
Counties board member and former client Viva Voutis says clients could be hurt
by the merger with another group. PHOTOGRAPHER: MEL MELCON / Los Angeles Times
LOAD-DATE: September 5, 2000 
