County panel set to vote on plan for van pool

The program would provide farmworker transportation
By Tony Biasotti (Contact)

Friday, September 14, 2007

If you go
What: Ventura County Transportation Commission meeting.

When: 10 a.m. today.

Where: Camarillo City Hall, 601 Carmen Drive, Camarillo.
Photos

The commission will vote today on a van pool program that would carry up to 450 farmworkers a day from their homes to their jobs in the county's fields and packinghouses.

County transportation officials hope to get a $3 million state grant to launch the program. Farmworkers would pay $4 per day, round trip, to fund the ongoing operations.

The program is modeled after one that's been running for about five years in Kings County. If the project is approved and the state funding comes through, the Ventura County van pool would start running in about July 2008, said Ginger Gherardi, the Transportation Commission's executive director.

The commission would buy 30 vans, each with room for 15 people. They would be driven by volunteer farmworkers who have valid driver's licenses and have undergone background checks and medical examinations. In exchange for driving, the volunteers could ride for free and use the vans for personal use as long as they don't drive outside of the county.

The average Ventura County farmworker works about seven miles from home, according to a Transportation Commission survey of 790 workers at 35 agricultural businesses. Those who don't own cars have no easy way to get to work, since buses don't usually stop near the fields.

"The most common way that problem is solved is to pay somebody else working at the same site to drive them," said Ellen Brokaw, a co-owner of a nursery in Saticoy and an orchard near Santa Paula. "Sometimes those payments are excessive, and sometimes the vehicle might not be in very good shape."

Then there's the licensing issue. Many farmworkers are illegal immigrants, so they can't get driver's licenses. Some of them drive anyway.

Not every immigrant without a driver's license is here illegally, but "they are highly correlated," said Bob Dane, the press secretary for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. The group supports tighter controls on both legal and illegal immigration.

Dane said the van pool program is "a terrible idea" and using public funds makes it even worse.

"It's against the law to hire illegal workers in the U.S., and facilitating any part of the transaction between an employer and an illegal worker, including transportation, is aiding and abetting that illegal transaction," he said.

It's true that some of the riders will probably be illegal immigrants, but providing a van pool is no different from letting them ride the bus, Gherardi said.

In fact, the van pool will rely less on public funds, she said. After the three-year start-up phase, it would pay for itself.

"We provide public transportation, and this is public transportation," Gherardi said. "We're not going to get involved in who's being provided transportation."

Brokaw, who wrote a letter to the Transportation Commission supporting the proposal, said she might split the cost with her workers. Employers can save on payroll taxes for providing transportation, and the benefit is tax-free for the workers.

"I certainly understand the argument (against the program), but in realistic, practical terms it's against the interest of the community to have these unlicensed drivers on the road," she said.

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2 ... -van-pool/