“The days when every Simi Valley resident had to drive ‘over the hill’ to work or shop are long gone. Building and maintaining a robust local economy means good jobs in town, residents commuting on freeways less and being with their families more, and tax revenues for the City to provide vital services. Everyone wins when our local businesses thrive.”
- Glen Becerra
- “Give Simi Valley City Councilman Glen Becerra credit for putting his money on the line to support his city. Becerra recently dipped into his private campaign fund to buy an ad in the Los Angeles Daily News touting Simi Valley’s sharply lower sales tax rate versus buying stuff in what’s rapidly becoming the people’s republic of Los Angeles County. In case you have not heard, the L.A. County sales tax has been hiked to just a smidge below double digits at 9.75 percent. For folks headed to the Simi Valley Town Center versus the Westfield shopping center in Woodland Hills, the sales tax is unchanged at 8.25 percent. ‘Shop Simi Valley for lower taxes,’ the ad reads.” From “Simi Valley pol takes a swipe at LA’s tax bite,” Pacific Coast Business Times, July 10-16, 2009.
- From a Simi Valley Acorn article on Nov. 4, 2005, on the opening of Simi Valley Town Center: “It exceeded my expectations,” said Councilmember Glen Becerra of the mall. “I think the community should be really proud of what was accomplished here because it took a whole town to pull this off.”
- In a Ventura County Star story May 11, 2008, on the Shop Simi campaign: "We're not going to be able to keep everything in Simi Valley. We don't sell Mercedes here or BMWs. We have some limits as to the services and products we provide, but I think it's important to educate people why they should shop here."
- "The reason we were looking at this is because a lot of potentially productive land for jobs was being taken up by what I think we all consider nonproductive use, which is self storage," Becerra said. "My understanding is that, according to guidelines set up by the self storage trade association, each community should have a certain amount of square feet per residence, and we are already overbuilt - and have plenty to meet residents' needs, plus some." From “Amendment aimed at curbing proliferation of self-storage," Simi Valley Acorn, Nov. 9, 2007.
July 2010:
"Illegal immigration is a major issue facing our country and the fact is that our Federal Government has failed the American people by not securing our borders or enforcing our Federal Immigration law. The City of Simi Valley has always worked cooperatively with Immigration officials on everything from immigration sweeps to criminal deportation. When our police arrest someone who they believe is in our country illegally, they request Immigration officials working in the Ventura County Jail to check their immigration status while they are being booked into jail.
Our City already requires everyone doing business with the city to verify their employees’ immigration status as a requirement of, and included in, a contract to do business with the city. As for the E-Verify process, the City staff, at the direction of the City Council, has been looking into its use since April. Thus far they have found that other cities have encountered a host of problems using E-Verify, including a high rate of false verifications.
Confirming someone is OK to work when they are not, or the reverse, does not help to alleviate the issues illegal immigration brings to the workforce, and can in fact cause a greater problem for legal workers if they are misidentified by the federal E-Verify bureaucracy. Please read the interim staff memo to the City Council on this issue below.
Leave it to the Federal Government to create a system to verify immigration status that fails as often as it works. Just another failure by too many of our politicians in Washington wasting taxpayers’ money."
City of Simi Valley
Memorandum
June 2, 2010
Earlier this year, the City Council requested staff to review the feasibility of using the E-Verify website to ensure that employees hired by City contractors are legally authorized to work in the United States. E-Verify is an internet-based system operated by the Department of Homeland Security in partnership with the Social Security Administration. The system allows an employer, using information reported on an employee’s Employment Eligibility Verification form (Form I-9), to determine if that employee is legally eligible to work in the United States. For most employers, the use of E-Verify is voluntary and limited to determining the employment of eligibility of new hires only.
The City does not require E-Verify but currently maintains language within the City’s standard contract titled “Obligation of the CONTRACTOR”. This section requires City contractors and subcontractors engaged in the performance of a City project (regardless of the funding source) to employ only persons that are authorized to work in the United States. The Cities of Thousand Oaks, Camarillo, Ventura, Santa Paula and the County of Ventura have indicated they do not include the E-Verify requirement in their contract documents at this time. Also, the State of California is not requiring the use of E-Verify.
Staff discovered that the Cities of Lancaster and Mission Viejo do include a clause in their contract language requiring that employers verify employment eligibility through the E-Verify system. However, when contacted neither City was able to provide a complete evaluation of the program since it was relatively new, and sufficient historical data was not available.
Staff also found that an evaluation of the E-Verify system was mixed. An independent evaluation by Westat, a Maryland-based social science research firm under contract to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, reports that 96% of potential employees were found to be eligible to work in the United States. However, other reports indicate that E-Verify wrongly authorizes illegal workers about 54% of the time because it cannot determine identity fraud, which is a flaw of the system.
Staff recommends continuing to monitor the E-Verify program for its potential use at a later time should it be warranted or becomes the standard. Staff believes the City’s current contract language already requires contractors to employ only persons that are authorized to work in the United States.”
