The Ojai Post

Hi Lisa, I sent a copy of your Post to our new city council woman Betsy Clapp. If she knows anything more about this, will post it here.

This is only the beginning. It's much worse than this even. We're looking at another Republican Great Depression. Some economists are calling it the Grater Depression.

This is concerning news to me, too. The ripple effect in our economy will be noticeable.

It's really no surprise that a destination with $400 rooms is suffering. I wonder if room bookings are down across the board, or if visitors that previously would have gone to the Inn are now going to $150-200 destinations such as Lavender Inn, Emerald Iguana, Su Nido.

I read in the Pac Coast Biz Times recently that tourism might not sag too much because people will opt for a Central CA / Gold Coast driving vacation as opposed to a big European trip. Scaling back actually makes our area more attractive. Wishful thinking?

No, Tyler, that's not just wishful thinking. I was at the Inn during 911, which caused a huge slump in overall US tourism, but because OVI was an attractive drivable destination, their numbers actually shot up for several months. But that was before they got their 5th diamond and dramatically upped their rates. The last time the Inn had such dramatic layoffs was when they went into renovation, and recall the dismal effects to our city's economy...

Hmmm, two different dynamics at play here though, Lisa.

9/11 was a shock to the system. Industries collapsed because of the immediate fear of the unknown. We were in uncharted waters.

The current financial situation has businesses looking over the next 12-36 months knowing roughly what to expect (which is in some ways a self-fulfilling prophecy). Tighten the belts as a survival mechanism.

And so what's wishful thinking on my part is that there is some sort of reapportionment of the tourism industry which Ojai will benefit from, as opposed to a overall collapse in revenue that hits Ojai as hard (or almost as hard) as anywhere else.

I think there are some parallels with the real estate industry here. Any readers out there want to chime in on how Ojai Valley real estate is performing relative to the larger So Cal / nationwide trends?

not sure about Ojai Valley real estate, but Santa Barbara median price up 11% from Nov 07 to 08. Sales down 44%

The latest report I could find for our area on Data Quick is pretty awful (unless you have money and a willing lender to buy) - showing a 35.79% decline in the median home price for Ojai:

http://www.dqnews.com/Charts/Monthly-Charts/CA-City-Charts/ZIPCAR.aspx

Eight homes isn't much of a sample, but wow, sooner or later it starts adding up to real money!

Yeah, will have to wait for the year over year report for better stats, which I think comes out later this month. At any rate, these job cuts beg several questions for our little town:
What percentage of the Inn's workforce is this? What percentage of the Ojai workforce is now jobless because of this? Will the Inn lose their fifth diamond? How will our local economy be impacted? And what ever happened to the workforce housing they promised the City Council?

I saw this coming, which is why I wrote the guest editorial in Nov. for the OVN and asked you to publish it on your blog with the charts and graphs.

The city must cut it it's income projections by 50% immdediately of they will not be able to meet it's basic obligations to the citizens of Ojai.

The city manager has to go, he is incompetent

I am remembering the former city manager was let go for basically the same reason when the Inn went into renovation...

wake up ojai! the Inn has no more than 300 employees how can they fire 700? easy on the panic please

Uh, did you read the article? Lisa quoted the Pacific Coast Business Times, which is the business paper of record for the Gold Coast, hands-down.

wondering if anyone can confirm that the Inn = http://www.ojairesort.com is owned by a prominent military contractor = General Dynamics ... I've heard for years that "the Crown family" owns the Inn > wondering if they are the principal stockholders of General Dynamics ... at one point the budget for the recent renovation of the Inn was $10 million and it eventually skyrocketed to $35 million ... interesting coincidence = skyrocketing values of stock portfolios of prominent military contractors ??? hmmm .......

@monk - the Inn does (did) indeed have about 700 employees. I know, I worked there.

@vickie - It is true that the Inn is currently owned by the Crown family.

It is also fair to question the wisdom of raising rates simply to reflect the 5 diamond rating. It is also without question that we are not privy to the truth, but can only speculate based on conjecture and hearsay. Perhaps one of the Crown family (Steve is/was the family member running the Inn) would step up and set the record straight.

This is only the beginning. It's much worse than this even. We're looking at another Republican Great Depression. Some economists are calling it the Grater Depression.

Pretty sad that folks blame all their troubles on a single party or person. It is pretty clear that nearly everyone who posts here is pro something other than Republican and I see a lot of Bush bashing going on here. If you all would take the time to go back many decades of presidential party changes, it's pretty clear that each new president inherits the legacy of his predecessor. Just as Obama faces what Bush left for him to solve, so did Bush inherit from Clinton from H.W. Bush from Reagan from Carter and so forth. Sure we are all hurting in some way or another, but is it really ALL Bush's fault? I don't think so... perhaps JFK said it best "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what can you do for your country" How many of you just complain and are not actively involved in a solution, however small your contribution might be?

just-dropped-in will you please just-drop-out

I am sure there is a better and more comprehensive comparison than this link, but before you go blathering nonsense, take a look at this snapshot showing the country Bush inherited, and the one he is leaving us:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-changegraphic-html,0,3087501.htmlpage

What is truly pretty sad is that there are so many people who bury their head in the sand and enable people like Bush and Cheney to get into power. They want to be Republican. If the Republicans nuked their home, they would find a way to say that it was Democrats fault and just fine anyway.

I asked a two-time Bush voter, who also voted for McCain recently, to name one good thing Bush did in eight years.

He said, "Bush prevented a terrorist attack."

Hello? The most devastating terrorist attack in the history of our country took place on Bush's watch.

He said, "well, he kept taxes low."

No. He gutted taxes on the non-working wealthy and investment class. Under Bush, if you inherit money, your taxes were cut by millions of dollars. If you sit on your ass and collect dividends, you pay a maximum 15% rate. If you are in the top 3% of income earners, you saw a meaningful reduction in your top marginal rate. But if you actually work for a living, and get paid something that has some relation to the value you provide (i.e., you are not in the top 3% where other factors besides the value of your efforts drive your compensation), you actually are paying far more today, in taxes, fees, or amounts to private corporations who now have the monopoly on what are public services in other countries. If you add the debt load Bush has thrown on every man, woman and child, the average person is paying far more than before. And getting less.

Think about that. Bush rewarded indolence, and punished work. He jimmied the system so that the least of us - the inheritors, the people who sit on their ass, the ideologue incompetents - can control the capital and government, calling the shots on what the best of us - our actual working people who get up early every morning and make things happen - can do. That is a recipe for failure in any country. And it is just the opposite of what built us into what we are today.

He said: "He put in the surge."

I just looked at him. Get real.

Then he said, "well, the Democrats would have ..."

I stopped him. "Stick to what Bush and Cheney actually did. I don't care how minor it was. Just name one thing they actually did that was unequivocally good. One thing that a kindergartner would understand as good."

He said: "He funded AIDS drugs in Africa."

That's an interesting one. Recall what actually happened. African countries were about to break U.S. Pharma's patents, produce the drugs and distribute them themselves to their people who are dying. Bush came in and said, no, we'll have the U.S. taxpayer buy the drugs and provide them.

Was that really "good"?

Anything else?

He thought about it. And had to admit, he was stumped.

He voted twice for someone who never did a single thing he, on reflection, could identify as good. "just-dropped-in," THAT is what has brought this country to the sad place it is in. Too many people refuse to pay attention to reality and vote in their own interests.

Bush himself knows he hasn't done anything good. How else do you explain the last-minute designation of the new maritime national monuments, something diametrically opposed to everything Bush has stood for over the last eight years? You know Laura said to him, George, after we're out of here and I've divorced your ass, I'm still going to have to go out and face people. Could you please just do one thing that normal people will think of as good? Something that will let me with a straight face say you are a decent man? A basically decent guy who just got every single thing horribly wrong?

What is truly sad in the new ridiculous narrative Republican apologists are trying to spin is that while in the past, it has been true that you could not blame the terrible things that are happening just the administration, or just one administration - that just is not the case this time. Bush/Cheney, their policies, their choices, the thing they did are precisely what has brought us to the sad place we are in now. They, their ideology, their ideas, their actions, and their people, really are to blame. Until you acknowledge that, you are a serious threat to the well-being of this country. Because when you misplace the blame, when you fail to understand the cause of the terrible effects we are seeing, you remain likely to repeat the mistakes of the past. You become what they call in criminal justice a "likely recidivist."

Can we really afford that?

This somehow managed to go off topic. Please visit the open thread if you want to continue this discussion, or anything not relevant to the subject of this thread, thanks.

clarification regarding the budget for the recent renovation of the Inn : Since 1923, vacationing guests have sought the tranquil pleasures of the historic Ojai Valley Inn & Spa, a AAA Five Diamond property located on 220 tree-shaded acres 35 miles south of Santa Barbara. Affirmed by its many prestigious awards and fresh from a $90 million renovation, the legendary Inn is one of the nation's unique hidden treasures. For reservations: 1-800-422-6524, or on the Internet: www.ojairesort.com [source : hotelexecutive.com]

Updates in a new article here:

http://pacbiztimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=597&Itemid=1

h/t Matty H.

well that's quite a different story, isn't it? hmmm
thanks for the update!