Our View: Universities keep our region on top in innovation
If you want to know why the innovation culture is so important to the regional economy, look no further than the 2021 ranking of our top universities. In the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings, released Sept. 12, UC Santa Barbara cracked the top five among national public universities. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Read More →
Opinion: Five ways your business can win the war for talent
By Greg Bland With the U.S. economy continuing to grow, businesses are beginning to scale their operations back to pre-pandemic levels. Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties all added jobs from June to July. As the Pacific Coast Business Times recently reported, Ventura County led the way with 2,500 new jobs in the Read More →
Opinion: ‘Use it or lose it’ policy wastes our natural resources
By James Salzman The Bureau of Land Management auction in February 2016 for oil and gas drilling rights near Arches National Park was unremarkable. The high bidder, Tempest Exploration Co. LLC, paid $2,500 for the 1,120-acre lease by credit card and began paying annual rental fees. What soon did prove remarkable, though, was the revelation Read More →
Our View: Ventura is on the right track when it comes to housing
For the first time in decades, there is a bit of a building boom going on in Ventura, and construction appears to be happening where it is urgently needed: in housing for the city’s current and future workforce. As Staff Writer Brooke Holland wrote in the Sept. 3 edition of the Business Times, the burst Read More →
Opinion: Oxnard was central to Chicano movement
By Frank P. Barajas This column is an excerpt from the book “Mexican Americans with Moxie: A Transgenerational History of El Movimiento Chicano in Ventura County, California, 1945-1975,” by Frank P. Barajas. From the United Farm Workers Boycott Office in Delano, California, Jessica Govea, 24, examined a clipping of a full-page advertisement in the Ventura Read More →
Opinion: Your workers want a sense of purpose
By Christie Garcia If staff can work from anywhere in the world, why would they work for you? Once they do, what motivates them to perform their best? And perhaps most importantly, what would make them stay? In the last year we’ve watched a dramatic shift in employee satisfaction and seen that people are no Read More →
Our View: Heidi Harmon changed the game as mayor of SLO
When Heidi Harmon narrowly won election as mayor of San Luis Obispo back in 2016, she vowed to shake up the status quo. And that’s what the former Bernie Sanders convention delegate did when she won by a handful of votes. During the next five years, she pressed the no-growth crowd for more housing, including Read More →
