Farm Watch Report

Good morning Ventura County Farm Watch members.
For those of you that just joined our Sheriff Department Farm Watch, be assured that you will not get bombarded with Spam or overload on newsletters.
Farm Watch is only emailed out to our 400 ranches, farms, nurseries and agricultural suppliers when we have pertinent information to share and keep our agricultural and rural community safer.
Lets get started…
Our rural thefts that were on the rise in early October have settled down. You can take a peak at the 2 page crime trend file we have attached. It is in PDF format.
You can run but not hide:
The rural areas of Santa Paula, Foothill and South Mountain Road have been plagued with increasing graffiti issues. Our deputies have been working with Santa Paula Police, local residents and the County Roads Department in an effort to apprehend the vandals. The County GSA Department is providing our Sheriff's Station with recycled paint. You may see some of our deputies out painting over graffiti in the rural areas. We make this same paint available to any farming and community groups free of charge.
Remember Deputies Gene Torres and Matt Theobold? They are two guys who can’t stand graffiti. They volunteered to catch these crooks impacting our rural areas.
On 10-25-09, they got the moniker (the name they leave behind in paint) of one of our most busy taggers "NINJA." Matt and Gene have identified him through local help and Santa Paula Police helped us arrest him the following day.
They have identified four other members of his Santa Paula "tagging krew" and arrested two others for violating their probation. We expect more arrests by Gene and Matt. Both wanted me to let you know, and I quote “These guys are our crime projects right now, keep your tips coming, we always need your help.”
What’s up Ray?
Major Crimes Detective Ray Dominguez has great farm and ranch connections across the county and region. Ray has asked for help, of all places, Monterey County which was just hit with a serious tractor theft. The farmers up there are asking that we look out for a stolen, new John Deere JD5325 4X4 Farm Tractor. The crooks may try to sell it down here for 10 cents on the dollar. Remember…if the deal seems to good to be true, it usually is. Ray can email you the color photo and Monterey Sheriff theft poster.
His email is Ray.dominguez@ventura.org
On the Oxnard Plains, Rio Mesa Farms just had a large water pump stolen. Ray is looking for any tips by farmers who may have seen suspects in the area on 10/22/2009. We have to keep an eye out for these crooks that will drive right up to a PTO or Diesel pump, hook up and drive away.
Storage Container Thefts:
Last month, I said we would talk about a lock system that may be an inexpensive supplement to our rural storage security. Typically Ag-Thieves will use bolt-cutters to break into your farm or ranch sheds and/or your shipping container type storage.
We found a new lock system for under $100 that will help deter this type of theft. You can order them at any reliable locksmith. The lock and attachment are resistant to bolt cutters. The lock “plugs” into the hasp and there is no room for bolt cutters to break the system. There may be multiple brands out there. I attached a P.D.F photo of the sample lock system with this newsletter. Remember to keep your storage areas free from cover where burglars can hide. When feasible have them lighted and or near caretaker houses.
Assaults:
Interface of Ventura County and our Sheriff’s Crisis Team is there to help. During the last three months, we have noticed a 30% increase in assaults and domestic/ family violence in our county rural areas. If you know of any families that need our help, contact us to help get resources and counselors before the situation escalates. You can email me at Tim.hagel@ventura.org or call in confidence and we can help them as a community.
Steckle and Dennison Parks:
Vandalism are also on the rise in our parks. In addition, alcohol related disturbances have led to increased assaults. We are increasing our foot patrols by deputies and ask that you can call us early if you see any problems. You can call 805-524-2233 or 911.
Ag Cards:
The Sheriff’s and County Agriculture Departments supply County Disaster Agriculture I.D Cards. Your ranch can use the Disaster I.D cards in order to assist your "out of area" employees when entering areas open to “local residents only.”
Often times, agriculture workers will have a driver’s license address that is out of the ranch or farm area they work. The Ag Cards help identify them as needed farm workers in the effected area. Contact Ray Dominguez if you need assistance in obtaining the cards.
Ray.Dominguez@ventura.org
From the Sheriff:
Sheriff Brooks has fostered and supported the use of Reverse 911 in our county.
This week, he has sent "farm watch news" a great overview of its use and success.
I’d like to share it with you.
“During the recent Guiberson Fire, eleven Reverse 911 evacuation warnings were launched from the Emergency Operations Center. 3,643 calls were sent out to farmers, ranchers, nurseries and rural residents with information and evacuation orders in areas affected by the fire. It would have been impossible to provide up to date information and this type of advance notice of evacuations without the help of technology. This system allows us to focus the efforts of all of our deputies and volunteers on mandatory evacuations and road closures.
REVERSE 911® is a telephonic community notification system that may be used to deliver outbound messages in the event of an emergency.
Residents from the cities of Camarillo, Fillmore, Moorpark, Ojai, Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Santa Paula, and the unincorporated areas of Ventura County are covered by the REVERSE 911® system.
Since the Sheriff's Department began utilizing the reverse 911 system, we have activated the system over 40 times to deliver evacuation notices, deliver community policing alerts such as providing information to residents when an armed suspect was in their neighborhood, fires, disasters, alerting residents that a homicide had occurred, or asking residents to beware of mountain lions or bears spotted in their area.
The REVERSE 911® system automatically includes all land-line telephone numbers. Residents however must go online and register their personal cellular, voice-over-Internet-computer based phones (VoIP), or teletypewriter (TTY) telephone numbers.
You can do this at www.countyofventura.org/disasterinformation, or by calling the Sheriff's Department at 648-9283, or e-mailing reverse911@ventura.org.
To date, over 4,800 residents have registered their cell phones with the system.
The Sheriff's Department currently utilizes the terms Voluntary and Mandatory for evacuations during natural or man-made disasters/incidents. During fires in particular, County Fire or City Fire authorities make the recommendation that we evacuate a certain area - and what level of evacuation based on the proximity of the fire - and those evacuations are often accomplished initially with the Reverse 911 system followed by deputy contact at those locations not reached through the Reverse 911 system (on mandatory evacuations). Often, deputies from the Sheriff's Tactical Response Team handle those follow-up contacts, and those deputies note who is and is not home, and who leaves and who decides to stay and shelter in place.
If a voluntary evacuation notice is given by Reverse 911, that means the fire is in the general area and would allow extra time for residents to remove their children, the elderly or persons with special needs, along with any large animals that are becoming spooked by the smoke.
Areas under voluntary evacuation have "soft" road closures or none at all, allowing persons who live in the area and persons with Agriculture (Ag) passes to access those areas.
Once a mandatory evacuation notice is given either at the request of fire authorities or by law enforcement personnel who witness unsafe conditions, residents should leave immediately and road closures become "hard," meaning no one passes onto those roads that is not in an emergency response vehicle.
Hard road closures exclude residents and Ag workers (even with passes), and allows for emergency vehicles to pass freely without the obstruction of persons trying to leave when those large vehicles are trying to respond to their area to fight the fire. Even under a mandatory evacuation notice authorities will not force persons to leave during fires in particular (i.e., you will not be arrested if you don't leave), anyone who does leave will not be allowed back into that area until the area is determined to be safe by public safety authorities (no electrical lines down, no gas leaks, etc.).
There has been a movement lately by fire authorities to change evacuation terminology from Voluntary/Mandatory to Evacuation Warnings and Evacuation Orders. Should that language be used, areas under Evacuation Warnings should have soft road closures and areas under Evacuation Orders will have hard road closures. When these notices are given, public safety agencies will provide this information to the media, on the Sheriff's website, and through Nixle and Twitter accounts to keep everyone abreast of the dangers in their areas.”
Your cooperation during the recent fires helped us to keep everyone safe and allowed firefighters to battle the blaze with full access to affected areas.
Thanks for being an important part of our public safety team.
BOB BROOKS, Sheriff
We will catch up in a few week, until then be safe Farm Watch,
Captain Tim Hagel, Fillmore