Housing Trust Fund Ventura County (Housing Trust Fund VC) has hired Jason Gaffner as its new Deputy Director, Loan Portfolio Manager. In this newly created position Gaffner will manage Housing Trust Fund VC’s portfolio of existing loans including underwriting and review to close loans expeditiously for affordable housing developments in the community. He’ll also work with developers to secure a pipeline of future loans and prepare documentation needed for reporting to investors, funders, grantors, and others.

Jason Gaffner joins Housing Trust Fund VC with two decades of commercial real estate finance experience, including over $600 million in real estate debt and equity successfully negotiated and closed. Prior to joining the organization, Gaffner held a senior member position on the west coast originations team for a real estate lending, investing and advisory company. He holds an MBA from Babson College with a focus on entrepreneurial management and a Bachelor of Science degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania with a dual concentration in finance and marketing.

“We are excited to welcome Jason to our growing team and certainly appreciate his expertise as both a mortgage broker and lender. His perspective on both ends is sure to provide numerous benefits for our developers, our fund, and most importantly those we serve to ensure housing equity for all,” states Housing Trust Fund VC CEO Linda Braunschweiger.

Jason Gaffner was accepted into the 2022 Southern California Association of Governments Housing Policy Leadership Academy (SCAG-HPLA). The 10-session program provides an opportunity for people of different backgrounds and disciplines to better understand how to advance policy solutions that positively impact the need for affordable housing. The course offers perspective on the physical and social aspects of a successful housing ecosystem.

To learn more about Jason Gaffner, and Housing Trust Fund VC’s Community Promise of committing to funding solutions for safe, equitable and affordable homes in Ventura County for U.S. veterans, young adults transitioning from foster care, farm workers, homeless individuals, and low- and very low income seniors, individuals, and families, please visit: www.housingtrustfundvc.org

Housing Trust Fund Ventura County – Launched as a 501c3 nonprofit corporation in 2011, Housing Trust Fund VC is the local trusted leader in helping to increase affordable housing options throughout Ventura County by leveraging public-private partnerships to provide low-cost, flexible loans early in the housing development cycle. As of November 2021, Housing Trust Fund VC has invested over $18.7 million through its revolving loan fund, creating 847 affordable apartments and homes for very-low, low- and middle-income employees, transitional age foster youth, veterans, farm workers, and the homeless.

by Richard Newsham, VMF Consultant

Diego “Twanguero” Garcia, Spain’s triple-threat—on Spanish classical, acoustic steel and electric guitar—brings an acoustic solo set followed by his dynamic electric band to the Ventura College Performing Arts Center, 4700 Loma Vista Road, on Saturday, April 9 at 7:30 pm, as the Spring concert for the Ventura Music Festival’s 27^th “Onward!” season.

The fire-breathing guitar hero, one of the world’s most impeccable fingerpickers, invites all kinds of audiences to join him for a panoramic evening experience that Rolling Stone Magazine calls “a journey into the heart of music.”

The double Latin Grammy© winner, songwriter and virtuoso guitarist is on tour with the release of Backroads, Volume II—his second “guitars of the world project.” It continues his “motorcycle diaries” like musical memoir southwards to the jungles of Central America. Volume I—his “sojourn of sound on strings” around North America—won the Spanish Independent Music Awards’ “best album of world music” in 2018 for capturing the blues, country, ragtime and electric styles he uncovered during his byway stops between Chicago and Los Angeles. That year Twanguero took the Ventura Music Festival by storm with a pair of performances: during its free post-Thomas Fire community concert outdoors and then the regular July festival.

For his beautiful sequel, the artist traveled to Costa Rica during the pandemic, “to discover, and try to interact with, the tonality of the jungle, its mix of cicadas and crickets, howler monkeys, and array of birds—a symphony of sorts, both day and night.” The humidity changed how his Guitarras Ramírez super guitar sounded. “But the jungle calms your mind down, makes it more reflective, and connects you inwardly and you start philosophizing with your guitar in conversation with the inhabitants of the jungle and with your inner self. The experience made me realize I wanted to tell stories through my guitar, a difficult inward job that you have to translate through your fingers, without the advantage of the spoken word.” Stories of marshland, Patagonia pampa and jungle samba landscapes, explosive ayahuasca jaguar visions and bossa nova, Carib and milonga rhythms.

His electric band travels a cinematic landscape of flamenco smitten with the jangly twang of early American rock and roll—and cumbia, surf and mambo mixed with electric blues and the pachuco grooves of Arizona border music. These sounds evoke the musical journeys of Twanguero’s odyssey from Valencia, Spain, to New York City, and from the Piazzolla’s tango-land of Buenos Aires to his new home in Los Angeles—which he calls “music’s most important, if savage, city where all music styles compete for audience ears.”

If you know his music, you love him already. If you don’t, you will.

For ticket info and videos visit www.venturamusicfestival.org

LINKS

Documentary: “Twanguero Costarica” https://youtu.be/YtJQwbNHlyA

New cd acoustic tunes:

Jaguar https://youtu.be/b_aLRlmBfZM

La Leyenda del Cañaveral https://youtu.be/sAYid1OUAzg

Videos with his dynamic band:

Electric Sunset https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DUSsx8lb0s

Rockabilly Mambo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po-yRHocO4c

by Jill Forman

Foster Library Temporarily Closed

Due to a water leak, Foster has been closed while the damage is assessed and mitigated. As of this writing, the re-opening date is not determined. The safety of the public and library staff will be the deciding factor.

Remember – you can still get books! The library has its online ordering and Hill Road is open with its sale shelves as well as pickup of library items.

Update on Online Bookstore

Pickups are on hold until Foster re-opens, as the inventory and items awaiting pickup are stored in the library.

Here is a note from online bookstore manager Leslie Bellmore: This April Ventura Friends of the Library online bookstore will have Vintage books on sale for $1 -$5. They don’t make books like these anymore, some with hand drawn illustrations and special bindings. All books have been selected by former librarians and teachers as quality books worth collecting and keeping to share with future generations. Buy online and pick up at Foster Library Bookstore, open Tuesday through Sat 11am to 4pm.

Friends of the Library Had a Book Sale!

We were so happy to once again have a large book sale last Saturday, March 19. I will report on it in the next column.

Exciting Musical Event scheduled for March 26 (check library website to see if Foster has re-opened)

(from library press release)

Ventura’s E.P. Foster Library will present a musical program, Lyrical Literature: The Songs and Theater Music of Ross Care, at 2pm on Saturday, March 26, in the Topping Room of Foster Library. Care is both a composer and a published author, and this program will be based on musical literary associations from poetry and theater.

Musically he has worked in a variety of styles from art songs to theater and film music. His scores for short films include Otto Messmer and Felix the Cat, and his musicals of Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass and Gibran’s The Prophet have been performed nationally. His incidental score for The Glass Menagerie was heard in the Rubicon and Ojai Art Center productions, and his Rock Mass was recently performed in Ventura.

As an author/film historian Care has also written extensively on films and film music of the studio era for the Library of Congress, and the magazine, Scarlet Street. He has also written program notes for the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. His biography of Disney studio animator/director, Wilfred Jackson, was recently published by Theme Park Press and is available in the Foster Library collections.

Tyler Carlisle will serve as musical director/pianist with guest instrumentalists from Los Angeles, Ted Nichelson, harp, and Juan Antonio Rivera, flute. The vocal ensemble will include Ventura vocalists Dianna Burdick, Molly Kohler Pei, Steve Perren, and Peter Umipig. Ross Care will be serving as moderator.

This event is free and open to the public. For additional information, contact Karen Cruze, Librarian Specialist, at (805) 648-2716.

by Carol Leish, MA

Roylin Downs, the owner of Trystology, said, “I love that the street is closed. Business has been doing well. I’d love to keep it that way. Customers come from all over, as they walk up and down Main Street. This helps our business. I love that we have been able to get more foot traffic.”

“I also like that they are trying to get some standards for the restaurants, along with outdoor qualifications. I haven’t disliked most of the offerings presents. I’m all in for keeping it this way!”

Visit Trystology at: 588 E. Main St. (888) 801-8952. Look at: https://trystology.com/.

Deborah Yahner, the owner, along with her husband Joe, of Ikat & Pearls said, “I think that the closure of the streets has been wonderful. And, we have received incredible feedback. Time and time again shoppers comment on the fact that it has made Ventura have a European appeal, which they really like. I would prefer that things stay this way, with the street closures.”

Visit Ikat & Pearls at: 28 S. California St. (805) 448-9526. Look at: https://ikatandpearlsboutique.squarespace.com/.

Feast of Lots, a joyous Jewish festival commemorating the survival of the Jews who, in the 5th century BCE, were marked for death by their Persian rulers. The story is related in the biblical Book of Esther. Purim is celebrated on Thursday, March 17, 2022.

Haman, chief minister of King Ahasuerus, incensed that Mordecai, a Jew, held him in disdain and refused obeisance, convinced the king that the Jews living under Persian rule were rebellious and should be slaughtered. With the king’s consent, Haman set a date for the execution (the 13th day of the month of Adar) by casting lots and built a gallows for Mordecai.

When word of the planned massacre reached Esther, beloved Jewish queen of Ahasuerus and adopted daughter of Mordecai, she risked her life by going uninvited to the king to suggest a banquet that Haman would attend. At the meal she pleaded for the Jews and accused “this wicked Haman” of plotting the annihilation of her people.

Upset, the king stepped out into the palace gardens. On returning, he found Haman “falling on the couch where Esther was.” The king mistook Haman’s frantic pleas for mercy as an attack upon the queen. The outraged king ordered that Haman be hanged and that Mordecai be named to his position. Esther and Mordecai then obtained a royal edict allowing Jews throughout the empire to attack their enemies on Adar 13. After an exhilarating victory, they declared the following day a holiday and (alluding to the lots Haman had cast) named it Purim.

by Richard Senate

Once a terrible gunfighter walked the streets of old Ventra. He was a violent, temperamental man with few redeemable qualities. His name was Joseph Franklin Dye and his murderous reputation still echoes in the legends of Ventura County. Born in Kentucky in 1831 he traveled to Texas where he held several jobs before coming west to California. As he matured his dark inner demons began to show themselves. When the nation was plunged into the grim and terrible Civil War Joe’s sentiments were  with the Confederacy but, unlike many who held such views, he didn’t make the long journey east to join the fight.

He joined the Beal Gang of highway men who told their victims the robberies were done to support the South but really to line their own pockets.  When the war ended, Joe left them and took a job as a deputy in El Monte where he achieved some note running down and arresting a local gang. This attention got him a job as a marshal in Los Angeles. He was given the worst section of the city–Chinatown. Then a crime infested red light district. Here Joe shined as he brought his own brand of harsh justice to the quarter as well as lining his own pockets with bribes and award monies. He got into an argument with his boss, City Marshall William Warren. There was a gunfight and Warren was shot dead! As the Marshall was dying in the street–Joe when to him and bit off his ear! Witnesses said Warren had fired first and Joe Dye was released.

He left LA and moved to Ventura County, buying a ranch in Sespi and marrying his girl friend and mother of his daughter, Lorena Grace.  In the 1870s Ventura County was experiencing an oil boom and Joe had an easy time finding work as a guard at the oil fields. He got into oil exploration, wheeling and dealing he made a lot of money, both legally and illegally. Most say that Joe Dye had only one redeeming quality, the love he had for his wife that bordered on obsession. When he discovered she was having an affair with one of his oil partners he snapped. Wisely, his wife quickly left the state.  She was mixed up with a merchant in Santa Paula named Herman Haines. Joe called him out and on the dusty streets of Santa Paula they had a classic western gunfight. Haines drew first but Joe’s bullet was more accurate and dropped him in the street, dead. Joe was arrested and the trial held in Ventura at the Santa Clara Street red brick courthouse.

With his money, Joe hired a “dream team ” of lawyers and was released. Joe terrorized the local people, making his detractors grovel on hands and knees and bark like a dog–at gunpoint, on Main Street, Ventura.  His end came when joe partnered with a cousin named Mason Bradfield in another oil lease deal that was shady. When Bradfield wanted  out,Joe beat him badly.  In Los Angeles to cut yet another oil deal, May 14, 1891, Bradfield got his revenge firing both barrels of a shotgun into Joe Dye.  Mason Bradfield was released saying he felt that his life was endangered by Joe. The jury, who knew Dye, believed him and he was released.  People in Ventura and Santa Paula breathed a sign of relief that  Joe Dye was no longer walking the streets.  He rests in a Los Angeles unmarked grave, a grim footnote in local history.