WHILE IT IS THE JOB of a minister to be both inspiring and compassionate, Pastor Sam Gallucci of the Harbor Community Church in Ventura was undoubtedly standing in line for an extra big helping of these qualities when God was passing them out.

The effusive Gallucci is now helping to pass out food, clean clothing and friendship to the area's homeless population. And it is impossible not to get caught up in the enthusiasm of this tireless spokesman for the efforts of his 65-member congregation.

As Gallucci explains it, "We started this by going out in the parks and the river bottom and asking folks, 'What do you need?' " As it turns out, it was "101 different things."

The church provides two meals a day, showers, laundry and help with social services to around 50 to 80 people daily. They serve 100-140 meals a day and have helped more than 500 people over the past year. "We've stopped 12 from taking their lives and 40 we've helped get work," Gallucci said. "Over 90 have gone through detox."

Others have received assistance getting their GEDs and acquiring identification.

"It's a miracle of God that a church so small can do so much," Gallucci said.

But while the church is doing great work, the parishioners realize that once their daytime efforts are finished, the recipients of their generosity are back out on the streets at night. "We'll just love on them for awhile and then we won't see them for a long time," Gallucci lamented.

AND THAT'S where miracle number two comes in. "God provided us just a perfect situation," the pastor said. The owners of the City Center Motel in Downtown Ventura, near to much of the city's homeless population, entered into a lease agreement with the church to turn the aging facility into a center for 30 homeless families.

Gallucci made an appeal to other churches in the area to help and so far 15 have made a firm commitment to sponsor one of the motel's 30 rooms. A one-time donation of $5,700 helps to renovate a room; a $500 monthly donation sponsors the family living in it. The church is seeking another $500,000 to add a kitchen, laundry area and meeting facility to the project.

There is also an immediate need of $64,000 for architectural and permit fees for the project, Gallucci said. 

And while there is currently a shortage of funds to complete the project there is certainly no shortage of enthusiasm around town for the Kingdom Center and the congregation's current efforts at their Preble Avenue church. Homeless advocate Sherry Cash certainly sings their praises. Something as simple as a shower and a change of clothes can make all the difference, she said. "As soon as people start getting clean, things change."

The homeless population has just exploded in the last year, Gallucci said. An estimated 623 are homeless in Ventura, according to the area's latest counts. The county count stands at 2,193.

The Harbor's congregation also works toward transitioning these folks back into society. The need is so great, the pastor said. "The homeless have lost their ability to believe in anything. They're treated like they're different. I call it a new level of segregation. It's an economic segregation. It could be any of us.

"So many people say it's the city's problem," Galucci said. "It's all of our problem and we all need to step up to help."

For a list of the Kingdom Center's current needs, download a wishlist:

kingdom wish list.doc

For more on the project, go here.

A NEW STUDY from the Public Policy Institute of California predicts that a majority of the state's schools will fail to reach No Child Left Behind's impossibly high goals for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) next year. "Very soon almost every public school in California will be labeled a failure," the study's authors write.

The program mandates that schools and districts receiving Title I federal funds make satisfactory yearly improvement toward an established individual goal in math and English. A school which consistently misses its goal over several years is eventually subject to major restructuring. These efforts are costly and their success has been mixed.

The study identified many factors behind its findings but suggested that the larger problem is a  system which does not account for the significant differences in challenges between schools. "Fifty percent of elementary schools with the highest share of low-income students made AYP in 2007, whereas 98 percent of elementary schools with the lowest share of low-income students made AYP," according to the PPIC.

"As a result, a school that inherits many high-achieving students but teaches them very little can be labeled a success, whereas a school that inherits many low-achieving students and teaches them a great deal can be labeled a failure," the authors write. California has a high percentage of disadvantaged students.

The situation will not likely improve given the economy and severe cutbacks and larger class sizes California's schools face next year as a result of state budget negotiations.

WHAT CAN BE DONE besides a complete overhaul of the NCLB rules? The study makes many worthwhile suggestions:

• Invest in preschool. High-quality programs can help close the achievement gap.

• Re-evaluate programs which are not working. The study points to a remedial program for students who have failed the high school exit exam as one which has been ineffective, yet the current budget allocates $73 million to it.

• New, innovative programs which work should be nurtured, piloted and implemented statewide.

• Reform school finance by replacing it with a weighted formula more closely tied to the actual costs of educating students. Schools which have more students from low socioeconomic background should naturally receive more funding, but those with higher regional costs should also receive more dollars.

While few would argue that many reforms are needed in California's education system, NCLB has had an unhealthy effect on the education community nationwide, something Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the American Federation of Teachers conference last week.

"This idea of labeling and stigmatizing schools as failures -- it is unbelievably demoralizing to faculty; it's confusing to parents."

Update: As predicted, the state budget will be "balanced" in part by taking revenue from local governments. Read Timm Herdt's story here.

ALTHOUGH THE IDEA of increasing Ventura's sales tax in a recession may not be playing well in all corners, if the measure passes in November, it will generate an extra estimated $8 million annually over the next four years that all stays in Ventura. Currently only a small percentage of the sales tax we pay stays local.

This comes as the governor and our legislators have devised various methods of snatching even more local revenues. The May revise floated a proposal to borrow eight percent of property tax receipts from cities, counties, and special districts received in 2008‑09. Another recent scheme was proposed to divert gas tax money up to Sacramento that is used to maintain local streets. It's no wonder that the League of California Cities is up in arms against these deals.

Two other bills, SB 80 and SB 3x 29, would send redevelopment agency money to K-12 schools that cities now use for construction projects. Last year the California Redevelopment Association successfully sued the state to stop a similar bill.

City officials recently estimated Ventura could lose nearly $3 million in revenues to Sacramento on top of the difficult $11 million in service cuts and pay reductions already made to balance the current two-year budget.

The proposed 1/2-cent sales tax increase, which will sunset in four years, will cost each resident 22 cents a day, according to the city's finance staff. With a majority vote required and not a 2/3, it's similar to general-use measures recently passed in the neighboring cities of Oxnard and Port Hueneme.

THE SPENDING PLAN for the proposed revenue increase was outlined by staff and voted on by Council Monday night. It's a list of priority items which have suffered in the recent round of cuts:

• 40 percent will go to public safety, which will include restoring and supplementing our roving Medic Engine 10 service and the Downtown foot patrols. Recent requests for federal COPS grants were not successful.
• 35 percent will go to street repair, infrastructure maintenance, parks and public transit.
• 15 percent will go toward clean and safe beaches, which will include money to help Pierpont Beach residents with their weighty sand issues and more to help the city meet new costly federal and state water quality requirements.
• 6 percent will go to supplement county funding for our libraries.
• 4 percent will go toward maintaining and building effective community partnerships, which include social services grants and cultural grants to local non-profits.
  

An 11-member citizen advisory committee would be appointed to oversee the expenditures. Recent polling and past voting on Measure P6 shows the new measure has a decent chance of passage. 

As the current dysfunction in Sacramento goes on, it's a safe bet that school districts, cities and counties will work for more local control of funds.

AS I REPORTED back in March, it didn't take long for "renewable energy businessman" Sen. Tony Strickland to dodge a vote on a renewable energy bill. That bill, SB 14, would require investor-owned utilities to receive one-third of their power from renewable energy sources by 2020.

Well he's gone and done it again.

This time he failed to vote in committee on AB 920, a bill which would provide incentives for customers to use wind or solar energy systems. According to the proposed legislation by Assembly member Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael): 

The author believes this will encourage homeowners and businesses to conserve more electricity (and thus have more surplus power they can sell to the utility) and will allow property owners to install the maximum number of solar panels on their home.

Our Republican state senator justified his "renewable energy" ballot designation during his campaign against Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson by his partnership in a wave energy company formed around the same time he decided to run in a green-leaning district. And here's a quote straight off his web page:

"I am working with Democrats and Republicans to transition California to a renewable, more energy efficient economy to jumpstart the economy, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, improve the environment, and lower energy prices."
-Senator Tony Strickland

So why then would Strickland take a walk on two important renewable energy bills? When questioning why politicians do what they do it is always wise to find out who supports or opposes a particular bill. 

AB 920 and SB 14 are opposed by Pacific Gas & Electric, which donated $1,250 to Tony Strickland's state senate campaign, $5,600 to Strickland's controller's race and $5,000 to his 2002 Assembly race, according to the very handy online site followthemoney.org.

Strickland's wife, Assembly member Audra Strickland, just plain voted against AB 920, so I will give her some credit for not being dodgy. I would ideally like to give Tony some credit, too, for his package of renewable energy legislation introduced a few months ago, which largely consisted of tax credits, continuing his no-revenue mantra.

But he is not consistent in backing renewable energy legislation, especially that opposed by his donors, and this highlights his credibility problem.

IN A BIT OF RELATED NEWS: According to the Mendocino Beacon it would seem Strickland's fledging wave energy company GreenWave, which is still in the preliminary permit phase and hasn't done much of anything yet, is one of the few left standing with proposed projects off the California coast.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company  and California Wave Energy Partners recently pulled projects, according to the Beacon. GreenWave's application has riled the locals up there with "more interveners and more people commenting than any other hydrokinetic project in the nation," the Beacon writes.

OUR GOVERNOR'S game of chicken with the legislature not only sunk us billions of dollars deeper in debt last week, it caused one of the nation's top rating agencies, Fitch, to downgrade its rating on California's long-term bonds yesterday to "BBB," two notches above junk status.

This means the state will likely be forced to pay even higher interest rates when borrowing money. Also yesterday, a group of leading banks announced they'll only accept the state-issued IOUs through Friday.

Add this to the governor's proposal to throw nearly a million children off health insurance rolls, close state parks, lay off more teachers, shut down CalWORKS, and rescind grants to college students.

All this trauma would keep most people in charge of the world's eighth largest economy up at night, but not our governor. In a recent interview in New York Times Magazine, Arnold Schwarzenegger seemed at peace with the bedlam going on around him.

Schwarzenegger reclined deeply in his chair, lighted an eight-inch cigar and declared himself "perfectly fine," despite the fiscal debacle and personal heartsickness all around him. "Someone else might walk out of here every day depressed, but I don't walk out of here depressed," Schwarzenegger said. Whatever happens, "I will sit down in my Jacuzzi tonight," he said. "I'm going to lay back with a stogie."

I've run out of words to express my annoyance with this man. So tonight I'm letting Photoshop tell the story.

AT JUST A FEW MINUTES before midnight last night in one of the most critical state budget votes in history, Sen. Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks) just couldn't contain himself. He needed to poke fun at President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg's admonition to all senators to sit down before voting on three stopgap measures designed to keep our state from running out of money.

"I'm just checking, Mr. President. I'm not trying to be a pain in the butt," he joked.

And then came the 25-14 party-line vote, with Sen. Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria)  abstaining, which turned down three stopgap bills passed by the Assembly last week, which would effectively keep the state from issuing IOUs to contractors, the disabled, elderly and the poor. Passage of these bills, containing $3.3 billion in cuts, mostly to education, needed to happen before the end of the fiscal year that ended Tuesday. As the cuts were allocated to the previous fiscal year, the opportunity to save was lost at midnight. According to the Los Angeles Times, issuing IOUs will cost the state another $3.4 billion in interest.

The moment of levity at a time of fiscal calamity irked Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco)  "We're about to lose $7 billion in 6 minutes. ... Folks are joking and it's really just beyond belief."

Later, Assemblymember Sam Blakeslee (R-San Luis Obispo), who helped seal the bipartisan deal in the Assembly  told John Myers of KQED-Radio that he was disappointed in the outcome in the Senate. "The Assembly acted responsibly..."

ON A SIDE NOTE: The governor of course vetoed the two budget bills presented to him yesterday. (See below) No surprise.