Pac Biz Times: Ojai bypassing the buck? Small town looks at having own currency

From the Pacific Coast Business Times print edition, May 29-June 4, 2009:

Ojai bypassing the buck? Small town looks at having own currency
Written by Sara Hamilton
Friday, 29 May 2009

As the global meltdown continues to put pressure on regional economies, the Ojai Economy Group may have found a way for citizens to keep the area’s economy vibrant, jobs local and economic relationships face to face.

Drawing its inspiration from Western Massachusetts’ successful BerkShares program, the group wants to implement an alternative currency system for the entire Ojai Valley. And they want to do it by year’s end.

“Ultimately we’re focused on doing something that enriches the community using a system based on abundance instead of scarcity,” said Tyler Suchman, one of group’s core members. “A lot of people in the Ojai community have explored the different components and ideas around what a local economy means.”

The particulars haven’t been nailed down yet, but the group said the new system would consist of bartering and an ultra-local currency to encourage and support area business. The city would still accept U.S. dollars at the least.

The unorthodox initiative has already generated a lot of buzz since it was introduced in February, and Suchman said the group’s next step will be examining how to create an infrastructure for the organization.

“Dealing with financial systems can be really complex, and when you’re looking at things like local currency, it takes a fair amount of architecture for those systems to be usable,” Suchman said. “There’s a long way to go, but the response has been really great.”

Craig Allen, president of Montecity Private Asset Management in Santa Barbara, thinks the group may be able to pull it off, but “only because it is such a small community and is off the beaten path.”

Before the program can take flight, Ojai’s 8,000 residents need to be convinced that they’re not trading spendable dollars for Monopoly money.

Allen said the program’s success will hinge on its ability to get people and businesses involved, so the group’s biggest hurdle will be participation.

“There will always be people who refuse to play, no matter what,” he said.

The group hopes its dedication will pay off in September, when it hosts the Ojai Forum, a conference intended to explore new economic models. A few notables have already signed on as presenters, including World Business Academy President Rinaldo Brutoco and Hazel Henderson, author of “Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy.”

“We’re putting a lot of time and energy into the Ojai Forum, and we want to bring in people who are already familiar with the local economy, complementary currency and mutual credit systems,” Suchman said. “We’d like to take the knowledge brought to the forum and apply it to Ojai specifically.”

The group will have a better idea of how to deploy its conceptualized projects after the forum, said Howard Smith, one of the group’s core members and a past chairman of Ventura County Economic Development Association.

Suchman said the handful of successful East Coast-based alternative currencies lend hope to Ojai’s emerging program. The Ithaca region of New York circulates Ithaca Hours, Toronto Dollars alongside the Canadian looney in Toronto and BerkShares are used in Western Massachusetts.

“There are similar programs that started as progressive outsider organizations, but they moved toward working with the established institutions,” Suchman said. “It’s important to involve the established institutions, and we would like to involve all shareholders and partners in community from very get-go.”

The initiative would make it clear that a strong local business economy is deeply connected to healthy environmental, arts, educational and social services communities, Suchman said.

“We basically want to support the lifeblood of Ojai and what it means to be in Ojai and what the very essence of Ojai is.”

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