Remote Surveillance Trailer in Simi Valley, CA

The Brief

A volunteer crew recently uncovered more than half a dozen stolen safes that had been cracked open and dumped in a ravine off the side of a Simi Valley road.

Safes found dumped

What we know:

David Weisberg found the safes while checking out cleanup spots for the non-profit Volunteers Cleaning Communities, which does regular events in the area.

Images from SkyFOX showed several of the safes off the side of State Route 118 near Rocky Peak Road.

Weisberg and his girlfriend took as much as they could and tried to track down the people on the documents. One of those people was Ken Ramage.

Ramage had a safe stolen from his Glendora home back in August. Security footage from the home showed three people lifting the massive safe into the back of a car.

Birth certificates, passports recovered

What they're saying:

Ramage said that when he heard the safe had been found he was shocked. He said that Weisberg and his girlfriend actually got in contact with his daughter, who lives in Munich now, and his daughter told him.

"Our daughter sends us a message on WhatsApp, you know, middle of the night because it's Munich, and she goes, ‘You’re not going to believe this. This gal sent me a message that says, I've got your passport and your Social Security cards,'" Ramage said. "I'm like, ‘You got to be kidding.’"

Inside his family's safe there were his and his sister's birth certificates, his children's passports, and his daughter's wedding album. Some of the items were even still in "pristine" condition, he said.

While Weisberg said that finding the safes on the side of the road was "crazy," this isn't the first time the group has found things like this during a cleanup. During past cleanups, they've found things like ATMs and even other safes. But still, he's never found something like this.

Ramage said most of the documents in the safe had been replaced, since the robbery was months ago. But still, Ramage said, "We were so grateful to David and his girlfriend for what they did. We appreciate them so much and what they did. We could never repay them for doing the right thing."

The Source: Information in this story is from interviews with David Weisberg and Ken Ramage.

New facility offers outdoor parking, valet service, onsite washes, and premium amenities for RV and boat owners

SIMI VALLEY, Calif., Feb. 20, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Outrig, a leading provider of RV and boat storage, has expanded its footprint in California with the acquisition of a new facility in Simi Valley, CA. The new location, formerly All Valley's RV Storage, offers secure vehicle parking, valet service, onsite washes, and premium amenities designed to reinforce Outrig's mission to make RV ownership easy.

Outrig is proud of its customer-first approach, and this site's many amenities ensure a stress-free experience for RV owners including security cameras, wash station and service, dump station, tire air and vacuum station, and propane refill.

The facility is conveniently located to serve Simi Valley and the surrounding areas of Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Newbury Park, and Fillmore with easy access from Freeway 118. As part of its commitment to the local community, Outrig has made a donation to the American Red Cross to support wildfire relief efforts in the region.

"We're excited to bring Outrig's trusted storage solutions to the Simi Valley community," said Dennis King, President, Outrig Storage. "This location is a perfect example of what we strive to offer at Outrig—convenient, well-equipped storage with thoughtful services so customers can spend less time worrying about their RV and more time enjoying it."

For more details about the new Simi Valley facility and its services visit Outrig's website.

About Outrig

Outrig, formerly goHomePort, was launched in 2020 by a highly seasoned team of investors and operators with a mission to make RV ownership easy. Our storage locations offer everything you need in one place: amenities that make it easier to get out on the road, and on-site repairs you can rely on. As we've grown, we've also expanded into commercial & self-storage. Whether you're storing your rig, your business assets, or your personal belongings, our mission remains the same: to make your storage and maintenance experience seamless and stress-free. We are rapidly expanding our portfolio across the country and innovating new ways to deliver a best-in-class experience for our customers.

Contact:

Zach Johnson Vice President, Strategy & Integration zjohnson@outrig.com

SOURCE Outrig

Click here for important updates to our privacy policy.

LOCAL

Ventura County Star

(This story was updated to correct the spelling of Luis Garibay's name.)

The parent company of Milgard Windows and Doors plans to close its Simi Valley manufacturing plant and lay off all 400 or so people who work there, the company announced Tuesday.

Milgard is one of Simi Valley's biggest employers and has been for decades. Last year, only three private-sector businesses in the city employed more people, according to a survey of businesses included in the city's annual comprehensive fiscal report.

Milgard will start to slow down its Simi Valley operations in late May, and by June 10, it will have shut down the facility and laid off all 397 local employees, according to a written notice of the layoffs the company sent to the city of Simi Valley, the county of Ventura and the state of California.

The employees in Simi Valley were told of the pending closure at a staff meeting on Tuesday, said Nick Board, the marketing manager for Miter Brands, Milgard's Pennsylvania-based parent company.

Miter has about 9,500 employees nationwide. It has job openings at other facilities around the country, and it has encouraged its workers in Simi Valley to apply for those jobs, Broad said. The company will also help them with job training and placement, along with the city, the Workforce Development Board of Ventura County and the Simi Valley Chamber of Commerce.

"We were shocked" to learn of the closure, said Kathi Van Etten, the chamber's president and CEO. "Those are good manufacturing jobs, and they were a big supporter of the community, as well. It will be sad to see them go."

Merger made Simi plant redundant

Miter Brands was formed when MI Windows acquired Milgard in 2019. About a year ago, Miter bought another window and door manufacturer, PGT Innovations, in a $3.1 billion deal.

That made Miter one of the three largest U.S. window manufacturers, Board said. It also gave Miter more manufacturing capacity than it needed in the western United States, with a former PGT facility in Phoenix joining existing Milgard operations in Simi Valley, Temecula, Sacramento and Prescott Valley, Arizona.

The company has updated its other facilities in California and Arizona in recent years, and Simi Valley was next in line, Broad said. But the former PGT facility in Phoenix is already up-to-date, and its acquisition made the Simi Valley plant expendable.

"We were able to spread the production load out at the other facilities out west to offset Simi," Broad said. "This is all part of integrating PGT into our business, and it's also a result of our multi-year capital investment into our other facilities."

High demand for Simi's industrial space

The Milgard plant in Simi Valley is on Easy Street, a little east of Madera Road. According to Ventura County property records, it's owned by a limited liability company controlled by Gene Haas, the founder and owner of Haas Automation, a machine tool manufacturer in Oxnard.

In the 1990s, the Easy Street building was a warehouse and distribution center for the now-defunct apparel company Bugle Boy, which had its corporate headquarters nearby, said Joe Jusko, a principal with Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate in Westlake Village.

The building is about 220,000 square feet. Jusko said he doesn't think it will stay empty. Industrial vacancy rates in Simi Valley are at or below 4%, he said, so there should be plenty of demand to fill the Milgard space.

"There are a couple of companies that have toured 200,000-square-foot buildings in Simi Valley in the past month or so," Jusko said. "That's a quality building, with good parking, good power, good location, has all the amenities you'd want. ... I can't say how long it will take, I don't have a crystal ball, but eventually it will lease."

Van Etten said the chamber is aware of multiple businesses in Simi Valley that want to expand and haven't been able to find enough space. Companies from the San Fernando Valley are also often looking to move to Simi Valley; for example, in 2022 the IT products manufacturer Chatsworth Products moved its headquarters from Chatsworth to Simi Valley.

Luis Garibay, Simi Valley's assistant city manager, said the city is "still processing and trying to understand the full impact" of the Milgard closure, but it's committed to helping any laid off workers find new jobs.

He said he was heartened to hear that Milgard is closing due to the redundancies created by its recent acquisition, and not because of any difficulties doing business in Simi Valley.

"Simi Valley as a whole has a very business-friendly reputation," Garibay said. "I personally have been involved in many conversations with businesses and brokers who are looking to come to Simi Valley, so I'm optimistic that someone will move in there."

Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tbiasotti@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation's Fund to Support Local Journalism.

A couple ran a “work for smuggling” scheme in Southern California, forcing migrants to work without pay at their home and stealing wages they earned at a local McDonald’s, federal prosecutors said.

Carolina Rojas, 50, and Jairo John Gastelo, 45, recruited and abused asylum-seeking migrants from Latin America between November 2021 and at least March 2024, according to prosecutors.

They forced migrants into labor under “threats of serious harm,” prosecutors wrote in an indictment filed Feb. 19.

Rojas and Gastelo, both of Simi Valley, were each arrested Feb. 26 on charges of conspiracy to commit forced labor and four counts of forced labor, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said in a news release.

“The defendants smuggled individuals into the United States and exploited them for their own financial gain,” U.S. Attorney Joseph McNally said in a statement.

Rojas also faces four counts of trafficking with respect to forced labor, three counts of giving immigration documents to unauthorized persons, one count of encouraging and inducing illegal entry, and one count of witness tampering, according to prosecutors.

Attorney information for Rojas and Gastelo wasn’t immediately available Feb. 27.

Rojas and Gastelo, with the help of others, recruited individuals from Latin American countries to benefit from unpaid labor, prosecutors said.

They coordinated their travels to the U.S., covering initial associated costs and their transportation to their Simi Valley home, according to prosecutors.

Rojas is a naturalized citizen from Peru, according to the indictment, and her husband is a Peruvian immigrant who lives in the U.S.

When the migrants made it to their house, they were forced into “around-the-clock” childcare and other domestic duties, prosecutors said.

Rojas and Gastelo had the migrants live at their home and sleep in the same room as their child with special needs, according to the indictment, which says they made them care for this child.

The couple told them “their work was performed in exchange for rent,” prosecutors said.

If they encountered U.S. immigration authorities, Rojas told them to lie about being forced to work for housing at their home, the indictment says.

Rojas lured one woman from Peru in November 2021 by promising she could live with her and attend school in the U.S., according to the indictment. Rojas paid for her flight to the U.S., prosecutors wrote.

After the woman flew to California, Rojas required her to care for her child with special needs and had her “cook, clean, and do laundry” for her, Gastelo and their other children, the indictment says.

According to prosecutors, Rojas arranged for some migrants, including the Peruvian woman, to work at a local McDonald’s in Simi Valley. The city is about a 40-mile drive northwest from Los Angeles.

Rojas and her husband would collect the cash migrants made while working at the restaurant, prosecutors said.

At the McDonald’s, “Rojas had an arrangement with the manager to hire individuals she brought to work there,” prosecutors wrote.

There are a few McDonald’s located in Simi Valley. Prosecutors did not reveal the address of the McDonald’s referenced in the indictment.

In response to McClatchy News’ request for comment, McDonald’s shared a statement from the owner and operator of the franchise’s Simi Valley restaurant Feb. 27.

“These are incredibly serious allegations that we will further investigate,” the owner said. “If true, this conduct goes against the core values of my organization and we will take appropriate action.”

After the migrants were paid by McDonald’s, Rojas had them cash their paychecks at a check-cashing business, according to the indictment.

Then she demanded the cash from the migrants as their “smuggling” fees, the indictment says.

To have the McDonald’s manager hire them, Rojas showed the manager fraudulent immigration documents she obtained for the migrants, according to the indictment.

The documents included fake social security cards and permanent resident cards, prosecutors said.

On Feb. 26, Rojas and Gastelo made their initial appearances in Los Angeles federal court, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

They were ordered detained by a judge, who scheduled their trial for April 8, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, please call 911.

To report potential trafficking situations, you can contact the national hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or chat with the online hotline.

Read Next

South Carolina

January 9, 2025 5:25 AM

Read Next

National

September 30, 2024 9:29 AM

This story was originally published February 27, 2025 at 11:02 AM.

Simi Valley’s Cork & Batter Roadhouse is an accumulation of Chef Jimmy Weathersbee’s San Gabriel upbringing.

“My dad has nine brothers and two sisters. So all of my uncles, all the time, would be barbecuing,” the executive chef and pitmaster explained. Everyone stole a little bit from this one, little bit from this one. And, you know, of course, my two aunties would pass down the sides that my grandmother used to make. So taking a little bit from everyone is how I landed where I am today.”

Weathersbee was at a stage in his life where he wanted to do something that made him happy.

“I love barbecuing. I love being around the grill. I like being around people. I feel like it’s the most social form of cooking,” he continued. “That’s when I felt like, this is what I want to do for for the rest of my career.”

He started with a small place in Van Nuys where he worked on his barbecuing techniques and later worked with legendary pitmaster Kevin Bludso of L.A.’s Bludso’s BBQ, the Texas-style barbecue restaurant.

“He really showed me what Texas barbecue was all about. (He) took me to Texas. We did a couple of barbecue tours out there, and (he) really showed me the ins and outs of what Texas barbecue is all about,” he said. “So being under his expertise really, really took my pit game to the next level.”

Weathersbee said he prefers Texas-style barbecue because it’s “low and slow.”

“It’s cooked with a mixture of woods,” he explained. “You really want to taste the meat. You let the wood do the work. You let the pit do the work. You get good cuts of meat so that they stand out and you don’t have to drown it in sauce.”

The Cork & Batter name may sound familiar as its sister restaurant, which is a sports bar, is in Inglewood next door to the Intuit Dome.

“We try to bring some cross items over, but here at Roadhouse, we also have an extensive barbecue menu, and that’s what kind of sets the two locations apart,” he said. “When I describe this restaurant, I describe it as a modern Texas Roadhouse. It’s like it’s got that old jukejoint vibe, but with a modern twist, we have something for everyone. There’s definitely something for everyone.”

As for the menu, it’s definitely a family affair.

“Some of the recipes that we have here came from my family: my grandmother, my two aunties. Our mac and cheese, our cornbread, and all of the meats came from just trial and error, doing all this stuff with my uncles. Everything is a part of my family legacy and part of my family history.”

Weathersbee even demonstrated his technique for baby back ribs.

His preparations include a dry rub seasoning along with the use of pecan and red oak wood for smoking.

Check out the recipe below.

This segment aired on the California Cooking on episode 185.

Chef Jimmy Weathersbee’s Baby Back Rib Rub:

1/2 cup seasoning salt

1/4 cup granulated garlic

1/4 cup granulated onion

2 tablespoons black pepper

2 tablespoons mustard powder

2 tablespoons smoked paprika

16 oz light brown sugar