Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon — Ventura County Edition

Since we began reporting on Gorell’s role in the movement of 3,000 high‑paying biotech jobs out of Ventura County — and out of the United States — through an initiative known as Gold Team, seems things have been evaporating into thin air. And not quietly. It’s almost as if every time we zig, Gorell zags.

Take this one for example: one of our reporters recently attempted to pick up campaign materials by visiting several publicly listed campaign events. Suddenly, Team Gorell began delaying the publication of event locations. Then, one morning, they changed the location of an event shortly before it started. Unfortunately for them, our reporter was already watching. They went straight to the new location, no problem — and captured some very interesting photographs of who was volunteering on a Friday morning during County business hours. More on that later this summer.

When Websites Start Changing, People Notice

Last week, we noticed some housekeeping was conducted on Gorell’s official county webpage — specifically around references to Gold Team. And yes, we’ll take credit for that. Why quietly change the very items we’ve been calling out over the past few months? The timing speaks for itself.

One thing that disappeared was a named contact for the initiative. Previously there was one, so we submitted a PRA request for records involving Tim McDougall, Executive Director of Gold Team. McDougall was previously cited on the Gold Team webpage as the point of contact — using a non‑county email address to conduct what appeared to be county business. So, we emailed the address listed.

Silence

Total silence

And then reference of McDougall just vanished

Poof.

The revised electronic content is just part of the larger picture. From our research, it appears there was a previous version of the Gold Team website, on a non‑county owned domain, that may have been used for public‑facing economic development work, and both containing taxpayer‑funded content. Since Gold Team was not approved as an official County program, it's unlikely the County approved the use of a non-County owned website.

The previous site isn’t just offline today. It’s redirected — and not to some abandoned placeholder or generic landing page. It now points directly to the County of Ventura’s official website.

Let’s pause on that.

A privately operated website, used to promote a public initiative, suddenly absorbed into the county’s domain? That’s not a casual technical hiccup. That’s a deliberate action — one that requires access, authority, and intent. Why all of the sudden was a non‑county website —that was used for public messaging, economic development outreach, and taxpayer‑funded content — suddenly be folded into the county’s official web infrastructure?

Of most importance, who created the website and who paid for the creation and the hosting of the website? Don't worry, we have been given at least one name, and a PRA has been submitted. Let's see Gorell claim there are no emails. It's a theme we're finding across his staff's PRA responses.

Just a little public record destruction, right?

These are not small questions. They go directly to transparency, public resource use, and whether county employees are conducting government business through private channels. We've also sent a PRA for an archive or cache of the previous website. By law, that's required as part of public document retention laws.

Next week, we’ll share what followed after we sent a message to the McDougall email. Come back each week this summer. We promise a good time!