The Los Angeles Times, Ventura County edition, September 14, 1996:

Just four weeks before a dozen Ventura County Fire Department cadets were to start training, department officials have tossed them out and reopened the academy to new applicants so the class will be more ethnically diverse.

The class of 12 cadets and six alternates contained a disproportionate number of whites and did not match the ethnic and gender makeup of the county, said Fire Chief James Sewell.

"As you know, the policy of the Board of Supervisors and the board of directors of the Fire Department is that the work force reflect the makeup of the community," Sewell said.

"The mix we had available to us would not have helped us in our goals."

So, Sewell said, the department decided earlier this week to pull the plug on the academy class—which had been culled from 1,600 applicants who entered the process back in 1994 and was scheduled to start training Oct. 7—and to start a fresh search.

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