Growth Is Main Issue on Moorpark Ballot

In Moorpark’s upcoming city election, voters will get a chance to assess how well the city has managed the staggering demand for development that has more than tripled the population of this semi-rural Ventura County community in the last 10 years.

The race for three seats on the City Council and the fate of three local measures in the November election all center on how quickly the city should grow over the next decade.

This year the city predicts it will issue a record 2,000 residential building permits that by the end of 1987 will mean a 40% increase in the city’s 16,000 population. Additional housing developments, already approved by the city or now under review, could add another 10,000 residents through the mid-1990s.

Meanwhile, traffic at the city’s four major intersections is near gridlock during morning and afternoon rush hours because two miles of Moorpark surface streets are the only link for commuters and truckers traveling between the Simi Valley and Moorpark freeways. State officials say a connection between the two freeways will not be completed until at least 1991.

Rural Atmosphere

As in much of eastern Ventura County, most residents here say they left the Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley area to escape big-city problems such as traffic, crime and air pollution. In Moorpark, say residents, they have found a bit of old California, with its expanse of farmlands and unmarred rolling hills.

City Council incumbents Leta Yancy-Sutton and Albert Prieto, who are running for reelection in November, say that Moorpark’s growth has been orderly since the city was incorporated in July, 1983. The two council members also say that voters recognize the need for growth and understand that new residents and firms in the city provide needed income for services such as parks, schools and road maintenance.

Both the city’s general plan and county guidelines call for Moorpark to reach a population of approximately 33,000 by the end of the century. What has separated the council from those who say that growth has come too fast is a difference in philosophy, according to Prieto.

‘Linear or Cyclical Growth’

“Everybody agrees on the population limit, but there is disagreement on whether to have linear or cyclical growth,” said Prieto, 36, a civil engineer who has lived in Moorpark 23 years. He said that it is unrealistic to expect development to follow rigid guidelines rather than market conditions.

Former mayor James Weak said earlier this year, when arguing in favor of a 489-unit housing development, that the city has never failed to approve a housing project. The council’s rationale, said Yancy-Sutton, is that development in Moorpark’s formative years will provide the money for improvements to support its predicted 33,000 population.

Residential developers have committed several million dollars to city highway funds, donated land for schools and agreed to provide parks and swimming pools, Yancy-Sutton said. As long as there are water and sanitation facilities to accommodate new development, it should continue within general-plan guidelines, she said.

Abstained From Voting

“So far, I think we have had balanced growth,” said Yancy-Sutton, 60, a local real estate broker. The 26-year resident has abstained from several major council decisions in the last year because of a potential conflict of interest with her own business and her husband’s work in construction.

Former council member and City Council candidate Clint Harper has staked out the opposite end of the growth issue. The 39-year-old Moorpark College physics professor said that a council “with some guts” would move to rescind some of the building permits already issued.

Developers have not contributed enough to city improvement funds to make up for the increased services needed by the people who move into the new housing, said Harper, who served on the City Council in 1983 and lost a bid for reelection in the 1984 race. The city needs to make greater demands on developers, he said.

Slow-Growth Measures

Harper has been active in the Committee for Managed Growth, a citizen’s group that gathered enough signatures last winter to put Measure F on the November ballot. That initiative would limit new building permits to 250 a year through 1995, about half the average number issued in the last three years.

Exempted from the initiative would be affordable housing projects and projects of four units or less. Proponents say that the building slowdown will give city services a chance to catch up with its current population.

The City Council responded in June by placing its own slow-growth ordinance, Measure H, on the ballot. That measure would limit Moorpark’s population to 33,878 by the end of the century by limiting building permits to an average of 411 a year.

Critics of the council’s proposal say that it is too weak because it can be changed at any time by a 4-1 City Council vote.

Record Number of Permits

Because of the record number of housing permits expected this year, some proponents and opponents are predicting that even if either measure is approved by voters, builders will have enough permits to complete most of their plans over the next four or five years.

Voters will also decide on Measure G, an initiative by the Committee for Managed Growth that would rescind a city agreement with developer Urban West Communities that was approved by the City Council last spring. The existing agreement allows Urban West, a Santa Monica-based firm, to construct the 2,500-unit Mountain Meadow housing development in exchange for about $7 million in road improvements, parks and schools.

Also running for four-year terms on the five-member City Council are:

John Wozniak, 37, an active member of the Committee for Managed Growth and a 12-year resident of the city. “Even though growth is inevitable, it doesn’t have to happen in the fast, uncontrolled way that it is now,” said Wozniak, who works as an office manager for a Chatsworth security company.

John Patrick Lane Jr., 39, a Los Angeles Police Department sergeant who works as an administrator in the personnel division. He supports Measure H but is against rescinding the city agreement with Urban West because “it is the best deal that the city has.” Lane said he would push for a city contract with a private ambulance company to provide paramedic service exclusively for Moorpark.

Eloise Brown, 64, writes a political column for a local weekly newspaper. She said poor communications between the City Council and residents have resulted in unpopular decisions. Through her work she has regularly attended planning commission and City Council meetings since the city was incorporated, and she criticizes other candidates who she said only attend the meetings during election time.

Michael Thomas, 25, owns his own legal-service company. He said that the completion of the connection between the Simi Valley and Moorpark freeways and the creation of a rent-control ordinance should be the city’s top priorities. Apartment and mobile-home park owners are “entitled to a profit, but they’re not entitled to rip you off,” he said.

Candidate Wayne Jones, who works for a local sand and gravel company, was not available for comment.

Running for a two-year City Council seat, left vacant by the recent illness of former Mayor Weak are:

William LaPerch, 63, operator of an executive-search firm in Los Angeles. As a city planning commissioner, LaPerch said he has voted against every new development that has asked permission for higher-than-allowed density. “If I were a developer in heaven, I would rent out my seat and come to Moorpark,” he said of the current growth policies.

John Galloway, 32, a ceramics teacher at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. He said that rapid growth is only the symptom of “the lack of a coherent planning policy. . . . When we talk about population limits we are fooling ourselves, because it is only a guideline.”

James Kennan, 35, a city planning commissioner and owner of a management consulting firm that services homeowners’ associations. He said he is in favor of moderate growth, and whether the city reaches its projected population in 1995 or 2000 is “six of one, half a dozen of the other.” Kennan said he was asked to run for the seat by the former mayor, who was diagnosed this spring as having leukemia.

Candidate Tom Schleve, 39, a real estate investor and former city planning commissioner, was not available for comment.