Growth Issue Dominates Simi Ballot : Candidates’ Campaigns Cannot Eclipse Debate on Development

Two sets of competing growth-control measures in Simi Valley are overshadowing everything else on the Nov. 4 local ballot, as voters for the first time will get the chance to chart the city’s development course into the 21st Century.

The controversy over two measures backed by the City Council and two proposed by slow-growth advocates is dominating the political debate in a year when Simi voters are being asked to elect a new mayor, return two incumbents to the council and approve the building of an arts center.

A citizens group is sponsoring D and E, a pair of measures aimed at curbing growth in Simi Valley and protecting the surrounding Santa Susana Mountains and Simi Hills. Also on the ballot are Measures A and B, put there in July by a vote of the five-member City Council as a less drastic response to local concerns over development in the city.

“This is the most important thing this city has ever had to face,” said David Penner, a candidate for the City Council whose campaign is directly tied to the passage of measures D and E. “This is causing the city to look at itself to see how it’s going to develop through the turn of the century.”

The seeds of Measures D and E were planted more than a year ago when slow-growth advocates stood at the entrance to supermarkets and surveyed about 6,000 of Simi’s 93,000 residents.

Poll Results

Although the Simi political and business community had been trying to move the city beyond a bedroom community, about 80% of those polled wanted dramatic curbs on growth and less development in the hillsides, said Ed Sloman, a member of Citizens for Managed Growth and Hillside Protection, the slow-growth group that helped with the survey.

The results of the survey were presented to the City Council, which responded by enacting a temporary moratorium on the approval of new residential, commercial and industrial construction in the hillsides and on projects that would significantly affect traffic.

But the citizens group still was unhappy with what they believed was the unwillingness of the City Council to enact permanent controls on development. It drew up stricter growth-control proposals and in June qualified them for the ballot. It also targeted council members Vicky Howard and Ann Rock for defeat, drafting two of its own members to run against the incumbents.

“The differences between A and B and D and E are not subtle,” said Councilman Glen McAdoo, one of the more vocal opponents of D and E, who strongly supports the council-backed measures. “It’s about as subtle as the differences between a firecracker and an H-bomb.”

In a formal debate last week on the measures, McAdoo said he had no doubt that the more restrictive controls of D and E would be challenged in court if approved by voters. “You don’t change the rules in the middle of the game,” he said, “and you don’t take away people’s property rights without compensation.”

Case in Point

This argument has been personified for Measure D and E opponents in Bill Edwards, who for eight years has taught dance, musical comedy and modeling to young people in a converted, one-story house he is buying on Cochran Street.

Edwards, 57, said he believes he will be forced to close his performing-arts studio if Simi’s voters approve ballot Measure E, which would ban commercial activities in hillside areas. “I can anticipate a letter from the city saying I have 30 days to cease and desist my business” if Measure E passes, Edwards said. According to opponents of D and E, Edwards would be among more than 40 commercial properties threatened by the ban.

Those who support Measures D and E contend that Edwards’ business is in no way threatened by their initiatives because his teaching and recreational activities would still be permitted under the proposed restrictions. Edwards is “being used as a patsy by the development community,” according to Louis Pandolfi, co-chairman of Citizens for Managed Growth and Hillside Protection.

Aside from the growth measures, the voters also are being given the chance to radically change the face of city government by filling three spots on the City Council. One of them will be to replace Simi Mayor Elton Gallegly, who is vacating his spot to run for the 21st congressional seat. (See accompanying story.)

Two Posts

The other two spots are those of incumbents Rock and Howard, who are running against five challengers: Joseph Wierzbicki, a skip loader operator; William White, a supervisor in an electronics laboratory; Bill Jones, a sales manager of electronic computer equipment; Mike Stevens, a math teacher at Simi Valley High School, and Penner, a financial controller for a Woodland Hills videotape manufacturer.

Slow-growth advocates, contending that the incumbents are out of touch with the will of the voters, are running Stevens and Penner as a slate with Measures D and E. Both men have been active members of Simi Valley’s neighborhood council, but have never before run for public office.

“Almost all of our resources are tying all four together--me, David and Measures D and E,” said Stevens. “We do hope, obviously, that we come in as a package.”

Penner said that the election of he and Stevens would drastically alter what he contends is the present pro-development slant of the council.

Pandolfi, the slow-growth advocate who is running the campaign of Stevens and Penner, said that Rock and Howard are targeted for defeat because the citizen’s group believes they have been insensitive to the public’s demand for greater controls on development. Critics of the incumbents contend that Rock was considered an environmentalist candidate when she first ran for the City Council in 1982, but said she now sides with development interests.

‘Stopped Listening’

“Rock and Howard have stopped listening,” Pandolfi said. “They are not listening to what the people say they want.”

Rock was quick to defend herself and her colleague.

“I don’t have the luxury of picking one issue,” she said, referring to slow-growth candidates who are running mainly on the issue of the city’s development. “If you look at the votes, certainly I have had to broaden my viewpoint with respect to the community.”

Howard said it may be that those who are pushing the two restrictive growth-control measures are the ones out of touch with public sentiment. “I think there is a very small group of people trying to promote dissension,” she said. “Overall, I think people want this area to prosper.”

Lost amid the debate over growth are Measures C1 and C2, proposals that ask voters to advise on whether a performing-arts cultural center ought to be developed in the city’s civic center and whether, subject to later approval by voters, such a center should be financed through an assessment of about $60 a year on each lot in Simi Valley for a period of 10 years.

The advisory-only measures have generated no formal opposition. No ballot arguments against the measures were filed.

GROWTH MEASURES

MEASURE A

Would control growth for 10 years, at which time the issue would be put before the voters again. For the first five years, would limit building permits to a total of 3,513. The number of permits to be granted in the final five years of the ordinance would be determined after city officials study the results of the 1990 census.

MEASURE B

Would prevent new commercial and industrial development on hillsides with slopes of 10% or more and no development on slopes of 20% or more. Does not affect existing commercial and industrial buildings in the hillsides. Would exempt from the development ban a 850-acre industrial park planned for the west end of the city.

MEASURE C1

Advisory-only measure that asks if voters favor building a performing-arts cultural center in the city’s civic center.

MEASURE C2

Advisory-only measure that asks voters if a performing-arts center should be financed by a $60-a-year assessment on lots in Simi Valley for 10 years. If the voters say “yes,” the actual assessment would be voted upon later.

MEASURE D

Would place year-to-year controls on the rate, distribution, quality and type of housing development in the city, at least through the year 2010. Would permit the city to issue up to 10,800 building permits through 2010, starting at 875 this year and dropping to 100 permits in the final year. The intent is to cap Simi’s population at 136,000--which the Ventura County’s Air Quality Management District says is the maximum number of people the city must have to keep its air quality the same as it is today--by the year 2010.

MEASURE E

Would prevent the city from approving industrial, commercial or high-density housing projects in hillside and rural areas. Existing commercial uses in rural areas with buildings more than 30 years old would become nonconforming under the new measure. The City Council would have the option of ordering them torn down or letting them continue to exist as a special exception.