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Ojai Border More Than a Line on Map : Unification: A study to see whether the city and valley should merge is launched. They are governed in two very different ways.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

The 33,000 residents of the Ojai Valley have much in common.

They share a 10-mile-long valley stretching like an upside-down “L” from the mountains north of Ojai to Casitas Springs on the south.

They all use California 33, the valley’s two-lane link to the outside world.

They all get water from Lake Casitas or nearby wells, fire protection from the Ventura County Fire Department and police protection from the Sheriff’s Department.

“We have lots in common,” Ojai City Manager Andrew S. Belknap said. “We breathe the same air, drink the same water, use the same sewers.”

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But one thing divides the valley into two distinct parts: the Ojai city limit.

On the Ojai side of that line, 7,500 people are governed by a five-member council that strictly controls the city’s growth and appearance. Since 1984, Ojai has issued only 130 building permits while imposing some of the county’s toughest restrictions on architecture, signs, parking and landscaping. Just last week, the Planning Commission was trying to figure out how to regulate barking dogs.

In the unincorporated part of the valley, 25,500 residents are governed directly by Ventura County, which has granted 1,015 building permits in the same period and has a much more permissive attitude about signs, building design and other aesthetic issues. Many businesses have pole signs, which are rare in Ojai. Fast-food restaurants have drive-up windows, which Ojai forbids.

“Two very different governments serve what is a rather unified community in most other quantifiable respects,” Belknap said in a recent report to the Ojai council.

Last week, the council launched a study to determine whether valley residents really see themselves as a unified community, and if so, whether they want a unified local government.

The study will look at possible boundaries for a new city, which technically would be an expansion of Ojai but not necessarily an extension of its philosophy. The study will also examine whether the new city would be economically feasible; outline legal and environmental considerations; and explore what kind of political structure might govern the new city.

The council action came after a public hearing in which speakers from both sides of the city limit expressed support for at least studying the idea of a valleywide city.

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But many valley residents also expressed grave concerns, both at the hearing and in interviews afterward.

“To begin with . . . Ojai is not going to dictate what the rest of the valley has the right to do or not do,” said Lanie Springer, a 33-year resident of unincorporated Oak View. “They think their ideas are the only ones that are right as far as growth and the look of the community.”

Springer, who was elected honorary mayor by the Oak View Civic Council, said residents have long felt that Ojai looks down on them. “Their attitude toward Oak View is that we’re the country bumpkins,” she said.

“But Oak View has to change too,” said Springer, who told the council that she supports the study. “Oak View has to open up and say, ‘let’s listen.’ We’ve got to look at this objectively.”

Although Springer said she is satisfied with county government, “what concerns me is that the eastern part of the county is growing so rapidly, the Ojai Valley is becoming small and insignificant to the supervisors.”

The valley has only 5% of the county’s population and is split between two supervisors’ districts. Neither of the supervisors who represent the valley--Susan K. Lacey and Maggie Erickson--lives there.

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“We have little impact in the supervisor races,” said Stan Greene, an Ojai resident and president of Citizens to Preserve the Ojai.

Greene, who supports the study, said the county has allowed almost unlimited commercial growth in the unincorporated area and has not dealt adequately with air pollution. In 1989, air quality failed to meet federal standards on five days in the Ojai Valley, making it the third-worst area in the county for smog.

Belknap’s report said the county is not set up to provide municipal land-use planning. The county’s policy is to channel growth to incorporated cities that do their own planning, he said. Because of that policy, about 90% of the county’s residents live in a city, among the highest percentages in the state, according to county officials.

In the Ojai Valley, however, only 23% of the population lives in Ojai.

Many outside the city don’t think they’re missing anything.

“The county has produced everything I’ve needed,” said Gerald Farrar, a Meiners Oaks resident who told the council that he opposes the study. “I’m just not interested.”

But even people who have concerns about growth, smog and control of their community question whether a unified valley government is the best way to address them. Springer said Oak View could probably make county government more responsive if the civic council became more politically active.

Chuck Bennett, a 14-year resident of unincorporated Mira Monte, said he supports the study but added: “I am not clear yet about the need for a valleywide city.”

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Citing Ojai’s sign requirements and other controls, Bennett said: “The Ojai Valley is not one homogenized, vanilla-type thing. We have lots of different types of people here, a lot more working-class people in the county than you have in downtown Ojai. We should not all have to be like Ojai.”

Ojai Mayor Nina V. Shelley acknowledged that “in the past, people have perceived Ojai as elitist. The reason they do that is we are tremendously fussy about our town.”

As for easing the rules in an expanded city, Shelley said it would depend on the will of the people.

“Let’s say that the other three communities, Meiners Oaks, Mira Monte and Oak View, should join the city,” Shelley said. “Those areas, as I see it, will have representation on the council. A vote’s a vote. And for Ojai residents that represents a kind of risk. The standards they have set may be altered.”

She said it may be possible to have different standards in different parts of an enlarged city.

Ojai Councilman James D. Loebl noted that three times more valley residents live outside the city than within city limits. “The people inside the city would lose control of those issues,” Loebl said.

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The idea that Ojai may have something to lose in an expanded city has been overshadowed as city officials strive to allay the concerns of the unincorporated areas.

“People in the city have a tremendous stake in this,” Loebl said, adding that he has seen no indication that Ojai residents favor any easing of the city’s aesthetic standards.

Councilman Steve Olsen said the study must determine whether residents of Ojai, which is financially healthy, “will lose something” by becoming part of a larger city, and whether city residents “are willing to take on any burdens from the unincorporated areas.”

In his report, however, Belknap said residents may benefit from an enlarged city because “in economic terms, the minimum efficient scale for a city is increasing.” Eventually, he said, the city will have to increase its scale of operations or find other ways to hold down its fixed costs of operating.

Loebl, who proposed the study, said the city is simply trying to “provide the leadership to get the facts and gather everybody together in a hall to discuss this thing . . . We’re not trying to ram something down anybody’s throat.”

Next month, the council is expected to appoint a commission with representatives from across the valley to guide the study. As it progresses, more public hearings are planned throughout the area.

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If it appears that a larger city is feasible and residents on both sides of the city limits are interested, a number of legal hurdles would have to be cleared before residents in the unincorporated area could vote on annexation to Ojai. Belknap said the process might occur in phases over several years.

Loebl, who has been on the Ojai council almost 23 years, said he believes that the valley has become more unified. Like several other city officials, he said he was encouraged by the open-mindedness expressed at the public hearing.

“To a much greater extent,” Loebl said, “the different communities see eye to eye on environmental issues.”

Craig Walker, who lives just outside Ojai and favors the study, agreed that “we all want to preserve our rural lifestyle.”

“The question is how best to achieve that.”

Thia Bell contributed to this story.

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