Group Asks Supervisors to Put Tax on Ballot : Growth: A coalition favors a quarter of a cent increase in sales levy to raise $250 million to preserve open space. The board takes no action.

Hoping to preserve open space, a slow-growth group asked the Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to put before voters a tax measure that would raise about $250 million to buy undeveloped land.

Cheryl Brant, a spokeswoman for the Voters Coalition of Ventura County, told the board that a similar sales tax increase was adopted recently in Sonoma County. She asked the board to help her group study ways to draft a measure for Ventura County.

Steven Bennett, a member of the coalition’s steering committee, said the measure would increase the sales tax by a quarter of a cent and raise about $250 million in 20 years. He suggested placing the measure on a ballot in 1992.

The land to be purchased--including scenic open space, greenbelts and wildlife habitat--would be identified by a committee appointed by supervisors, he said.

He said the money could also be used to buy the rights to agricultural land.

The board took no action on the proposal.

However, the suggestion won tentative support from Supervisors Maria VanderKolk, Vicky Howard and John K. Flynn, who said the idea is feasible but needs further study.

“I do think people are willing to pay for open space,” VanderKolk said after the meeting. “I think it would have strong support here if it were written correctly.”

Flynn called the proposal a legitimate idea but said he is not sure that residents would support it.

“I think people generally support open space, but whether they will be willing to pay for it is yet to be seen,” he said.

Supervisors Maggie Erickson Kildee and Susan K. Lacey were not available for comment.

The idea of paying for open space is not new to the board.

In December, a committee that it had appointed met to study the formation of a land trust that would pay property owners to preserve greenbelts, agricultural areas and other open space. Kildee chairs that committee.

The Voters Coalition of Ventura County includes members of the slow-growth Alliance for Ventura’s Future, which earlier this month asked the Ventura City Council to seek voters’ approval of taxes to buy open space in that city.

The alliance asked the council to appoint a committee and hire a consultant to study how to preserve the greenbelts that separate the county’s 10 cities.

On Tuesday, City Manager John Baker said a council committee is already studying ways to preserve open space, including the possibility of creating a trust to buy land from farmers so they won’t sell to developers.

Brant said the Sonoma County measure, approved in November, raised sales taxes by a quarter of a cent. It was designed to purchase scenic land, greenbelts and wildlife habitat.

In Ojai, residents have formed a land conservancy and have approved a preservation pact that will forever block development at the 209-acre site of Ojai Valley School. The arrangement, approved in December, is the first such deal for the fledgling conservancy and apparently the first such arrangement in the county, officials said.