Greenbelt Petitions Submitted : Ventura: The initiative would give voters a say on developments in the designated agricultural area.

Supporters of an initiative to preserve Ventura’s greenbelt turned in a box jammed with their petitions Friday, submitting a third more signatures than they will need to qualify the measure for the November, 1995, ballot.

The activists must have at least 5,798 signatures from registered voters in Ventura to qualify the petitions for the ballot, and they turned in 8,779 signatures, City Clerk Barbara Kam said.

Ventura County elections officials, who will count the signatures, usually advise petition circulators to gather at least 20% more signatures than are needed to qualify, because many people signing the petition are not registered voters.

The measure would prohibit City Council members from allowing any development on the city’s greenbelt without first putting the project before Ventura’s voters. The greenbelt is a hodgepodge of farm properties that dot the city’s east end and is designated under Ventura’s Comprehensive Plan to remain agricultural until 2010.

“I’m so glad to see it . . . come up for a vote,” said Tina Atkins, a mid-town resident who helped collect the signatures. “We can see what people really want and not just the result of some private deal.”

The petition drive began earlier this year as a fight to prevent developer Ron Hertel from constructing more than 400 homes on a city-owned lemon orchard at Telegraph Road and Petit Avenue. Fearful that Hertel already had the council’s support, neighbors of the proposed development mounted a fierce campaign to discourage his project and all future development in the eastside greenbelt.

Hertel wanted to swap the city’s land for his 94 acres just south of California 126. He proposed that the city build a park on his land, and he offered $2 million in seed money to get the process started.

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The proposal pitted homeowners near the lemon orchard against eastside sports enthusiasts who wanted a nearby park where they could play their league games.

Although the City Council denied Hertel’s request last month, backers of the petition say they hope to place their initiative on next year’s ballot, when a council election should send many of the city’s voters to the polls.

“We decided that since this affects everybody, let’s put it on the November, 1995, ballot,” said Sheri Vincent, an eastside homeowner who has led the petition drive. “The people that will come to vote in a general election in 1995 will not just be a special-interest group.”

Some council members said they oppose the initiative because they think it subverts the original purpose of electing city leaders--to make key decisions in the name of the citizens who put them in office.

“A petition such as this puts (the decision) into the voters’ hands, who predictably do not put in the time and effort to research the facts to be able to make a legitimate and sound decision for the whole community,” said Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures. “That’s what elected officials are mandated to do--to vote in the best interests of the community, and not for special interests.”

But Vincent said that is one of the initiative’s purposes--to guard against council members who do not understand the needs of the community.

“I think the City Council doesn’t have its hand on the pulse of the city,” she said. “They don’t even have a vision of what they want the city to be. It’s completely piecemeal.”

Minutes after Vincent and her neighbors submitted their petition-stuffed carton Friday, resident Elaina Fletcher arrived at City Hall to turn in her notice of intent to circulate a petition to recall Measures.

Fletcher submitted a notice of intent last month, but missed a later filing deadline and had to restart the petition process.

Measures said she will resubmit her response to the notice within the required seven days.