Local Elections : PROPOSITION 187 : County Voted Decisively for Initiative

The unequivocal message drowned out all of the speeches and the slogans and the public protests: Ventura County voters are fed up with illegal immigration.

They said so at the ballot box, where Proposition 187 won 65% of the vote, a margin six points greater than the initiative gained statewide. They said so in every city in the county, even in Oxnard, where community leaders mounted a door-to-door campaign to defeat the ballot measure.

And they continued to say so on Wednesday, even as the initiative was bombarded by a flurry of court challenges that put implementation on hold.

“We put a message out, a message that we can’t handle this anymore,” said Ted Wheeler, 57, leaning up against his Simi Valley hot dog stand. “We’re trying to send a message to President Clinton that we need help with our borders.”

Said Joe Davis, a cook at Nora’s Bistro in Ojai: “This is my country and I’m a citizen here, and I shouldn’t have to support people who aren’t.”

At the River Ridge Golf Course in Oxnard, golfers and employees said they weren’t surprised that the measure passed by such a wide margin.

“I’m glad it passed because I didn’t feel I should have to support anybody else,” said a maintenance worker who declined to give his name. “I’ve got problems of my own.”

From Ojai to Oak Park, from Port Hueneme to Piru, Proposition 187 rode to victory on a wave of voter discontent. While students went on hunger strikes and walked out of school to protest the measure, supporters quietly showed up at the polls and voted for it.

And when the wave of discontent struck Ventura County, it hit some people like a thunderbolt.

“The passage of 187 was like a social earthquake that hit California,” county Supervisor John Flynn said. “We don’t really know all of the ramifications as of yet, but we do know it was a significant event.”

At a news conference on Wednesday, Flynn and other community leaders who worked to defeat the measure scrambled to dispel fears whipped up by the proposition’s passage. They noted that no local school, health or law enforcement agency will immediately enforce the measure.

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The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department and other local police agencies also said Wednesday that until more information is available, they would not comply with provisions of Proposition 187 that require officers to verify the resident status of suspects.

In addition, county officials said that there would be no immediate move to deny non-emergency health care to illegal immigrants.

And school officials said they would take no action until the courts decide the constitutionality of a provision that denies public education to illegal immigrants.

Bernard Korenstein, superintendent of the Oxnard School District, said he sent a letter home with students explaining that point.

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“Our position is going to be to do nothing,” Korenstein said. “We will not be denying children the right to attend school.”

Wednesday’s news conference also afforded community leaders the opportunity to showcase efforts to get out the vote on Election Day.

In three of the five Oxnard precincts targeted in that effort, voters overwhelmingly opposed the measure, according to unofficial results. And even in the two precincts where the initiative won approval, the margin of victory was narrow and could be reversed when absentee ballots are fully counted.

Also, voter turnout in each of the five precincts was up compared to the last gubernatorial election in 1990.

“This is a call to action,” said Mario Brito, head of the United Farm Workers union in Ventura County. “In two years, those students who walked out are going to be registered to vote. In two years, we’ll be stronger and we’ll be united.”

Community leaders acknowledge that there is much work to do.

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There was no city in the county where Proposition 187 was defeated--including Oxnard, Santa Paula and Fillmore, all with Latino majorities.

The measure won by more than 13,000 votes each in Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley, 9,095 votes in Ventura and 6,351 in Camarillo. Those numbers, which do not include absentee ballots, represent voter approval ranging from by 64% in Ventura to 72% in Simi Valley.

“We must not kid ourselves,” said Oxnard activist Karl Lawson, who helped coordinate the voter drive. “A lot of people who voted for 187 were by no means racist and were by no means bigots. These were people searching for solutions to the breakdown of our society.”

Lawson said the goal of the voter drive is increased participation by 2% to 3% a year, a target that has been hit each election the past few years.

“It’s not something that can be fixed with couple of years of work,” he said.

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But Lawson and others agreed that in the end, little could have been done in Ventura County, and across the state, to defeat Proposition 187.

That’s a sentiment shared by Steve Frank, a political consultant who coordinated the Ventura County campaign in support of the ballot measure. Frank said that despite polls that showed the measure losing favor with voters, he never had any doubt that it would pass in a big way.

“The bottom line to this is that the scare tactics, and the lies and being outspent 5-to-1 didn’t matter,” Frank said. “The people can cut through the baloney and get to the truth of the matter. And on Tuesday, the people spoke.”

Contributing to this report were Times staff writers Mack Reed and Mary F. Pols, and correspondents Ira E. Stoll and Julie Fields.