ELECTIONS / VENTURA INITIATIVES : FAIR Leader Regrets Some Claims in Mailers

With the clock ticking down to Tuesday’s election, two new hard-hitting campaign brochures arrived at voter mailboxes this weekend urging residents to reject ballot measures that would limit development on farmland.

But the chairman of Farmers, Families and Friends Against Irresponsible Regulations (FAIR), which sponsored the mailers, said Saturday that he regretted some of the statements and representations made in them.

“From my standpoint, I would have rather been more factual and a little less dramatic,” said Bob Tobias, who is also a Ventura farmer.

“We said we were going to take the high road when we started this,” he said. “I don’t know whether I consider this the high road. I’m a little disappointed.”

The two brochures use cartoon drawings to depict City Hall supporters of measures I and J as money-hungry sharks and power-grabbing octopuses. They state that the initiatives are a bold attempt by the city to create a vast bureaucracy for the purpose of stealing private property rights.

To illustrate its point, one mailer features an octopus atop City Hall, with its outstretched tentacles wrapped around homes and businesses. “[Measures I and J] are designed to deny landowners their property rights by the creation of a huge regulatory scheme unparalleled in California,” the brochure warns.

It continues: “Some estimate that the Measure I & J bureaucracy will be larger than Ventura’s police department.”

Tobias said he considered such statements “a stretch,” acknowledging that his group has no foundation to back them up.

A second mailer includes a cover drawing that shows sharks, their teeth bared, swimming around City Hall. The sharks symbolize the special-interest politicians, attorneys and consultants that the mailer said would profit from Measures I and J. It notes that the city will need to hire attorneys to defend itself against potential lawsuits should measures I and J pass.

That flyer lists as supporters the names of more than 100 people, and implies that they all will vote no on the ballot measures, even though some do not live in Ventura and therefore cannot vote on the initiatives.

“I hope people don’t take offense to that,” Tobias said. “It’s not my intention, or it’s not our intention, to mislead people into thinking they are voters.”

Even though he is chairman of FAIR’s steering committee, Tobias said he had not seen the brochures until they had hit the streets. He said that the committee had left full responsibility for both mailers to two consultants, Dave Ellis of Orange County and Don Gunn of Oxnard. Neither could be reached for comment Saturday.

“Farmers in general are not real comfortable with campaigns, so we leave the brochures to someone else, and they tell us these are the kinds of things we need to do,” Tobias said.

Ventura Councilman Steve Bennett, who supports measures I and J, dismissed Tobias’ statements and said that “the damage has been done” because thousands of mailers had already reached voters.

“You can’t abdicate your responsibility just because you hire somebody,” Bennett said. “If you’re committed to your community, then you have a responsibility not to flood the community with garbage.”

Bennett refuted each of the assertions made in the octopus brochure, particularly about how the two ballot measures would create a bureaucracy unmatched in size in California.

He noted the adoption of a similar law in Napa County in 1991 that blocks development on vineyards and other farmland in its unincorporated areas. Bennett said that no large government bureaucracy or regulatory agency was created as a result.

Measures I and J are designed to halt urban expansion into thousands of acres of farmland in and around Ventura. If voters approve the initiatives Tuesday, development in most cases could not occur in the city’s so-called greenbelt areas for at least 35 years without permission from a majority of voters.

Although he regrets some of the statements made in the flyers, Tobias said he still believes that measures I and J violate farmers’ property rights.

“We think zoning by referendum is unfair,” he said. “I think it’s important that people realize that we’re concerned about our property rights.”

He said he is also concerned about the money that the city would have to spend to defend itself against lawsuits from growers if measures I and J are successful. Tobias said he believes money for law enforcement and other services would have to be diverted to pay for other legal fees.

“I’m concerned about the cost of it, because the city’s budget is tight,” he said. “And I don’t think that people should think that there’s not going to be a cost to this.”

Bennett said he is confident that the city would not have to spend a large amount of money to defend itself in court because the California Supreme Court had already upheld the Napa County law.

“I’ve had many land-use attorneys say that they would advise against challenging this,” he said. “Once something has been litigated in the state Supreme Court, you don’t keep litigating it over and over again. That would be a waste of money.”

So far, FAIR and a companion group, Venturans for a Quality Community, have reported raising $118,600. Save Our Agriculture Resources (SOAR), which supports the measures, has reported raising about $27,000.

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