Quiet Somis Seeking Bigger Voice in County Decisions

Their’s is a quiet community tucked in the folds of Ventura County, far removed from the tract housing sprawling to the east and the gang violence spreading to the west.

Downtown consists of a corner grocer, a glass shop, a family dentist, a lumberyard and a century-old hardware store. Produce stands line Lewis Road, the only highway in or out of Somis proper.

Residents here relish the lemon and orange groves that dot the rolling farmland, and the rows of flowers cultivated along nearby California 118.

Most of them moved to this small community to escape the bustle of urban Southern California. Many have families that stretch back four and five generations.

“People who live in Somis prefer to keep it quiet, so that no one else will move in,” says Jack Fulkerson, the unofficial mayor whose family opened the local hardware store in 1892.

“We like the small-town aspect or we wouldn’t have moved in,” he says.

But now, with that lifestyle threatened by plans for a huge new subdivision, residents are demanding something they left behind in the cities: an elected council to represent them.

They want to establish Ventura County’s fourth municipal advisory council, a panel of community leaders that adopts and forwards land-use and other recommendations to the Board of Supervisors.

In addition to the detested subdivision, the council would be in a position to consider potential highway improvements, water and sewer issues, farmland preservation and other key concerns, proponents say.

They also want to turn the grass-roots Save Our Somis task force--which has been hosting town meetings--into a nonprofit political organization to help fight the rezoning of 195 acres of orchards from agricultural to rural.

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At issue is a July vote by the Board of Supervisors allowing British-based Knightsbridge Holdings to apply for permission to build 189 houses on farmland and citrus groves just outside Somis.

“Our main goal is to preserve the agricultural integrity of the Las Posas Valley--particularly in Somis, because that’s where we live,” said Charlotte Brandes, who moved her family from Oxnard to Somis in 1992.

“We’re not necessarily against development,” she said. “We just want orderly growth.”

The measure passed 3 to 2, with Supervisors Maggie Kildee and Susan K. Lacey opposed. Somis residents were particularly distressed that their own supervisor, Judy Mikels, voted to allow the project to move forward.

“Out here we have no one to represent us,” said Zosia Blair, a computer consultant whose family has lived in Somis for two decades. “With the [municipal advisory council], we’ll finally have that representation.”

The Knightsbridge project is still far from breaking ground. The developer has not yet submitted a specific proposal. And the project could be thwarted by a review of the Ventura County Guidelines for Orderly Development, which are an attempt by officials in the county and each of its 10 cities to establish specific standards for zoning and growth.

A task force created last year to review the 27-year-old guidelines has recommended that the definition of rural property be tightened from one house per acre to one house per two acres.

If that proposal wins approval by the Board of Supervisors later this spring, the Knightsbridge project as it now stands would need to be redrawn.

Even so, the vote by supervisors last summer to allow the project to proceed beyond the conceptual stage was interpreted as a call to arms by many Somis residents.

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Area farmers say that even though the advisory councils have no direct authority to make zoning or building decisions, the panel would represent local interests and lead to self-rule.

“This is the first step toward organizing the community so that we have legal representation,” said Randall Searcy, a third-year law student and a co-chairman of the Save Our Somis group.

“We have to work within the confines of the existing [political] structure,” Searcy said. “And this [advisory council] is all we have available.”

Municipal advisory councils spring up in communities where residents typically have no formal local-government representation other than a county supervisor.

Their members can be elected or appointed, and report directly to the Board of Supervisors, which considers any recommendations made by the councils but is under no obligation to enact them.

Residents of the Las Posas Valley, who number just 2,500 or so, complain that too often their interests are set aside in favor of those from the more populated areas of their supervisorial district.

“It goes to the bedrock of America,” Searcy said. “If you have an active, informed group with a formal link to the county, we believe that would definitely expand our input into the county decision-making process.”

Ventura County now has three municipal advisory councils.

Members of the El Rio / Del Norte council are appointed by Supervisor John K. Flynn, who represents that area on the Board of Supervisors. They report to Flynn directly and study such issues as housing, utilities and development.

“We’re not policymakers, but we have made changes,” said Florence Young, an El Rio advisory council member who has lived in that community for 45 years.

“The Board of Supervisors takes heed of the residents within our community,” she said.

The other two advisory councils are in Oak Park and the Ventura River valley, from Meiners Oaks to Casitas Springs. Each of those panels has five members elected by the residents of the two communities.

They take on local issues such as establishing a ZIP code specifically for Oak Park and preventing a landfill from opening in nearby Weldon Canyon.

Thomas Jamison, who has served on the Ventura River Valley Municipal Advisory Council for almost 10 years, said the panels do not always achieve their goals.

For example, he said, when the Ventura River valley panel recommended against the sprawling Farmont golf course and resort project, county supervisors overturned that recommendation.

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“The big problem that I have is that we look at issues objectively, and they [supervisors] make political decisions,” he said. “They don’t make judgments based on what we actually need, and that’s sort of disheartening.

“I don’t remember ever seeing a supervisor at one of our meetings,” Jamison added. “However, it is a forum for those of us out here to get together and voice our opinion, and that’s valuable.”

Supervisor Mikels was traveling outside the country last week and was unavailable for comment. But one of her top aides said she supports forming a municipal advisory council for the Las Posas Valley community, which requires Board of Supervisors’ approval.

“Even though there may be some budgetary considerations, there’s no reason why it couldn’t be started now,” Keith Jajko said. “It’s just a matter of whether the board majority wants to support it or not.”

Administrative costs for such councils can run as high as $20,000 a year, depending on how often they meet and whether their members are elected or appointed.

The three existing councils cost Ventura County taxpayers about $38,000 combined last year, according to county figures--money that Somis residents like Searcy called pocket change.

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“When you look at an $850-million annual budget, that amounts to about two minutes of county time a year,” he said. “We’re asking for those two minutes.”

Bob Fulkerson, who greets many of the customers at his family’s hardware store by their first name, said the community should begin forming an advisory council as soon as possible.

“Considering the percentage we make up of Judy Mikels’ territory, I wish they’d do it.”

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Knightsbridge Proposal

A developer, seeking to build 189 houses on a 195- acre lemon and orange grove it owns in the Somis area, wants the county to change zoning from agriculture to rural.

Agriculture: 40- acre minimum per lot.

Rural: 1- acre minimum per lot.