Long, Morgan Cultivate Key Farm Vote

Ventura County supervisorial candidates Kathy Long and Mike Morgan took their campaigns Thursday to the agricultural heartland of the Santa Clara Valley, where voters are expected to play a pivotal role in the Nov. 5 election.

The two candidates argued over trash and farmland protection during a half-hour public forum at the Santa Paula Community Center that was attended by more than 100 residents, ranchers and local officials.

A primary concern of the audience was the tenfold expansion of the Toland Road Landfill between Santa Paula and Fillmore, which the County Board of Supervisors approved in June. The two Santa Clara Valley cities have filed suit against the landfill operator, challenging the adequacy of the project’s environmental impact report.

“I have fought the Toland Road issue from Day One, unlike my opponent, who I feel has been missing in action on every single meeting and discussion,” said Long, 45, an aide to retiring Supervisor Maggie Kildee. “I feel we still have an opportunity to take the issue back to the board [supervisors] with new findings that say it doesn’t fit and get rid of it.”

Morgan, 48, a veteran Camarillo city councilman, said he has opposed the landfill expansion for years.

“I’m the only candidate that has had a ‘No on Toland’ sticker on my car for the past two years,” he stressed.

But Long, heating up the debate, asked Morgan why Camarillo’s representative to the regional board that operates Toland voted to back the expansion.

“We have a split on our council,” he said. “We never voted [on it].”

Morgan said the Camarillo City Council has ordered its rubbish company to take city trash to the Simi Valley Landfill instead of Toland to show the council’s opposition to the expansion. But Long said the general manager of the Simi dump told her Thursday that as of Sept. 23, Camarillo trash has gone to Toland. If that is true, Morgan said, “the fur is going to fly.”

Both candidates touted their commitment to farmland preservation, saying it is crucial to protect the county’s nearly $1-billion-a-year agricultural industry.

The candidates are competing to replace Kildee, whose 3rd District stretches in a horseshoe shape from the coastal community of La Conchita through Ojai, Fillmore, Santa Paula, Camarillo and Newbury Park.

Long, whose job with Kildee has made her familiar to Santa Clara Valley constituents, beat Morgan handily in the region in a four-way primary in March. And she has worked hard to build on that base ever since.

Though he has yet to endorse either candidate, Fillmore mayor and defeated supervisorial candidate Roger Campbell said Thursday that Long has been very active in local issues for years.

Campbell, the Santa Clara Valley’s top vote-getter in the primary election, noted Long’s early opposition to the expansion of the Toland landfill and to a proposed gravel strip-mining project at Sycamore Ranch, 1 1/2 miles west of Fillmore. County supervisors are scheduled to vote on the mining project next week.

“I would say that Kathy has a leg up in the Santa Clara Valley,” Campbell said. “She’s been visibly involved. Mr. Morgan was not involved at all until recently, when he saw that it was politically wise to be involved. I think people remember those things.”

Morgan recently stated his opposition to the Sycamore Ranch strip-mining project.

Meanwhile, former Santa Paula Councilman Al Escoto, who was also beat in the supervisor’s race last spring, has sided with Morgan, largely based on his 16 years of service on the Camarillo City Council.

“He has the experience,” Escoto said. “He’s paid his dues. He’s already dealt with thousands of decisions as a public-policy maker. His opponent has yet to make one.”

Nearly half of the district’s voters live in Camarillo, where Morgan and Long are both popular residents.

But Campbell and Escoto believe that Santa Clara Valley voters will probably decide the election. Long outpolled Morgan 1,128 to 295 among Santa Paula and Fillmore voters in the primary.

“It’s going to be where the race is made or broken,” Campbell said.