Ahmanson Foes to Field Candidate for Supervisor

Thwarted in court, opponents of the massive Ahmanson Ranch housing project are turning to the political arena and fielding a candidate in next year’s Ventura County supervisor’s race in their latest bid to wrest control of the east county development.

Oak Park resident Vince Curtis, a longtime opponent of the 3,050-dwelling project, said his chief goal if elected would be to ensure that the developer sticks to its original development agreement with the county or risk losing its right to build.

The development deal calls for the transfer of more than 7,000 acres of private mountain property to park agencies by Dec. 15, 1998. It also requires that the developer pay for necessary road improvements, replace uprooted oak trees and protect against pollution of Las Virgenes Creek, Curtis said.

“With regards to the Ahmanson project, Home Savings better pray I’m not elected,” Curtis said, referring to the landowner.

Representatives for H. F. Ahmanson Co. and Home Savings of America declined comment on Curtis’ campaign.

“He certainly has the right to run,” spokeswoman Mary Trigg said, “but I think it is premature for us to say anything at this point. We don’t even know who he would running against.”

Curtis would run for the 2nd District seat now held by Supervisor Frank Schillo.

Among Curtis’ backers is Save Open Space, an environmental group that helped elect former Supervisor Maria VanderKolk in 1990. VanderKolk and the group later had a falling out when she voted to support the Ahmanson project in a deal that called for thousands of acres of mountain property to be turned over to park agencies before development could begin.

Mary Wiesbrock, director of Save Open Space, said Curtis would make a formidable opponent for Schillo, whose district includes the Ahmanson Ranch. Other Curtis supporters include Thousand Oaks Councilwomen Elois Zeanah and Linda Parks.

“It will be a race of someone who is pro-development versus somebody who cares about the land and the environment,” Wiesbrock said, noting that Schillo had received a campaign contribution from H. F. Ahmanson in his 1994 supervisorial race.

“He took money from Ahmanson, so he’s their boy,” Wiesbrock said. “Frank Schillo might talk a good story, but he never says no to developers.”

Schillo defended his record on the environment.

When he served on the Thousand Oaks City Council, Schillo said, he was an avid supporter of the city’s slow-growth ordinance, which limits the number of housing units that can be built annually to 500. As a county supervisor, he said, he recently voted against a proposed gravel-mining operation in the midst of a citrus orchard near Fillmore.

“I will stand on my record as a person who is very sensitive to the environment,” Schillo said.

Nonetheless, the supervisor said he has not made up his mind if he will run for reelection.

In fact, Schillo has been asked by a number of supporters recently about possibly running for the seat now held by Assemblyman Nao Takasugi (R-Oxnard) next year. Takasugi would be forced to step down because of legislative term limits, unless a federal judge now hearing a challenge deems the restriction unconstitutional.

Although he has not ruled out the possibility of running for state office, Schillo said it is too early to give it serious consideration.

Meanwhile, Curtis, 41, has never run for office and only moved to Ventura County in August. The former Agoura resident said the move had nothing to do with the supervisor’s race, however.

“I just wanted to be in a better neighborhood,” said Curtis, who owns his own real estate appraisal business.

As for running against Schillo, Curtis said it doesn’t matter who his opponent is in the election because his primary focus will be the Ahmanson Ranch project.

He said his biggest concern is that the developer will go back to the Board of Supervisors with a proposal to reduce the size of the housing project in exchange for eliminating the parkland provision of the deal. However, the developer has never asked for such a change.

“I just want to keep these guys to their promises,” Curtis said. “I want to make sure that they live up to their agreement.”

While he would only have one vote on the Board of Supervisors, Curtis said he would do everything he could to influence the panel when it came to issues regarding Ahmanson Ranch.

“I think if you have your own little project in your district that the other supervisors are typically going to listen to you,” he said.

Also Thursday, Wiesbrock said Save Open Space plans to picket Home Savings of America’s annual stockholders meeting in Irwindale on May 12 as part of its ongoing campaign to derail the Ahmanson Ranch project.

“This is the beginning of Act II of the Ahmanson Ranch saga,” she said.