Ranch Plan Stirs a New Reagan Revolution

Saunter in just a ways from the Central California coast and you find yourself in Reagan Country, where a man, a myth and a mountain all come together.

Ronald Reagan spent nearly a full year, cumulatively, of his two terms as president hidden away at his beloved aerie outside Santa Barbara in the brooding Santa Ynez Mountains.

Reagan oft spoke of the curative powers of wood-chopping and horseback-riding at Rancho del Cielo, or Ranch in the Sky, 688 acres of oak-studded grassland that seemed to hold a mystical sway over the nation’s 40th president.

And his neighbors in Santa Barbara County returned the affection, voting again and again for Reagan--nine times in all, in races for governor and president.

But a suddenly sprung proposal to purchase the Reagan ranch for $5 million in federal funds and convert it to a commemorative state park has stirred outrage and a bitter backlash among local residents, apparently shelving the plan for now.

The many opponents of the purchase gripe about the heavy hand of government, foisting decisions on their community without the consent or input of those being governed. They rail against wasted tax dollars and crab about budgetary boondoggles. Above all, they express a deep and abiding distrust of far-off Washington and its hard-to-figure ways.

Which makes this very much Reagan Country, indeed.

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The Reagan ranch was put up for sale in August 1996, as Alzheimer’s disease cast its lengthening shadow upon the former president. The asking price is $5.95 million, which strikes many as high, among them Kerry Mormann, a Santa Barbara real estate agent who specializes in ranch properties.

Mormann has a listing right next to the Reagan ranch. The asking price is less--$5.5 million--even though the property is twice the size of the ex-president’s spread and includes a Spanish-style home nearly double the size of the modest 1,300-square-foot adobe ranch house on the Reagan property.

The difference, of course, is the Reagan name. “For some people, it could be worth $1 million or $2 million,” Mormann said. “To some people it could be worth more. To most people, it’s probably worth less.”

Kathy Williams would be one of the latter. She manages the Circle Bar B Ranch, a resort just four miles down the road from the Reagan ranch. She considers herself neutral in the fight over the park proposal, figuring it couldn’t hurt business.

“It is Reagan Country,” she said. “He was a good president. Everyone was proud to be an American during his term.”

But here’s the thing: “Five-million-dollars seems awful high to me.”

It seems high, as well, to Justin Ruhge, who had this Reaganesque reaction to the deal: “There they go again.”

Ruhge is president of the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Assn. and voted twice for Reagan for president. But his concerns are threefold. He questions the $5-million purchase price. He worries about the lost revenues if the property is taken off the county tax rolls, as well as the cost of upgrading and maintaining the twisty, white-knuckle rural road leading to Reagan’s ranch.

“He’s got a lot of friends,” the retired aerospace worker said of the former president. “They have a fair amount of money. Perhaps they ought to buy the land and pay to maintain it, as a memorial to Ronald Reagan.”

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Walter Capps first learned of the $5-million buyout proposal when he read about it last month in the newspaper. Which is how almost everyone else in Santa Barbara learned of the plan. What’s significant is that Capps is the congressman who represents the area.

When Gov. Pete Wilson hatched the notion of purchasing the Reagan ranch, he went directly to Ralph Regula, the Ohio Republican who heads the House subcommittee responsible for park projects.

The governor invited Regula to tour the spread, and the deal seemed done: The feds would pony up the $5 million, Wilson would help raise $4 million in private funds for upkeep and a rustic good time would be had by all.

But then Regula got back to Washington and got an earful from Capps, who had gotten an even bigger earful from his ticked-off constituents.

“He seemed surprised at the negative reaction,” Capps said. A Regula staffer allowed as much.

The upshot is that the deal has been temporarily mothballed, though both Regula and Wilson remain hopeful the $5 million will eventually be provided. “We’re addressing the locals’ concerns and picking them off one by one,” said the governor’s press secretary, Sean Walsh.

A Democrat, Capps insisted his opposition to the park plan was neither partisan nor a matter of personal pique. “I’m not unalterably opposed,” said the soft-spoken former academic. “But I am opposed to the way they did it.

“People need full knowledge of what it would cost for upkeep, for building the infrastructure, improving the roads, and how it would impact the community,” Capps said. “We’re going to continue to insist nothing happen until we have a full public hearing before it happens.”

He thinks Reagan himself would expect no less.