SOAR’s Long-Term Effects

* Re “Farm Bureau Endorses Urban Growth Limits,” March 21.

How much did I not know because the people I thought I could trust did not tell me, and how much did I not know because I became too comfortable to even care?

The debate (if one ever really existed) about the county’s loss of agricultural land and what is causing it has become terribly skewed. So much so that even when groups opposed to the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources proposal endorse a plan to curb “urban sprawl,” journalists countywide instantly call upon SOAR leaders for their denunciations.

Seizing upon yet another free pre-campaign opportunity, one prominent SOAR spokesman suggests that, unlike any of the alternatives, “the voters know what they’re going to get with SOAR.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. The only thing voters think they are going to get is farmland protection. The long-term problems that stand to arise out of a proposal like SOAR remain a mystery because the movement’s sleight-of-hand campaigning doesn’t include mentioning them.

Voters have no idea about how expensive their lives could become as the costs of doing business in Ventura County cause many current businesses to shut down and keep new ones from even considering moving here. They cannot even guess how high sales tax rates might be or how many new special assessments will be necessary as local governments try to compensate for public service revenue “shortfalls” resulting from stagnated or decreasing business and public populations.

There is nothing wrong with trying to stop the development of farmland. In fact, it is probably the most noble pursuit one could undertake. But there is everything wrong with trying to halt development altogether, which is exactly what SOAR has the capability (and, to many, the purpose) of doing.

There is only one way to protect farmland and still allow the development necessary for our governing bodies to keep pace with the ever-increasing costs of providing their services to us: carefully manage development on the two out of every three non-National Forest acres throughout the county that are currently tied up in “open space” designations.

The “debate” continues, but if you can’t see what’s happening you are either not looking or simply refusing to.

From Day One, the Agricultural Policy Working Group and Farm Bureau have been looking for a way to keep urban sprawl from devouring all of the county’s farmland.

From that same day, SOAR advocates have been trying to protect the open spaces they have fought so hard to create. The loss of farmland has just been a convenient vehicle by which they could tap people’s anxieties to more easily soft-sell their brand of anarchy to an inattentive voting public.

If this were not true, they would have no problem splitting their “approach” into two initiatives: one for the protection of farmland and a second for open space. The price tag for doing so would be minimal compared to how much all of the ballot measures regarding zone changes in their future will cost us.

BRUCE ROLAND

Ojai