Preservation Group Adds $15,000 Check to Fund Drive

A check for $15,000 from a Thousand Oaks attorney has given the group seeking a countywide farmland preservation measure its largest donation so far.

Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources (SOAR) announced Monday that Edward L. Masry had “dramatically boosted” its fund-raising campaign. The group is launching a drive for an initiative that would transfer the power to rezone farmland from politicians to voters.

Masry, a lawyer who specializes in representing homeowners in toxins cases against major corporations, last year contributed $50,000 to a committee defending Thousand Oaks Councilwoman Elois Zeanah from recall. He represents a group of residents who live near the Rocketdyne field lab in the Santa Susana Mountains.

A Thousand Oaks resident for a little more than a year, Masry could not be reached for comment Monday.

“The SOAR board approached Mr. Masry because we know he has a record of wanting to keep the Conejo Valley from looking like the San Fernando Valley,” said Thousand Oaks Councilwoman Linda Parks, a SOAR member. “With him having those views, and having the resources he has, we thought it was a natural thing to do.”

Masry’s contribution brings SOAR, which has raised $60,000 to date, within $90,000 of its $150,000 fund-raising goal for the end of this month. The group has already passed a similar initiative in Ventura.

Steve Bennett, one of the leaders of the SOAR campaign, said the donation has boosted not only the group’s coffers but its morale, as it heads into a costly political battle with farmers and the building industry.

“Before this donation, we were not so sure if we would be able to raise the money we need,” he said. “We feel a lot more comfortable now.”

SOAR organizers need $150,000 for two countywide political mailings and other publicity, Parks said. SOAR contends that preventing development of land zoned for agriculture--unless voters approve of it--is the best way to prevent urban sprawl.

“Elective leaders have never stood up to urban sprawl,” Bennett said. “It didn’t happen in Orange County, and it didn’t happen in the San Fernando Valley. No one has ever written a plan to pave over all the farmland in an area. It just seems to happen.”

The group--which expects opponents to spend more than $1 million--recently sent personalized mailings to prospective donors and is planning two fund-raisers in coming weeks.

So far, no groups have formed to combat the SOAR initiative, although some are expected to sprout as the effort gathers steam.

“It will probably take the actual start of signature gathering to trigger that,” said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau.

Laird, who said the Farm Bureau is not poised to take a role in any anti-SOAR efforts at this time, argued that the group’s underdog stance is something of a publicity stunt, considering it received large donations in its 1995 Ventura campaign from such sources as Patagonia Inc. founder Yvon Choinard.

“Given who has supported them in the past, they have never been wanting for money,” Laird said. “And they’ve never seemed to need that much money. I don’t know why that would be different now.”