Court Ruling Takes SOAR Off Ballot in Moorpark

Attorneys for the Ventura County Libertarian Party succeeded Friday in their fight to kick the Moorpark SOAR initiative off the November ballot, convincing a Superior Court judge that a technicality invalidates the signatures gathered to place it before voters.

But leaders of the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources campaign, who expected the ruling, said they have already collected more than 2,200 signatures to place their initiative before voters in a special election.

The group needs 2,400 valid signatures, or 15% of the city’s registered voters, to force a special election. The election would likely take place in January, according to SOAR leader Richard Francis.

“We’re just going to do it again,” Francis said outside the courtroom, referring to signature gathering. “We’ve already started, in fact.”

SOAR is attempting to pass initiatives limiting cities from expanding beyond designated borders without a vote of residents. Measures have been proposed in Oxnard, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Moorpark and Santa Paula.

The group also is hoping to pass a countywide initiative banning rezoning of farmland or open space outside city limits without voter approval. SOAR passed a measure similar to the countywide initiative in Ventura in 1995.

Unlike the other measures, however, the Moorpark SOAR initiative seeks to retroactively prevent the city from allowing the massive Hidden Creek Ranch development to move forward. The 3,221-home project by Irvine-based Messenger Investment Co., approved Wednesday by the City Council, would increase the city’s population by one-third.

If the Moorpark SOAR measure qualifies for the ballot and is approved by voters, the initiative is almost certain to be the subject of a court battle with the developers. Ironically, it would be Moorpark, and not the SOAR group, that would be forced to defend the measure, because it would become a city ordinance if approved by voters.

Gary Austin, Messenger’s vice president of planning and allotments, said the developer believes it will be on solid legal footing if a court fight takes place. That is because it should have approval from the city and the Local Agency Formation Commission, the county agency that governs annexations, by the time the SOAR initiative becomes law, if it does.

“I think a judge would be hard-pressed to stop the project if we had all the approvals. I think we would have a good argument,” Austin said, adding that he believes he has developed amicable relations with the city after eight years of trying to get the development approved. “I think the initiative would be very vulnerable at that point.”

Francis conceded the issue is likely headed for court.

“It’s a lawsuit,” he said. “I don’t know the answer.”

The Libertarian Party had initially sought to derail all the SOAR initiatives on grounds that the petitions on which the signatures were collected contained illegal wording.

The petitions asked voters to list their residence address “as registered,” and attorneys Robert Chatenever and William Weilbacher argued that the wording, which violates state election law, was significant because it prevented the county registrar from making sure people still lived where they were registered to vote.

To avoid the legal conflict, SOAR leaders convinced politicians in the county and most cities to place the SOAR initiatives on the ballot administratively, separately from the initiative process.

In Moorpark, however, leaders chose to place the legally suspect measure on the ballot along with their own initiative, a modified version of SOAR allowing Hidden Creek Ranch to go forward.

As a result, the county and other cities were able to leave the lawsuit without incident Friday, when they agreed never to use the tainted signatures. Moorpark could not strike such a deal.

Francis said the real losers of the legal struggle are Moorpark taxpayers, who will have to foot the bill for a special election--$30,000 to $40,000--if the latest SOAR initiative qualifies for the ballot.

“I think it’s a ludicrous expenditure of public money,” he said.