Opponents Sue to Block SOAR Effort

Making good on their legal threat, lawyers representing the Ventura County Libertarian Party sued the county and four cities Wednesday to derail a growth-control initiative campaign on grounds it used petitions that violate state law.

Hoping to keep their farmland preservation movement at full pace for the November ballot, leaders of Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources countered by asking the four cities--Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Moorpark and Santa Paula--to take the county’s lead and place the SOAR measures on the November ballot themselves.

Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley are set to discuss the issue next week.

“This is all the more reason for cities to put it on” the ballot, SOAR leader Steve Bennett said in reaction to the lawsuit, filed in Ventura County Superior Court. “That way, they don’t have to mount a major legal defense.”

A split Board of Supervisors on Tuesday placed the countywide SOAR initiative on the ballot independent of the 45,300 signatures the group had collected to achieve the same goal.

As expected, those signatures, as well as those gathered by SOAR to qualify for the ballot in the four cities, are now the subject of a lawsuit by Ventura attorneys Robert Chatenever and William Weilbacher Jr.

The attorneys, who represent the Libertarian Party and eight local residents, contend the names should all be thrown out because the petitions on which they were gathered contained a flaw: They asked voters for their “Residence Address (as registered)” instead of where they now live.

That is not just a technicality, Chatenever said, because such wording prevents county elections officials from performing a critical aspect of their job: checking whether the people still live where they were registered to vote. And a 1982 state Supreme Court case, Assembly vs. Deukmejian, makes the law extremely clear, Chatenever said.

“The California Supreme Court has ruled that this is not just a technical defect,” Chatenever said. “It strikes at the very heart of the validation process.”

Chatenever asked the county and the four cities last week to invalidate the petitions. But county officials refused, saying the violation was of minor consequence and the dispute should be decided in court. City officials followed suit.

Cities on the Hook for Defending Signatures

Now the cities find themselves on the hook for defending the signatures--and so does the county, despite independently placing the countywide SOAR initiative on the ballot.

That is because the signatures, by law, must be certified by county leaders now that they have been submitted--even if they are now moot. Chatenever and Weilbacher believe that would set a bad precedent.

“The fact that a city council or the county Board of Supervisors may, independent of the petitions, elect to put SOAR on the ballot is irrelevant to the aims of this lawsuit,” the attorneys stated in a news release. “This action seeks to maintain the integrity of the electoral process.”

Assistant County Counsel Robert Orellana said county officials will probably not argue for or against the validity of the signatures.

“It’s up to the court to invalidate the petitions,” Orellana said. “The county clerk [Richard Dean] is not going to do that based on what he considers a clerical error.”

In Thousand Oaks, Councilwoman Linda Parks will ask her fellow council members to place SOAR on the ballot separately from the signatures.

Echoing Supervisor John Flynn’s comments before the Board of Supervisors, Parks says that doing so would save the city from a costly legal threat or possible special election if SOAR backers gather signatures again.

“There is no question that a large segment of our community is desirous of having the opportunity to vote on the SOAR initiative,” Parks, who spearheaded the Thousand Oaks SOAR campaign, wrote in a memo to the council.

Parks appears to have enough support: In addition to Councilwoman Elois Zeanah, Councilman Andy Fox said SOAR belongs on the ballot.

“I’m certainly going to support putting it on the ballot as a measure,” said Fox, who often disagrees with Parks on key city issues. “First, it’s the right thing to do. And secondly, it’s a good complement to my growth control measure, Measure E, which was passed by a vote of the people two years ago.”

Simi Valley Leaders to Discuss Issue

In Simi Valley, elected leaders Monday are scheduled to discuss the SOAR issue, including the lawsuit as well as the possibility of placing the measure on the ballot as a council.

“The number of signatures is significant,” Mayor Greg Stratton said. “As politicians, we have to take notice of this and do what we can to put this issue before the people.”

“What the council is going to do, I can’t tell,” Councilman Paul Miller said. “My feeling is, if the people want this on the ballot, they should have it on the ballot.”

In Moorpark and Santa Paula, SOAR leaders are expecting more of an uphill climb. But if elected leaders in those cities decline to place SOAR on the ballot separate from the signatures, SOAR is prepared to gather signatures once more to force a special election.

“The real question is Moorpark, because the Moorpark SOAR would block the Messenger development, the largest housing development [planned] in Ventura County,” Bennett said. “There is a lot of pressure on that council.

“If they don’t cooperate, we’ll start on [a new signature drive] right away,” he added. “One way or another, we’re going to get all of these things on the ballot.”

Seeking Voter OK of City Expansion

SOAR is attempting to pass measures this fall preventing the cities of Oxnard, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Santa Paula and Moorpark from expanding beyond a set of designated borders without approval from voters. The group also wrote a countywide initiative that would take the power to rezone farmland and open space away from county politicians, putting it directly in the hands of voters.

On Wednesday, Santa Paula joined Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Moorpark and the county among the areas where SOAR gathered enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. The Oxnard City Council, which has already pledged to place the city SOAR initiative on the ballot, is scheduled to formally do so Tuesday. Meanwhile, county officials must count all the signatures gathered by Camarillo SOAR supporters after a random sample of signatures narrowly failed to pass by the margin required by law.

Staff writers Kate Folmar and Hilary E. MacGregor contributed to this report.