Moorpark May Have Voted Itself Out of SOAR Suit Settlement

Moorpark may wind up being the only city affected by a lawsuit seeking to keep Ventura County’s Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources initiative off the November ballot due to a dispute over signatures.

Attorneys for the Ventura County Libertarian Party, which has sued to get the SOAR signatures thrown out for a petition format violation, said Thursday they are now willing to settle the case against the county and three cities--as long as those governments agree not to use the signatures in any way.

Assistant County Counsel Robert Orellana said the county has accepted the settlement in principle and expects to formalize it in coming days.

Libertarian Party attorneys Robert Chatenever and William Weilbacher Jr. also had wanted the cities and the county to admit they made a mistake in approving the petitions. The attorneys’ settlement offer came after they suffered a major setback Thursday, when a Superior Court judge refused to grant a temporary restraining order barring use of the signatures.

But it is too late for Moorpark to strike a deal with the Libertarian Party. Despite expressing concerns about incurring legal costs, Moorpark council members used the signatures to place SOAR on the ballot Wednesday--leaving the city and the SOAR initiative vulnerable to the lawsuit.

The unanimous vote came after Moorpark council members declined to place SOAR on the ballot independent of the signatures--as have the county, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks and Santa Paula to sidestep the lawsuit.

In addition to rejecting a city-sponsored SOAR, Moorpark council members agreed to place a competing measure on the ballot that, unlike SOAR, would allow the massive Hidden Creek Ranch development to move forward.

Moorpark Mayor Pat Hunter and Councilman John Wozniak joined others on the council in voting to place the petition-based initiative on the ballot. But the two said they would have preferred placing the measure before voters independent of the signatures.

With more than 3,000 signatures on the petition, “I believe you have the responsibility . . . to give them the opportunity to vote on it,” said Hunter. “It seems as if last night we lost sight of what is in the best interest of the community.”

SOAR leader Richard Francis was considerably more blunt.

“The council in Moorpark has demonstrated greater arrogance and less connection with its constituents” than councils in other cities, Francis said.

Supporters of SOAR in Moorpark, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Santa Paula, Camarillo and unincorporated areas of the county have gathered enough signatures to qualify growth-control initiatives for the ballot. The city SOAR initiatives would prevent cities from expanding beyond a set of designated borders without voter approval, while the countywide SOAR initiative would prevent rezoning of farmland or open space unless voters signed off on it first.

But the Libertarian Party is seeking to have all the signatures thrown out in court on grounds that the petitions contained a defect that violates state law.

To avoid that legal challenge, the county and all the cities except Moorpark and Camarillo have agreed to place SOAR measures on the fall ballot separately from the signatures and the initiative process.

Camarillo leaders, who have yet to take up the issue, have said they would either place SOAR on the ballot or make it into law if residents gathered enough signatures. Oxnard is also set to place SOAR before voters in November, but no signatures were gathered in the city.

But because Moorpark leaders chose Wednesday not to place SOAR on the ballot as a council, the city’s SOAR initiative could still be derailed in court--and Moorpark is still on the hook for legal fees in the case.

Moreover, SOAR leaders have begun collecting signatures anew to ensure that if the lawsuit is successful the initiative will go before voters in a special election--which could cost Moorpark about $50,000 to hold.

The county and all the cities named in the suit appeared in court Thursday--and most of them said they would agree never to use the signatures.

Despite that willingness, attorneys for the Libertarian Party said during the hearing they also were looking to uphold the principle that elections officials have a duty to throw out invalid signatures.

Judge Roland N. Purnell appeared skeptical of the Libertarians’ motives. “What is the ultimate principle here?” he said. “It’s to defeat the initiative, is it not?”

Francis said afterward the case appeared pointless to him.

“This is the ‘Seinfeld’ of court cases,” he said. “It’s a case about nothing.”

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Bustillo is a Times staff writer and Hong is a correspondent.