Special Ballots Would Tear at Heart of Democratic Process

It has taken nearly one full year, but the virtual monologue that supporters of the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources movement have enjoyed is finally beginning to resemble a two-way debate.

State agencies have raised concerns that SOAR could interfere with growth mandates. Groups opposing SOAR are being allowed to voice their opinions without enduring the hints of special interest. Letter-writing supporters of SOAR are unwittingly acknowledging that the whole issue is about view preservation and population control. And current events are suggesting that SOAR supporters will say or do just about anything to “save” farmland but don’t feel that it is important to actually help the farmers.

Still, in spite of all this new openness, the most troubling aspect of the SOAR proposal is not being given the attention it deserves. Supporters have claimed from the onset that SOAR is the quintessential exercise in democracy when, in fact, quite the opposite is true.

Every two years, when voter participation is at its highest levels, the public chooses its representatives. Candidates are elected by a simple majority that bases its decision on a wide range of issues, including land-use policies.

SOAR proposes to take this one responsibility out of the equation and place it “into the hands of the voting public” with special elections on zoning changes. At face value, this has a certain appeal but, as we have seen in recent “special” elections, voter participation falls to abysmal levels. This is where SOAR gets ugly.

When no more than 17% of the voting public can get excited by issues like school repair bonds or library salvation, who would expect anywhere near that number to show up for a zoning change?

One can easily suggest that whenever SOAR-mandated special elections arise the only people who will be at the polls will be the affected landowner, a developer, those who oppose development and each’s respective allies. It is this special interest versus special interest at the ballot box and the effects their tussles have on the vast, disinterested majority that tear at the very fabric of a democratic system.

With respect to the concerns founders and supporters of SOAR express about the loss of Ventura’s agricultural land, it is not in our best interest to expose the county’s future to an experiment with so many potentially devastating consequences. And, as much as we would like to believe the SOAR faction did not propose this experiment knowing full well that low voter participation would essentially stop all further, necessary growth, we would be naive in doing so.

There are some things that are better left to the experts. Things in which an ill-informed--or, worse, misinformed--public should not involve itself. Wise land-use policies rank very high on that list.