SOAR Initiatives

As a former Simi Valley resident now living in the Portland area, I need to warn Ventura County residents of the drawbacks of urban growth boundaries.

The Portland metro area has had such a boundary since 1979. While its aim back then was notable--to maintain a wide-open, lush environment around us--the boundary’s effect has been less than desirable.

The boundary has very good intentions but it lacks any sense of reality. It has caused a pressing need for high-density housing, which in turn has caused horrific transportation conditions in Portland and its suburbs.

Oregon and Portland constantly stress their goals of attracting large corporations. Well, large employers need employees and employees need places to live. Our urban growth boundary has caused a shortage of land for housing, and even when high-density housing is constructed, the property is such a premium commodity that housing prices are crippling.

Everything here is clashing, and somewhere along the line something is going to give. It is just a matter of time before the removal of Portland’s boundary--drawn randomly by a few people with little scientific evidence--becomes a necessity.

TIM MOTT, Sherwood, Ore.

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Lately we hear so much from the opponents of SOAR, which to avoid voter confusion must be called Measure B. Ask yourself the following:

* Whom do you trust more, yourself or some overpaid government administrator, to act in your interest on who your next door neighbor will be?

* Wouldn’t it be much better and safer if the applicable governmental agency had to ask you every time before they could plow under the strawberry field to make way for a tire factory or some useless retail outlet?

* Just a short time ago, these wonderful bureaucrats gave us the factory outlets in Oxnard and Camarillo. Where once agriculture on the world’s finest acreage blossomed, we have now traffic congestion by customers who come from far away. We local residents can hardly make it to the freeway because the cities of Camarillo and Oxnard and the county have sold us out.

* Did you see the recent killing of majestic old eucalyptus trees along the freeway? This is a gift by your local bureaucrats and developers of shopping centers, who live far away in other states and cities.

Sit tight. Vote no on Measure A, which would create another bribable governmental agency. Vote yes on Measure B.

HORST FUNFSTUCK, Camarillo