Farmers’ Group Assailed Over SOAR Ad

The Sierra Club, League of Women Voters and the Environmental Defense Center attacked a political advertisement by a farmers’ group Thursday, saying it mistakenly implied they opposed Measure B, the countywide SOAR growth-control initiative.

The three groups, which strongly support the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources campaign, demanded their names be taken off the ad, which urged voters to “Vote Yes on Measure A. Vote No on Measure B.”

The ad was published Sunday in the Los Angeles Times’ Ventura County Edition and another newspaper, and was scheduled to run again several times before Tuesday’s election.

“These money-grubbing scumbags have put our name on their ad!” said Al Sanders, conservation chairman of the Sierra Club’s Ventura-Santa Barbara chapter. “I think we’re going to have to call their Fair Political Practices Commission on this one. But it’s too late for this election.”

A representative of Farmers for Responsible Land Use, the group behind the ad, said it would remove the names before running the ad again this weekend.

But the representative defended the decision to list the groups, saying the ad merely listed three groups among the organizations that participated in the Agriculture Policy Working Group, a 23-member panel that studied farmland preservation.

Measure A asks voters whether local leaders should implement the Agriculture Policy Working Group’s recommendations, which include creation of fixed growth boundaries around local cities that only voters could widen. It also asks voters whether they support creation of a special district to purchase farmland and open space. SOAR’s Measure B would prevent politicians from rezoning farmland and open space outside cities without voters’ approval.

“They were listed there as participants in the process, I think that was fairly clear,” Ventura County Farm Bureau President Richard Pidduck said. “If there are people who want their names taken off, I’m sure we’ll cooperate. We want Measure A to be an inclusive process. We don’t want to make enemies.”

Kim Uhlich of the Environmental Defense Center’s Ventura office said she felt the ad’s suggestion was no accident.

“The ad falsely implies that all the representatives of the Ag Policy Working Group are against Measure B,” Uhlich said. “That is patently false.”

Sue Kelley of the League of Women Voters, which gave SOAR a rare endorsement earlier this year, agreed.

“My reaction was, that’s illegal,” said Kelley, who has posed for SOAR mailers. “They did not ask for our permission.

“It’s misleading as hell,” she added. “I got real angry when I saw it.”