Agricultural Group Threatens Suit Over City SOAR Measures

The Ventura County Agricultural Assn. has notified officials in four cities that they will face lawsuits unless they rescind implementation of growth-control measures approved by voters in November.

In letters hand delivered last week to Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Oxnard and Camarillo, association General Counsel Rob Roy said passage of the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources measures violates state laws governing annexation and boundary issues.

Residents in those cities overwhelmingly approved the SOAR initiatives, which prevent cities from allowing development beyond designated borders without a vote of the people.

But Roy contends that the measures in effect allow voters to create and modify city boundaries--decisions that should fall within the sole jurisdiction of the Local Agency Formation Commission, which governs annexation and boundary issues.

“We’re challenging all of the city SOARs on the grounds that they constitute an interference with LAFCO’s jurisdiction,” said Roy, who has given officials in the four cities until Jan. 25 to do as he says or face legal action.

“LAFCO has the exclusive jurisdiction to make these decisions,” he said. “To put any LAFCO decision in jeopardy because of a vote of the people is an infringement on that jurisdiction.”

But SOAR proponents said the growth-control measures in no way preempt LAFCO’s legal authority, saying the initiatives were carefully crafted to ensure that they did not conflict with state laws.

Under the local measures, cities still have the ability to annex land and LAFCO still has the sole authority to govern those issues, said attorney and former Ventura Mayor Richard Francis, a leader in the SOAR campaign.

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But Francis said the initiatives impose specific rules and regulations for how that annexed land can be used and require a public vote for it to be zoned for a different use.

“I don’t think they have a case,” Francis said. “I know this argument very well and these SOAR measures are not in violation.”

Indeed, Francis has had plenty of practice defending SOAR measures. Along with former Ventura Councilman Steve Bennett, he coauthored the first SOAR-like initiative in the county--a measure in the city of Ventura approved by voters three years ago.

That measure, patterned after a Napa County law that has been upheld by the California Supreme Court, forbids the Ventura City Council from allowing urban development on thousands of acres of farmland in and around the city until the year 2030 without voter approval.

More recently, the four local measures were approved in November at the same time that voters approved a countywide SOAR initiative that prevents officials from rezoning farmland and open space outside cities without a public vote through 2020. A similar measure in Santa Paula did not get enough votes to pass.

Activists behind the SOAR campaigns said the measures were needed to halt urban sprawl and force politicians to stick to existing blueprints for growth.

Roy said the agricultural association, a nonprofit trade group made up of more than 100 farmers and farm-related businesses, did not target the countywide measure in its campaign to overturn SOAR, saying that the boundary and annexation issues apply only to the city initiatives.

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But Thousand Oaks Mayor Linda Parks said she believes the association’s campaign is part of an ongoing strategy to tie up the SOAR measures in court.

“It seems like another attempt to do what they have been trying to do during the entire campaign--and that is to keep SOAR from being enacted,” said Parks, adding that she and her colleagues formally adopted a resolution shortly after the November election agreeing to implement the measure.

“If they don’t believe it’s legal they can go ahead and challenge it,” she said. “But I would prefer it if they would work within the system and try to give input into the process instead of just trying to thwart the will of the people.”