Moorpark Road Realignment

Several months ago the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, led by Supervisor Judy Mikels, voted to approve the realignment of Moorpark Road through the Tierra Rejada Valley. Many people were disappointed by their decision. Many of us had worked hard on the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources (SOAR) campaign and saw this as directly contrary to the spirit of that initiative. SOAR was a countywide effort to confine future development to within city limits.

The Moorpark Road realignment project will result in the loss of open space and farmland. It is hard to look at the location and not see that building a road across the farmland, some of which is designated “prime,” will negatively affect the rural nature of the area.

The reason given for the project was safety. We concede that the existing road has had some accidents in the past few years. However, we recommend that if the old road is unsafe it should be repaired and brought up to safe standards, rather than abandoning it to build a new one across the farmland.

Are the residents of Thousand Oaks aware that $400,000 that had been set aside for the improvement of Norwegian Grade was arbitrarily taken by the county to pay for the Moorpark Road realignment? This money was collected from developers in the Santa Rosa Valley specifically set aside for the improvement of Norwegian Grade.

This project should not go forward. It has been reported that Supervisor Frank Schillo is going to study the status of the Tierra Rejada greenbelt. We hope he will agree that the project is not in keeping with the preservation of agriculture and open space land use.

VIRGINIA ROGALSKY

Newsletter editor,

Conejo Valley Audubon Society

Treasurer,

Santa Rosa Valley

Community Assn.

Camarillo