Ventura County Project’s Foes Deploy Radio Ads

Opponents of the Ahmanson Ranch development have stepped up their campaign against one of the largest developments in county history by launching a series of radio attack ads against Washington Mutual Bank, parent company of the land developer.

The ads, which refer to Washington Mutual as “America’s environmental enemy,” call on Southern California customers of the nation’s largest savings and loan to withdraw their money to protest plans for the Ahmanson Ranch development in eastern Ventura County.

The ads are funded by the nonprofit Save Open Space/Santa Monica Mountains through tax-deductible donations, said Mary Weisbrock, director of the group, which has 400 people on its mailing list.

“We have to do this,” she said. “This is the only way we can save the ranch now.”

The Ahmanson Ranch proposal, approved in 1992 but stalled ever since by lawsuits, calls for construction of 3,050 homes, two championship golf courses and a retail complex just north of Calabasas.

The development is expected to increase local traffic by as many as 45,000 cars a day.

“We’re not impressed” by the ads, said Washington Mutual spokesman Tim McGarry.

“We really don’t think that many listeners will be, either. The ad is full of overheated rhetoric that few people are likely to find credible,” he said.

McGarry said Ahmanson Land Co. has created about 10,000 acres of public open space through land sales and donations to public agencies, a condition of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors in approving the project eight years ago.