For Ex-Supervisor, Principles and Cold Shoulders

Maria VanderKolk flew 1,800 miles last week for three minutes of redemption. But some old friends refused even to talk to her.

VanderKolk was once the youngest supervisor in Ventura County history and a darling of environmentalists. Her onetime allies practically ran her out of town after she brokered a 1992 deal that saved 10,000 acres of scenic hills but permitted construction of 3,050 homes on Ahmanson Ranch.

Nearly 38 now and an assistant city manager near Denver, VanderKolk surprised even the project’s developer when she returned Tuesday to Ventura County -- paying her own way, she said -- to endorse Ahmanson Ranch again.

“It’s sticking with your principles and sticking with the decisions that you make that mark a true leader,” she said before testifying to the county Board of Supervisors.

VanderKolk considers the development’s dogged opponents -- once her friends -- to be leaders. They consider her a turncoat.

“She’s nothing to me,” Ahmanson critic Mary Wiesbrock said. “She’s just, like, worthless.”

In the eight years since VanderKolk left California, plans for the $2-billion golf course community overlooking the San Fernando Valley have been stalled in lawsuits.

Its opponents warn that putting nearly 9,000 people on grazing land would be disastrous to an area already cluttered with homes. They want the developer, Washington Mutual Bank, to sell or donate its 2,800 acres to enlarge the preserve that VanderKolk was instrumental in establishing.

At last week’s hearing to evaluate Washington Mutual’s plans for protecting endangered frogs and flowers, VanderKolk was amazed to see hundreds of people still turning out to debate Ahmanson Ranch.

“I don’t know where they came from,” she said.

In the hearing room, VanderKolk sat next to her former deputy, Lenora Kirby, who passed out jellybeans. Kirby runs Las Virgenes Institute, a conservation organization created by Washington Mutual that critics deride as a puppet for the developer.

VanderKolk told the current supervisors she still considers the land deal her greatest achievement, with the possible exception of her two children. As she testified, Wiesbrock and other open-space activists shook their heads.

When she exceeded her three-minute limit, the activists tapped their watches and shouted to the supervisors to cut her off. Several tried to shove into VanderKolk’s hands a packet they had prepared to discredit her -- its headline: “A Betrayal of the Public Trust.”

VanderKolk politely declined. “I saw that. Thank you,” she said, fighting back tears. In the stack was a rudimentary flier from VanderKolk’s campaign for supervisor. She was 25 then and naive. Her flier even misspelled the land as “Ahmerson.”

Wiesbrock tapped VanderKolk to run because she wanted someone to challenge the incumbent, who supported plans to develop the Ahmanson land and neighboring Jordan Ranch. VanderKolk had written a letter critical of the Jordan project, and Wiesbrock noticed it in a newspaper. Soon after, the young toy marketer took a sick day to register her candidacy.

“It was a big mistake,” Wiesbrock said this week.

VanderKolk won that election by about 100 votes. Within two years she was meeting then-Gov. Pete Wilson and working out the complex compromise to preserve much of the mountain land and allow development on the remainder.

Four ranches involved in the deal are now part of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. About half of Ahmanson Ranch is also public parkland. About $26 million in public money was spent on the deal.

“It wasn’t a compromise,” Wiesbrock said. “It was a sellout.”

VanderKolk calls it a model deal that will smartly accommodate the area’s growth. “To me, if you’re an elected official, it’s your duty to offer solutions,” she said. “You can be against something, but, by God, you’d better have an option. Don’t just be against. Don’t just be a naysayer.”

As Ventura County supervisors continue to evaluate the Ahmanson Ranch project, VanderKolk told them she returned to remind them the parkland acquisition had been praised initially as a visionary deal.

“She’s not a politician -- she never was,” Kirby said, “but she did something very big. It made me proud all over again.”

VanderKolk still thinks about running for office again, maybe Congress. But she is more content now with her “wonderful life” in Arvada, Colo. She is the town’s chief promoter and spokeswoman, and her husband runs the family’s hardware store. Next spring she will spend a month in Europe on a fellowship to study government.

Just before she boarded a plane Wednesday to fly the 900 miles back to Colorado, VanderKolk said she was glad she had made the trip. “I just thought it was the right thing to do,” she said, “and I’m really, really proud of how it went.”