Growth Seems to Be the Hot Issue in Ventura County

Voting in sweeping restrictions over growth in the last few years, Ventura County residents opted to bypass their elected officials and seize control of major decisions on development.

On Nov. 5, they will flex their newfound muscle in a big way for the first time.

Voters will also choose a raft of city council members, school board leaders and legislators, but the hottest items on the ballot focus on massive new neighborhoods proposed in Ventura, Simi Valley and Santa Paula.

In addition, residents of Ojai will decide on tough limits on the traffic that growth there would generate.

As developers have poured more than $1.5 million into their advertising campaigns, less-richly funded citizens’ groups have countered with phone campaigns, public-access TV spots and yard signs. By contrast, most of the races for local office have been tepid, spurring comparatively little spending or voter interest.

On top of that, the state’s recent, once-a-decade redistricting has made most incumbents in both the Legislature and Congress even more secure.

“This is like a stealth election,” said Herb Gooch, a political analyst and professor of government at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. “There isn’t much political fervor up and down the state, and in Ventura County, you don’t have exciting candidacies. The turnout is apt to be very low, so whoever can best organize on the ground is liable to do well.”

Voters in nine of the county’s 10 cities will select council members. Seats on 12 of the county’s school boards also will be up for grabs. Three positions are available on the Ventura County Community College District board, a group that was widely criticized in a financial scandal involving former Chancellor Philip Westin.

On the state and federal levels, challengers are trying to unseat four Assembly members and two members of Congress.

But for all the precinct-walking and candidate forum sound bites, the election seems to be as much about a few rugged patches of sage-studded ground as anything.

In 1998, county voters overwhelmingly passed the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources measure -- a first-in-the-nation law mandating public approval to rezone farmland for development. Similar measures have been passed in nearly all of the county’s cities, but this is the first time such laws have faced a significant test.

In Ventura, Measure A would allow 1,390 homes in six neighborhoods spread over the hillsides and canyons that serve as a backdrop for the city. In return, the owners of the land would give a land trust 80% of their property -- some 3,000 acres of permanently protected open space, which would be laced with hiking trails.

The proposal from Lloyd Properties, a family partnership behind the measure, has sparked bitter personal attacks and a host of dramatically conflicting claims. Supporters are pitching the project, which would be built over 15 to 20 years, as environmentally sensitive and visually appealing. Opponents contend it would blight the hillsides with ticky-tacky subdivisions and cause traffic nightmares on the narrow roads nearby.

Critics also contend that approval would give developers a blank check because they have yet to complete required environmental and financial studies. The landowners counter that their plans still would need approval by the city before construction could begin. City officials agree with the landowners.

Cal Lutheran’s Gooch said low voter participation might favor opponents of Measure A.

“The people opposed are very passionate,” he said, “and with a low turnout, their small numbers will be magnified. And absentees could be one-third of the vote; these tend to be people who have been around the longest and are the most stable. And that could give the edge to the anti-development side.”

In Simi Valley, Measure B would shrink the area in which growth could occur, effectively killing proposals for 1,600 homes and an industrial business park in Alamos Canyon just north of the Ronald Reagan Freeway. It also would stop a 550-unit development in Runkle Canyon.

Supporters of the measure argue against the developments on environmental grounds.

“What our community should be looking at for Alamos Canyon is a site for a regional park, not a huge commercial and industrial development,” said Kevin Conville. “It’s sick.”

But opponents contend that the measure would unfairly change the SOAR boundaries approved by voters in 1998.

“Four years ago they came up with a line that everyone could live with, allowing the city to grow and prosper and also giving the SOAR folks some confidence,” said Rondi Guthrie, an official with the California Building Industry Assn.’s local branch. “Now they’re trying to tighten it. If it passes here, then no doubt they’ll move on to the next city.”

In Santa Paula, Measure F would effectively double the city’s area, allowing construction of 1,980 homes, 180 condominiums, two schools, hotels and a shopping center in outlying Adams Canyon, now mostly grazing land.

If the measure is approved, the city stands to reap as much as $2.5 million annually in taxes and fees -- a substantial sum for a local government perennially stretched thin. But opponents argue that Santa Paula would do better to grow within than to spread out.

Higher-density housing could help revitalize the city’s struggling downtown, said Mike Miller, a leader of the opposition.

“This is not bleary-eyed utopianism,” he said. “It’s happening all over the country.”

In addition to Measure F, Santa Paula voters will fill three council seats and decide whether to carve the city into five council districts.

As in every other city in Ventura County, council members in Santa Paula do not represent specific neighborhoods. But at-large representation has helped limit the number of Latino council members in a city that is two-thirds Latino, the U.S. Department of Justice charged in a lawsuit two years ago.

The issue has been a divisive one. Last December, eight-year Councilwoman Laura Flores Espinosa was snubbed for the ceremonial mayor’s post because she supported the federal lawsuit. Espinosa is in the race as a write-in candidate this year, having missed the deadline for filing her election papers.

Also running are incumbent Rick Cook; former Mayor Al Escoto; high school teacher Gabino Aguirre; land-use planner Rita Graham; urban planner Mary Ann Krause; and real estate agent John Wisda.

In a number of other council races, the battle lines are drawn over growth.

In Simi Valley, Measure B has emerged as a campaign issue, with incumbents Bill Davis, Paul Miller and Glen T. Becerra opposing the move to increase SOAR’s influence.

Four other candidates are vying for the three seats on the council. They are mayoral candidates Jim Mackelburg and David R. Plunkett and council candidates Paul Luna Delgado and Brian E. Wilson. In Thousand Oaks, a four-candidate slate calls itself the Certified Slow-Growth Team and contends that the three incumbents up for reelection have been too kind to builders seeking a berth in the affluent suburb.

The incumbents are Andy Fox, Dan Del Campo and Dennis Gillette. A fourth seat is also open as Linda Parks, the hands-down leader of the city’s slow-growth movement, leaves to join the Ventura County Board of Supervisors.

The self-proclaimed slow-growth slate consists of restaurant owner Bob Wilson Sr., Planning Commissioner Claudia Bill-de la Pena, former Planning Commissioner Michael Farris and English teacher Laura Lee Custodio.

Other candidates are Randy Hoffman, a millionaire businessman who lost his bid for county supervisor to Parks; retired aerospace engineer Don Morris; David Seagal, a structural engineer making his third council run; TV producer David Sams; and health care executive Rick Velasquez.

In Oxnard, which has accommodated growth more readily than most Ventura County cities, some candidates question how the city can afford to provide services for the new developments already sprouting as well as the 2,800-home RiverPark development approved earlier this year.

“We can’t just grow for the sake of growing,” said candidate Saul Medina, a psychiatric social worker who has been active on various city commissions. Candidate Susan Komar, a local business owner, went a step further, calling for a two-year moratorium on development in the city.

Nine candidates are competing for two seats.

Among sitting council members, Dean Maulhardt is running again but Tom Holden is not. Mayor Manuel Lopez, a 24-year council veteran, is unopposed.

The other candidates are Komar, Medina, former Councilman Andres Herrera; Planning Commission Chairman Al Duff; elementary school teacher Alex Escobell; communications technician Tim Hammons; retired real estate agent Martin Jones and ticket agent Elias Banales. In Ventura County’s congressional races, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) is expected to win easily over public relations consultant Fern Rudin, a first-time candidate from Thousand Oaks.

An eight-term congressman, Gallegly said he has a bit more than $1 million available for his campaign. Rudin, who said she accepted the candidacy three days before the filing deadline, had collected less than $1,000 by the end of September.

Redistricting tightened Gallegly’s grasp on his district, adding to it GOP-dominated turf in Lompoc and inland Santa Barbara County.

Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) is facing a challenger who is better-funded and more well-known than Gallegly’s. Beth Rogers, a member of a wealthy, fourth-generation Ventura County farming family, has a campaign treasury of at least $1.2 million -- about the same as Capps’.

While Capps drew former President Bill Clinton to a fund-raiser on her behalf, Rogers offered donors a chance to rub shoulders with House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).

Rogers is a conservative on issues such as taxation and is fluent in Spanish -- which she believes will serve her well with Latino voters in a district that spans the coast from San Luis Obispo to Oxnard.

“There is a large bloc of voters out there that will identify with me because I identify with them,” she said.

On the other hand, Capps, a two-term incumbent who won a special election after the death of her husband, Walter Capps, is well known in a district where 45% of voters are registered as Democrats and 33% as Republicans.

In the county’s Assembly races, Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) faces less opposition than she anticipated. Her Republican challenger, Bob Pohl, was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer and dropped out of the race Sept. 12.

Like other incumbents, Rep. Keith Richman stands to benefit from redistricting in his race against poorly funded Paula Calderon. Spanning Simi Valley, the Santa Clarita Valley and a portion of the San Fernando Valley, his district is solidly Republican.

Likewise, Rep. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) is running in a district with even more Democrats registered now than before its boundaries were changed to include Oxnard.

In her race against Michael Wissot, the first-term legislator is counting on a 49% to 31% advantage in registered Democrats over Republicans.

That is also the case with Rep. Tony Strickland (R-Moorpark). At 32 the youngest Assembly member, he is seeking his third and final term in a district where voter registration is 46% Republican and 35% Democratic. His Democratic challenger, financial advisor Bruce Thomas, raised $17,000 by the end of September, compared with Strickland’s $277,000.