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Credit where credit due
Guest commentary by Craig Walker
Although I appreciate your effort to name me as the "co-author"
of the Ojai Traffic Initiative, I cannot take credit for the
measure. If anyone deserves that honor, it is local planning
attorney and environmentalist Andrew Gustafson.
The policies in the Ojai Traffic Initiative were first conceived
by Citizens to Preserve the Ojai as a proposal for discussion
by the City Council. My role involved researching the county's
Ojai Area Plan and the city of Ojai's General Plan to see if
a valleywide solution to Ojai's traffic problems could be found.
I discovered that the existing county plan provides for coordination
between the city and the county if the city enacts a traffic
ordinance like Measure C. At that time, the CPO proposed that
the City Council study a traffic ordinance as one way to solve
Ojai's traffic problems.
The city promised to form a citizens committee to study the merits
of the CPO proposal, but the committee never materialized. The
CPO again submitted its proposal, stating that if the city would
not address the CPO's concerns, it would put its proposal directly
to the voters. After several months it became clear that the
city did not want to study the impact of development on traffic.
The CPO then asked Andrew Gustafson to take its ideas and author
a traffic initiative that would meet the requirements of the
Ojai Area Plan and the law. When Measure C's petitions were turned
in over a year ago, the City Council was advised that it could
place an alternative measure on the ballot to allow voters a
choice. The council decided against this, preferring instead
to fight the Ojai Traffic Initiative by suggesting that it would
prevent the hospital expansion, the library expansion, affordable
housing, the Farmers' Market, and even "the Ojai way of
life." Measure C does nothing of the kind. It simply aligns
the city's traffic policies with those of the unincorporated
areas of the valley, which means the city - together with the
county - must address Ojai's growing traffic problems. It does
not prevent growth any more than sewage disposal regulations
prevent growth.
The city is now asking voters to reject Measure C so it can institute
"creative alternatives." But why haven't we heard any
of their creative alternatives? The only two alternatives I've
heard from the city so far is that they can either: a) build
four-lane roads through the downtown, or b) completely halt all
development. These don't sound very creative to me. Remember,
all that Measure C requires is that the city and developers work
together to mitigate the traffic impacts of new projects. The
current slate of projects before the council will add up to 1,000
new peak-hour daily trips on Ojai Avenue. If an expanded city-
and developer-sponsored transportation system would remove the
same number of trips, then a coordinated effort would allow these
projects to proceed. Candidate Bruce Roland says that adding
pedestrian signals on crosswalks would greatly improve the Level
Of Service on Ojai Avenue. If so, then the city could add pedestrian
signals in connection with a new low-income housing complex,
which would satisfy Measure C. Anything the city does to improve
traffic flow will satisfy Measure C.
The county version of Measure C has been in effect in Meiners
Oaks, Mira Monte, Oak View, and everywhere else in the unincorporated
valley for the past seven or eight years - with no disasters
or outcry from business and residents. This is a fact that opponents
have sidesteped in their assault on Measure C. Measure C is a
tested, workable approach to traffic that will help produce the
valleywide solutions we need to solve our growing traffic programs.
Measure C does not prevent growth, it only requires that traffic
solutions go hand in hand with growth.
Craig Walker is a member of the Citizens
to Preserve the Ojai.
Ojai fields forever
Bret Bradigan, OVN publisher
It's interesting that Ojai enjoys a rather, let us say, ecletic
reputation around the rest of Ventura County, as if we are merely
some pocket of Woodstock generation holdouts, holding fast to
outdated ideals like those Japanese soldiers on deserted islands
fighting World War II for 40 years.
It didn't take me long here to realize that we are much more
nuanced and complicated and broad spectrum than that. But several
recent letters to the editor of the Ventura County Star paint
us as a hippie haven in a "wake up and smell the patchouli"
ink bashing.
But that's not the evidence you see where it counts most - the
ballot box.
Among Ojai's 4,977 registered voters, Democrats hold a bare plurality
of 1,977 voters, with Republicans running a close second with
1,716, and, despite the occasional faded "Bush and Gore
make me Ralph" bumper sticker, the Green Party registers
a bare 161. That's barely a quarter of the 641 voters who declined
to state their party affiliation.
And yet ... always that yet, that however, that on the other
hand, that seductive demon of reasonableness. The recent acquisition
bid of the planned Farmont Golf Course development by the Ojai
Valley Land Conservancy will likely bridge a contentious gulf
of opinion, and so present the next generation and all to follow
with the gift of room to roam. By seeking solace amid Ojai's
splendor, we will find our sense of place greatly strengthened,
our perception of its value immensely enhanced, and our will
to preserve it passed on "in perpetuity," as it was
so proudly stated. The creeping sprawl of suburban anonymity
has been held at bay, thanks to an unusual group and their decades-long
quest to buffer our borders with 1,566 acres of wildness.
Where else but Ojai would you find a former high-ranking Eisenhower
administration official making occasion with a crusading tree
savior? Where else, indeed, would so few be confident of raising
so much money for land so that virtually nothing will be done
with it forever?
The lesson here, should we be inclined to heed it, is that those
things that give Ojai its luster and its promise are those that
require us to set aside our differences and set a common course.
Our constant petty squabbling and disputes often cloud our view
of that. But from high on the other side of the Ventura River,
looking back on the farms and fields and church steeples poking
through the oak canopy, that lesson becomes quite clear.
© 2002 The Ojai Valley News
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