Re: Joe R. Howry’s March 5 essay, “Pull up the welcome mat�:
Mr. Howry informs us that his realization of the “real� meaning of the rejection of the North Park development by the voters in Moorpark came to him in a flash of understanding — as though, in his words, he’d “been hit between the eyes with a 2-by-4.� I can only try to imagine the power and persuasiveness of insight obtained by way of a metaphorical 2-by-4 to the face. I repudiate, therefore, any desire to make light of Mr. Howry’s revelatory experience, but the sense that I derive from it moves me, humbly, to suggest that he might wish for another whack or two of revelation.
What stunning insight did Mr. Howry obtain from that stunning 76 percent majority electoral result? Save Open-space and Agricultural Resources, he discovered, is succeeding by subterfuge and deceit in implementing a hidden agenda whose purpose is to rally voter support for a countywide policy of (I shudder to repeat) no growth.
S.O.A.R., he says, advances acceptance of no-growth in the guise of smart-growth — that is, of preserving agricultural land and open space, maintaining open-space buffers between cities and containing development within cities. He tells us, in other words, that with the acquiescence, and, at the least, the tacit connivance of the deluded, short-sighted, selfish electorate, S.O.A.R.’s secret (and he might as well have added, diabolically contrived) no-growth agenda is advancing.
Most of you are familiar enough by now with the arguments of both sides, so I’ll try to state the case in one sentence: After years of discussions, revisions and presentations by the developer, rejection by the voters and resubmission by the developer, the voters concluded in the purest grass-roots fashion of democracy that they’d give up a lot more that they care about than they’d gain in the deal, and they rejected it by a huge margin.
For easily deduced reasons (the influence of landowners and large advertisers among the foremost), The Star’s editor asserts an opposite view – but consistent, we need to recall, with The Star’s opposition to S.O.A.R. from the outset 10 years ago.
So while I rejoice for the City of Moorpark, for Ventura County and for S.O.A.R., I’m profoundly saddened by the persistent obduracy of The Star and of those whose opposition they share or feel they must represent.
— Wolf Breiman, Ventura
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