VENTURA COUNTY NEWS : Church’s Plans to Get SOAR Test in Fall Vote

An initiative seeking voters’ approval of church construction on east Ventura farmland will appear on the Nov. 2 ballot.

Ventura County Superior Court Judge John Hunter refused to kill the measure Friday, denying a motion alleging the initiative’s language was misleading.

Hunter’s decision opens the door for the first public vote under a local SOAR growth-control initiative.

The First Assembly of God wants to build a new sanctuary, sports fields and running track on 26 acres at the northwest corner of Montgomery Avenue and North Bank Drive.

But the land is now restricted from development under the city’s strict growth-control guidelines, approved by voters in 1995.

As a result, the only way the church can move forward with its plans is to place them on the ballot and win support from a majority of voters.

“It will be on the Nov. 2 ballot,” said Gene Browning, program administrator for the Ventura County Elections Division.

The initiative will be labeled as Measure C, and voters will consider it while choosing members of the Ventura City Council and Ventura Unified School District board.

A sample ballot is expected to be mailed to voters later this month.

Slow-growth leader and Oxnard attorney Richard Francis filed a lawsuit in July alleging key language was not included in papers circulated to qualify the initiative for the ballot.

Hunter rejected the major tenets of the lawsuit at a hearing last month, but set the matter for a final hearing Friday.