Proposed ISAG Guidelines: Ventura County Taxpayers, Working Families & Businesses Beware

The effects of a proposed change to Biology Initial Assessment Guidelines are only starting to be understood even as Ventura County planning staff are rushing their recommendations back to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors for a vote. Taxpayers now face the prospect of the Board of Supervisors raising the cost of public works in addition to the cost of doing business in the county. Lynn Jensen, Executive Director for (VC COLAB), stated in a recent email received by the Ventura County Libertarian Party:

“County Public Works Projects will be even more expensive with implementation of this new document as written ** YES** – that means public projects including the improvement and construction of new flood control channels, water, sewer and solid waste facilities, fire protection, roads, etc.  In addition, more private projects that are necessary for businesses to expand and hire workers will not be economically feasible.  This will have a major impact on farming which is already on the ropes due to increased cost and reduced supply of water, new pests, new air quality regulations and now this!  In fact, more businesses will leave the County and more jobs will be lost.?”

How the Ventura County Board of Supervisors acts on this particular issue will be a clear indication for Ventura County residents as to whether or not a particular supervisor is fiscally responsible, as so many of them claim.  The Ventura County Planning staff have also recommended guidelines that will, in effect, place a moratorium on certain kinds of building when “wetlands” are involved due to the fact that the County does not have mitigation steps in place when a project involves a “wetland”.  For example, if your project will involve a “wetland” often times as part of the approval process, the property owner is required to restore a “wetland” somewhere else. However, the County has not setup the programs whereby a property owner could restore “wetlands”, so the potential  adoption of these new guidelines would essentially prevent not only public improvement projects, but small private road crossings and culvert projects according to VC COLAB.

This is a "Wetland" ???

While protecting “wetlands” and the biological diversity contained within them is a goal most residents share, the devil is in the details.  As it turns out, a man made ditch between a road and a farm field can be considered a “wetland” due to the definition used by the state.  To fit the definition of a “wetland” a landscape feature needs to meet only three criteria: Hydrology (water), obligate species (such as cattails), and anaerobic soil (soggy dirt).  And what farm doesn’t have a ditch with cattails abutting it somewhere?  That’s just one example of how these regulations threaten the very agriculture so important to Ventura County’s economic base and which our County Board of Supervisors all claim to want to protect. The proof will be in this upcoming vote.

At a time when Ventura County is feeling the pinch of high unemployment and reduced tax revenue, taking measures that will preclude jobs from being created by blocking economic activity with needless regulations is injurious to working families and the businesses that employ them.

Tell the supervisors to POSTPONE their decision or VOTE NO on the new guidelines:

Steve Bennett: steve.bennett@ventura.org

Linda Parks: linda.parks@ventura.org

Kathy Long:         kathy.long@ventura.org

Peter Foy:              supervisor.foy@ventura.org

John Zaragoza:  supervisor.zaragoza@ventura.org