Ventura Council Delays Placing Water Measure on Ballot

Calling for more study on the issue, the Ventura City Council has delayed its decision to place a measure on the ballot allowing Ventura residents to choose the best long-term source of water for the city.

The council voted 5 to 2 early Tuesday against considering an initiative allowing residents to pick between building a state water pipeline or a desalination plant--at least until Ventura’s utilities committee finishes its report on the issue next month.

“We’re just a little premature to make a decision,” Mayor Gregory L. Carson said. “We still have plenty of time to put it on the ballot.”

Although he said the council will take up the issue before the July 14 deadline to qualify a measure for the ballot, some residents said they are worried that council members who favor state water will make the decision themselves instead of taking the matter to the people.

“I think if they were interested in putting both on the ballot, they had the appropriate time to do it,” said Steve Bennett, a Ventura resident who urged the council Monday night to move ahead with the ballot measure. “The bottom line is . . . they are terrified the citizens might vote for desalination.”

For years, Ventura officials have been debating how to best provide a long-term source of water for the city’s residents. But support for hooking the city up to state water reservoirs was strengthened in November with the election of Councilmen Tom Buford, Jack Tingstrom and Carson--all of whom vowed during their campaigns to support building a pipeline to Castaic Lake.

Consultants estimate that it will cost up to $80 million to bring in state water to the city, and $60 million to $100 million to build a seawater desalination plant. Consultants said that without the additional water supply, Ventura is in danger of running out of ground water by 2010.

The council-appointed Citizen Water Advisory Committee recommended two weeks ago that the council approve construction of the desalination plant instead of the pipeline because state water officials cannot always meet customers’ demands. The plant, committee members said, would provide a more reliable source of freshwater, even though the facility would be more expensive to build.

Despite the conclusion of the citizens committee, Ventura’s utilities committee--headed by Buford and made up of city staff and other council members--has not reached a decision on the matter. Buford told the council Monday night that he wanted to see what the committee had to say before moving forward on the ballot measure.

“I didn’t want to spend the next six weeks of my time working on framing ballot measures instead of working on the main issue,” he said of his committee chairmanship.

Buford suggested that residents should only be allowed to vote on one option. But on Tuesday the councilman said he would still be open to residents selecting either state water hookup or a desalination plant on the November ballot.

“It is always possible we can have more than one option,” he said.

Councilmen James L. Monahan and Gary Tuttle joined Buford, Carson and Tingstrom in rejecting a proposal to formulate a ballot measure that would give voters a choice between the two options. Councilman Todd J. Collart, who drafted the proposal, and Councilwoman Cathy Bean voted in support of the idea.

Monahan and Tingstrom said they believed that the council should not pass the tough decision about water sources onto the voters. “We were voted in to make policy decisions,” Tingstrom said.

Tuttle said that although he supported placing the issue on the ballot, the timing was wrong. He said he wanted to make sure that the city utilities committee had a chance to finish its work.

“I think it was premature for Todd, Cathy and I to try to voice the issue from outside the utilities committee,” Tuttle said. “I just didn’t think (Monday night) was the time to do it.”