Measure garners 70-percent approval; Johnson’s Pasture to be preserved
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COURIER photo/Gabriel Fenoy
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| Measure S supporters embrace after results come through Tuesday night. |
Claremont voters Tuesday gave 70-percent approval to Measure S, the bond measure that will now be utilized to purchase and preserve Johnson’s Pasture.
The yes votes totaled 7756; 3255 residents voted against the measure, which needed two-thirds approval to pass.
The result—a victory for local environmentalists who have been working for 7 years to preserve the hillside open-space parcel—comes mere months after the defeat of July’s assessment district.
“It’s hard to believe,” said Suzanne Thompson, a leading advocate for preserving the land. “We worked on this for so long.”
Voter turnout in Claremont was again high, as it was for the assessment district vote, as 53.2 percent of Claremont’s 20,679 registered voters weighed in on Measure S. Fifty-four percent of landowners returned ballots for the assessment district vote earlier this year.
The electoral victory that will now preserve Johnson’s Pasture was the final step in what was a lengthy city-engineered process to secure the land.
In mid-2005, the city was notified that the private owners of the 180-acre land were preparing to sell—to a private developer if necessary—and the city council stepped up efforts to preserve the land.
The first effort to raise the $12 million necessary to purchase the land was through an assessment district vote that would have raised property taxes about $100 per year for city property owners.
The measure was selected by the council, and preferred by most Johnson’s Pasture supporters, mainly because it needed only 50-percent approval to pass. When the financing method was authorized in late 2005, supporters felt that the lower threshold would be easier to reach than the two-thirds necessary for a parcel tax or property tax ballot measure.
But almost from the start, the assessment district route was contentious. The council was split—with only 3 of the 5 members in support—and negative memories lingered in many residents of existing assessment districts, which opponents said became more expensive year after year.
The campaign for the assessment district was buoyed by broad support from prominent community leaders, and the citizens’ group formed to promote the measure—Yes on Parks and Pasture—was well funded and highly visible in the community.
However, the positive message and tone of the pro-assessment district campaign was thwarted by a stealth anti-assessment district group whose membership still remains largely anonymous.
The opposition group, well funded in its own right, began placing newspaper advertisements and sending out mailers urging voters to reject the assessment district.
“There is a better way,” read the group’s signs across the city, as assessment district opponents argued that a general obligation bond was a preferable funding mechanism.
The opposition campaign derailed the largely positive message of Yes on Parks and Pasture, forcing the group to divert its energy and financing to a defense of the assessment district funding mechanism, rather than promotion of open space preservation.
When the assessment district ballots were tallied in late July, city landowners had clearly spoken. With an unusually high 54-percent turnout, the measure was rejected, with 56 percent opposed and only 44 percent in favor.
Moving ahead with its pre-assessment district promise, the council voted unanimously in early August to place a general obligation bond measure on the November ballot.
The campaign to pass the bond—Measure S—was spearheaded by another citizens’ group, Yes on S, whose membership consisted of both pro-assessment district forces and several members of the community who were opposed to the prior vote.
In its new campaign, the group was able to focus its efforts entirely on promoting Johnson’s Pasture, as no opposition group materialized.
“If all you’re hearing is positive, I think that’s certainly an advantage,” said Councilwoman Sandy Baldonado, who said she was thrilled that Measure S passed. “Everybody really got on phones, really worked, and everybody did what they needed to do. It was really amazing coming together.”
The group was also able to tap into city constituencies that were shut out of the assessment district vote—on which only property owners could vote—and members trolled campuses of the Claremont Colleges registering voters and recruiting campaign workers, and also visited local retirement communities to shore up support for the measure.
Alex Cohen, a Pomona College student who spearheaded the on-campus effort, said his group registered about 100 people in two nights of work, and distributed about 100 additional registration forms.
“Once I got started, it just kind of took over,” Mr. Cohen said. “It was exciting and enthralling, so I just went with it. … It’s very important to have open space—preserving natural environments for people is very important for me.”
The effort to preserve Johnson’s Pasture dates back 7 years, when during a hike Suzanne Thompson came across a friend who was handing out fliers about the precarious future of the open space—the landowners were in discussion with residential developers to sell the property.
“I thought the city already owned Johnson’s Pasture,” she said. “I just didn’t know what was going on up there. … It was shocking to learn that it could be developed.
She and two other residents who frequented Johnson’s Pasture—Nancy Wing and Ellen Perry—shortly thereafter founded the Claremont Wildlands Conservancy, which immediately went to work discussing the property’s future with its owners, the city, state and the Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit group that helps secure funding for open-space purchases.
They made piecemeal progress toward securing minor amounts of funding, but the money raised didn’t come close to the land’s market value, and the message from the owners a few years ago was that the land must be sold.
The land’s joint ownership had recently inherited the land, and the group wanted to cash out its investment. At that point, the city became closely involved in the process, Ms. Thompson said, and that effort finally culminated Tuesday with the electoral victory of Measure S.
“Johnson’s Pasture has been a place where people have hiked since 1900, and the [Johnson] family always made it very clear that people were permitted to hike,” said Judy Wright, former Claremont mayor and city historian. “This has always been an open area, and it’s so appropriate that now the city owns it and can take care of it. …
“This one piece is so special, I think it’s worth the price. It’s the crown jewel of the hillsides.”
