Oceanside Chamber, Farmers and city Council Candidates Instrumental in defeat of measure y

Oceanside's Measure Y, also known as the SOAR Initiative, has been defeated. With 100% of precincts reporting, 54% of Oceanside voters have rejected this initiative that would have "required voter approval of proposals to change land use designation or zoning in agricultural or open space land to any other use."

The Oceanside Chamber, along with local farmers, and City Council candidates, led the effort over several months to spread the word about the negative impact this measure would have on economic development and property rights. This past spring, the Chamber's Business and Community Political Action Committee commissioned an economic impact study on SOAR to highlight its threat to farming as well as a wide variety of opportunity costs this measure could pose. The report is still available at www.OceansideSOARStudy.com. 

Oceanside's City Council candidates, Chuck Lowery (District 1) and Christopher Rodriguez (District 2) had been vocal opponents of Measure Y and actively carried the "No on Y" message to voters. "I commend Deputy Mayor Lowery and Christopher for the work they did in helping spread the truth about this flawed measure", said Chamber CEO, Scott Ashton. "There was the misconception that this measure was needed in order to protect our city's open space and park land. Open space is already protected by ordinance. This was simply an attack on property rights.  It aimed to treat zoning changes to our city's agriculturally zoned land differently than the rest of the city, and that's not right", he added.