Growth-Control Advocate Honored

Richard Francis, who helped spearhead a successful slow-growth campaign in Ventura County, has received an award for improving the quality of life in Southern California.

The Southern California Assn. of Governments awarded the 17th annual Regional Citizen’s Award to Francis, an Oxnard attorney. His firm, Richard Francis and Associates, handles private and public interest law.

Francis was nominated by the Environmental Defense Center, a nonprofit, public interest environmental law firm in Ventura.

For 15 years, Francis has mobilized county residents to embrace strict growth controls for farmland and open space. From 1987 to 1991, he served on the Ventura City Council. In 1994, he co-founded Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources Inc. and wrote his first successful ballot initiative to protect farmland in the city of Ventura.

In 1998 and 1999, voters approved similar growth-control initiatives, written by Francis and Steve Bennett, in Simi Valley, Oxnard, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Camarillo and unincorporated areas.

Francis also helped form the nonprofit Friends of Channel Islands National Park and is a board member of the Boy Scouts of America and the Cabrillo Economic Development Corp., which builds low-income housing.

He received the award at an association meeting Thursday at the Wilshire Grand Hotel and Centre in Los Angeles.