Calabasas City Council race focuses on septic systems, gutter politics

A controversial clampdown on aging septic systems in Calabasas has become a prime election issue in the upscale community’s March 8 City Council race.

Two council members who supported strict enforcement of the ordinance — the city’s mayor and mayor pro-tem — are not seeking reelection. Now, the scramble to fill their seats has sparked accusations of political dirty tricks at the west end of the San Fernando Valley.

Seven candidates are competing for the two openings. But some in the city of 23,735 grumble about alleged improprieties they say began before campaigning even started.

They assert that current council members quickly endorsed two candidates before the election filing period closed and the final list of contenders was known.

Others complain that one of the endorsed candidates was able to campaign at a city meeting, while supporters of rival candidates were kicked off city property during a January “state-of-the-city” speech by the mayor.

An unsigned flier attacking one candidate has resulted in a complaint being filed with the California Fair Political Practices Commission demanding to know who financed the piece. Another flier lists an endorsement that a resident says she never made.

But the incident that is most troubling to some residents occurred earlier this month, when voters were surveyed over the phone by pollsters who allegedly identified themselves as working for the city.

Residents said callers identified themselves as city contractors and began inquiring about campaign issues. Then they asked homeowners whom they intended to vote for.

“I was taken aback by the last question,” resident Susan Ellis said. “I again asked who he was doing the survey for, and he repeated, ‘The city of Calabasas.’”

Complaints about the survey prompted city administrators to publicly disavow involvement and label the alleged identifications as “misrepresentation to Calabasas voters.”

City Clerk Gwen Peirce said the San Diego company that conducted the interviews denied that its pollsters misrepresented who commissioned the survey. But the company refused to reveal who hired it.

“They won’t disclose their client or the script,” Peirce said. “They say maybe people misunderstood” the poll-takers.

As the campaign has proceeded, building code enforcement has emerged as the most prominent issue. Critics say city inspectors begin by examining septic systems at older homes and then search for other code violations on residents’ property.

The city’s crackdown began in the summer, when officials raided a rural Stokes Canyon ranch looking for a possibly defective septic system. Authorities ended up cutting off 70-year-old Lloyd Smith’s water and power, forcing him off the 60-acre property.

Since then, the city has pursued owners of older homes in the rustic Old Topanga Canyon area at the southeastern edge of the 13-square-mile city. “Seventeen people came in a caravan. They climbed over my house like ants,” said 64-year-old resident Robert Hahn, who owns a house built in 1928.

Candidates staked out positions on septic system enforcement earlier this month at a voter’s forum hosted by the city and the Center for Governmental Studies, a nonpartisan group.

Terry Stobie, a 51-year-old demolition contractor, said the way the city is carrying out its policies reminds him of “a police state.”

“We should work with owners of older homes and not criminalize them,” he said.

Bob Sibilia, a 52-year-old attorney who has previously served on the council, agreed. “It’s gotten out of control. People feel the City Council is not listening to them.... That’s got to change,” he said.

Roxsana Sepanlou said she’s seen no evidence that leaky septic tanks are fouling Calabasas’ creeks. “No one wants health or environmental problems,” the 38-year-old teacher told forum attendees. But the city’s enforcement “certainly devastated some families,” she said.

Lucy Martin, 49, a city parks and education commissioner, said city inspectors should try a different approach. “Very simply going up and knocking on the door” and working things out is better than “slapping them with violations,” she said.

Alicia Weintraub, 33, a public policy advisor who has worked with Burbank and Culver City, said there has been poor communication between the city and property owners about septic repairs. The city needs to better evaluate the financial effect that mandated upgrades will have on residents, she added.

The two candidates endorsed by departing Mayor Barry Groveman, retiring Councilman Dennis Washburn and other council members struck different notes.

Martha Fritz, 46, chairwoman of the city’s planning commission, said she’d review the city’s septic ordinance. “I think [enforcement] can be done in a less punitive manner,” she said. But, she noted, “we can’t lower our standards.”

Fred Gaines, 51, a real estate lawyer, voiced greater support for the city’s practices. “As a City Council person, I’d say it’s got to comply: Your septic system has to work. We’re not a city that allows people to go forward with cesspools and septic systems that are not working.”

Gaines has drawn criticism because of his legal work for land developers.

He “continues to keep voters in the dark about his track record of representing developers and suing on their behalf to skirt the law and negate our resource protections,” said Kim Lamorie, a Calabasas resident and president of the Las Virgenes Homeowners Federation, a coalition of homeowner groups.

“Adding insult to injury is his attempt at selling himself on the most disingenuous of platforms — that of environmental attorney,” Lamorie said.

Gaines disputed that he falsely bills himself as an environmental lawyer.

“I represent a wide variety of clients. It’s land use, zoning and environmental law,” he said. “They’re all areas of law that I practice.”

bob.pool@latimes.com