12 Contenders Vie for 3 Seats on Thousand Oaks Council

Thousand Oaks, Ventura County’s second-largest city and its most affluent one, is planning next year to build a $2-million center for teen-agers and a $2.5-million senior-citizens’ center, to put a $3.3-million addition on its already lavish Civic Center and to pay for half of a $2.2-million social-services center.

The city last month announced that it had also worked out a deal to save 228 acres of Wildwood Mesa, a piece of land that local activists had been trying to save from development for more than eight years. And last week, the City Council approved a $2.8-million plan to expand its main library and build a branch in Newbury Park.

Hence voters would seem to have no reason to oust the two City Council incumbents running in the Nov. 4 election, given their ability to deliver such projects, which are paid for in large part by sales taxes from a regional shopping mall and from blocks of new-car dealerships.

The incumbents, Mayor Alex T. Fiore, 60, a retired Rockwell International finance executive seeking his seventh term on the five-member City Council, and City Councilman Lawrence Horner, 56, a Northrop executive running for his fourth term, appear to be secure.

An Open Seat

The third council race--for the open seat held by City Councilwoman Madge Schaefer, who is seeking election to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors in a runoff against 2nd District Supervisor Edwin Jones, has generated little in the way of issues. Even the city’s crime rate is too low to give the candidates much to talk about.

The only issue of interest scheduled to come before the City Council in the next few months is rent control of the city’s approximately 3,600 apartment units, which would affect an estimated 10% of the city’s 98,000 population.

An ordinance that would have brought all 3,600 apartments under rent control was unanimously approved last month by the City Council, then shelved for six months after a landlord threatened to evict 500 tenants if it were passed. Now, about a fourth of the city’s apartments are covered by a 6-year-old rent control law.

Besides the two incumbents, 10 candidates are running for the council seats, which will be filled by the top three vote-getters.

Three of the candidates--Richard Booker, Joan Gorner and Tony Lamb--have been active in local politics and are expected to be the strongest contenders to replace Schaefer. A fourth candidate, George Vick, has gathered strong financial support from local business.

Here is a rundown of the candidates:

Fiore, who was elected to the city’s first council in 1964, attributes his longevity in office to his custodianship of the city’s fiscal health. He said he also has kept in touch with constituents by spending nearly every Saturday for the last few years at the city’s largest shopping mall, sitting at a table answering residents’ questions, helping with tax returns and even baby-sitting for toddlers while their mothers shop.

Fiore opposed the successful 1980 initiative that now limits new building permits to 500 a year and in June was on the losing end of a ballot measure asking for public approval of a $22-million cultural center. But those defeats have not had a big effect on Fiore’s popularity, his supporters say.

Fiore supports the proposed rent-control law.

Horner said that, if reelected, he will look at providing temporary shelter for the homeless, expanding public transportation to the weekends and improving programs to prevent drug abuse.

“We haven’t had any major busts of drug pushers in this community in a long while, and the kids are still getting it,” Horner said. “We need to focus more attention on enforcement.”

Horner said that, although he voted for the proposed rent-control ordinance, he now has doubts whether bringing all of the city’s apartments under rent control is a good idea.

Booker, 56--one of the most outspoken critics of City Hall in recent years--led a successful fight last year to end an employee-incentive plan that paid cash bonuses to as many as 107 employees in amounts that had been kept secret for five years.

Booker, who owns a company that installs commercial wall coverings, co-wrote the successful ballot initiative that defeated the city’s cultural-center plan in June. He believes that the city should continue operating under its old rent-control law because if the new one is restored, the city is powerless to stop the wholesale evictions threatened by landlords who oppose it.

“The failure by the city is that there has been no effort to encourage construction of rental housing,” said Booker, who favors using city redevelopment money for that purpose.

He ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 1982.

Gorner, 48, a planning commissioner and local junior high school teacher, said she fears rapid growth in Thousand Oaks.

“Los Angeles County is overdeveloped, Orange County is overdeveloped--where else can people go?” asked Gorner. “We need to make sure we can preserve the Conejo Valley, otherwise we will be the next plum that will be picked.”

When the city’s growth ordinance expires in 1990, Gorner said, the city will be under tremendous pressure from developers to increase the city’s rate of growth. The city can temper demand for growth by increasing its required contributions from developers to finance local schools and city services such as water, sewer and streets, she said.

Gorner said she does not favor rent control.

Lamb, 82, a senior-citizen activist, spent less than $500 and gathered more than 5,000 votes, finishing third, in the June primary race for the 2nd District Board of Supervisors, behind Schaefer and Jones. He predicts that he will spend even less than that in his bid for City Council; but, with his strong name recognition among Thousand Oaks seniors, Lamb will probably make a strong showing.

Lamb works for the county, aiding seniors, and said he helped secure state funds that are now used to provide lunch every day to 1,500 seniors in the county.

“There’s 10,000 seniors in Thousand Oaks, and probably each one of them has a daughter or a son, so I do have name recognition,” said Lamb, who will be 83 on election day. “I think I have a chance.”

Lamb said he wants to provide discount taxi service to seniors and require firms entering Thousand Oaks, as a condition of their building there, to provide housing to accommodate “their janitors, as well as their president.” He said the City Council should have fought for its new rent-control ordinance instead of “caving in” to the demands of landlords.

Lamb ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 1978.

Lynn Bickle, 42, an accounting clerk for an aerospace firm, is credited with spearheading citizens’ efforts to preserve Wildwood Mesa. “People fear overbuilding, noise intrusion, a lowering of air quality and the threat of commercial-airline expansion at Camarillo Airport,” she said. Bickle said that rent control is “a necessary evil,” given the limited number of apartments.

Vick, 33, a property manager and classical guitarist, said he believes that “individuals have a right to build on their land.” Measure A, the city’s existing growth-control law, has served its purpose but has also “created an incredible amount of paper work and headaches for developers and the city,” he said. He added that the city should try something other than rent control to protect tenants.

As of Sept. 30, Vick had raised $6,300, the most of any candidate, according to recent campaign-reporting forms.

Debra Cohen, 36, a substitute teacher, said that drug use is increasing among schoolchildren and that the city should spend more money to combat the problem. She opposes rent control, and said a rent-review committee should serve as an arbitrator in tenant-landlord disputes.

Stanley E. Anderson Jr., 46, a local patent attorney, opposes rent control and said he favors custom housing rather than tract homes in undeveloped parts of the city. “I am for moderate growth,” he said.

Alan Munson, 40, who works for Ventura County’s department of children’s protective services, said he supports city policies that are a balance between “preserving property values and open space, and caring for people through social programs.” Munson said rent control should be extended to all of the city’s apartments.

Patrick Kellogg, 32, a retail clerk at a local supermarket, opposes rent control and said he would ease city restrictions on cutting down oaks for persons “with an allergy or some other medical condition.” He said he wants to help small businesses by being flexible on the city’s sign restrictions.

William Weiss, 26, a clerk at a local water company, said he supports rent control. He said he thinks that the existing council is out of touch with young people. Weiss said he plans to spend $10 on his campaign--”$6 on gas and $4 for photocopies.”