Camarillo Losses Prompt Possible Recall Action

A citizens committee in Camarillo is exploring the possibility of demanding the resignation of the City Council and the city manager in the wake of the city’s devastating $20-million investment loss.

The committee was formed after an editorial in the Camarillo Daily News called for the officials to step down.

The 30-member citizens group, which calls itself the Camarillo Committee of Concerned Citizens, met Tuesday in the offices of the newspaper to discuss action against the council and chief administrator, committee chairman Kevin Staker said.

“I personally think that the council should be held accountable for the dangerous investment policy that they approved,” Staker said.

In its editorial last week, the Camarillo Daily News said the council and city manager “must bear full responsibility for this financial disaster.”

“We are a reflection of what the people in the community are talking about,” said Harold Kinsch, editor of the 13,000-circulation daily newspaper.

So far the citizens group has not demanded that the council or City Manager Thomas W. Oglesby resign because of losses, which stemmed from highly speculative investments made by recently fired city Treasurer Donald F. Tarnow, Staker said. Some committee members, however, support a recall of the council, he said.

Quest for Information

“Right now our purpose is to decide how to carry out the work of gathering, studying and reporting the facts surrounding the city’s financial situation,” he said.

The national accounting firm of Arthur Andersen & Co. is conducting an audit of city investments, which is scheduled for completion in three weeks. The firm, in a preliminary report issued last week, said Tarnow had engaged in speculative government securities investments that backfired when the bond market dropped last spring.

The report noted that Tarnow failed to follow the city’s investment accounting procedures and that it would have been difficult for the City Council to have known of the city losses.

Councilman F. B. Esty and Councilwoman Sandi Bush said they have no plans to resign from the five-member council. They want to study the final Andersen audit before even considering whether to take any action against Oglesby, they said.

“The City Council is like the board of directors for a major corporation; we set policy and accept certain liability for the proper operation of the city,” Esty said. “But if somebody runs off with the money you don’t fire the president of the corporation or the board of directors.”