Medfield Street at Issue : Four on Agoura Hills City Council Answer Group Pressing for Recall

Four members of the Agoura Hills City Council on Friday characterized proponents of a recall drive launched last month as misinformed and aligned with the officials’ longtime political opponents.

Mayor Pro Tem Darlene McBane and council members Vicky Leary, Fran Pavley and Louise Rishoff held a news conference to respond to charges by the United Neighbors of Agoura Hills, which on Sept. 29 called for their ouster by recall.

The United Neighbors group criticized the council’s handling of the city’s recent Medfield Street crisis.

Medfield Street, built by a developer in 1978 as a road for construction traffic, was closed for financial and environmental reasons Aug. 3 by Los Angeles County. Traffic congestion worsened in the area and, six weeks ago, the council voted to reopen the road to eastbound traffic, with heavy trucks banned.

About 15 United Neighbors members, including former Mayor John Hood and former Councilman Ernest Dynda, said last week that the city should have opened the road completely. They accused the four council members of bowing to the political influence of homeowners in the Old Agoura neighborhood, where many wanted the street closed to reduce traffic and noise in the area.

The United Neighbors group has not targeted Mayor Jack Koenig for recall because he had at first supported reopening the street completely. But he voted with the council majority to reopen Medfield on a limited basis.

2 Business Parks

At Friday’s news conference, the four council members noted that the county, not the city, approved two business parks in the area even though there was inadequate access. The projects were approved before the city was incorporated in 1982.

“It’s too bad that our predecessors didn’t do a better job of planning,” Rishoff said.

McBane, Pavley and Koenig are up for reelection next year, so a recall election taking place next summer would be a waste of city money, McBane said.

Moreover, the four council members portrayed the recall proponents as supporters of a pro-development council majority that ended in 1985 and included Hood and Dynda. A major issue in that election was the controversial Katell Properties industrial park, near where Friday’s news conference was held. The council before 1985 allowed the large project to be built at the foot of Ladyface Mountain.