Agoura Hills Council Rift Splits Lone Man, 4 Women

A chill can be felt these days in the chambers of the Agoura Hills City Council, but the weather outside has nothing to do with it.

Council member Jack W. Koenig put himself at odds with his four council colleagues on several controversial issues that made 1988 a turbulent year for this city of about 19,000 residents.

The rift on the council would not be unusual, except that Koenig was elected in 1985 on the same environmentalist platform as two of his fellow council members, Fran Pavley and Darlene McBane. The others on the council, Louise C. Rishoff and Vicky Leary, also subscribe to that platform.

Koenig accuses all four of showing indecisiveness on some of the city’s most pressing matters, such as the location and financing of a new library and the controversial closure by Los Angeles County of Medfield Street.

“I wonder if these girls reflect on what they’re there for,” said Koenig, who just finished a 1-year term in the city’s ceremonial post of mayor.

Not so, say Koenig’s four colleagues to the charge that they are indecisive. Koenig, they say, developed a penchant during his mayoral term for advocating hasty, uninformed decisions and for airing his proposals in the press before building a council consensus for them.

“I think he took the position of being mayor as being much more powerful than the rest of us perceive it to be,” Rishoff said. “He really chose not to discuss things with us or to really even consider us very much in the actions he took.”

McBane, who took over as mayor last month, goes further. Koenig has betrayed the environmental platform on which he was elected by supporting every development project to come before the council, she said.

Koenig replies that he has tried to be sensitive to the business community as well as to the residents.

Politically, he keeps his motives for distancing himself from the rest of the council close to the vest. He said he is undecided about whether to seek reelection later this year.

Is he aligning himself with a pro-development faction of citizens trying to recall his four colleagues? Not quite; he doesn’t advocate the recall, but he says it doesn’t surprise him. And he has neither spoken against the recall nor in support of the other four council members.

The rift between Koenig and the rest of the council developed a year ago after the city’s voters defeated Proposition A, a ballot initiative that would have allocated 75% of prospective hotel tax revenues for construction of a library and recreational facilities. Koenig, Pavley, Leary and McBane--Rishoff was not yet on the council--vehemently opposed the proposal by former Councilman Ernest Dynda. They argued that borrowing funds was a far more certain way to construct a library quickly.

But public protests over the library’s proposed location in the city’s Chumash Park forced the council--except Koenig--to postpone a decision. Since then, the library site has not been selected. City officials are negotiating with a local landowner for a possible donation of property.

“We promised the public that if they voted down A, we would build the library right away,” Koenig said. “We must produce what we promise.”

Other Options

And the council will, Pavley said. But after the election, it also promised to examine other options for a site that did not take up parkland, she said.

“We all want to see a library built,” Pavley said.

Council observers have perceived the rift between Koenig and the other council members.

“There’s definitely a difference in personality between Jack and the rest of the council,” said Gary Mueller, president of the Agoura-Las Virgenes Chamber of Commerce. But Mueller gives Koenig credit for “broadening his base” by reaching out to the business community.

Fran Foster, a Liberty Canyon homeowner activist aligned with the women council members, thinks Koenig has reached too far in that direction. She cited his support of a gas station’s proposal for a pole sign that she found visually undesirable and contrary to the ideals for which Koenig was elected.

Moreover, Koenig often seems detached during council discussions, she said.

“When this brainstorming is going on, I have the feeling that Jack is not there,” Foster said. “His agenda is set.”

Pavley notes that Koenig is a relative newcomer to government in the city. The council seat he won in 1985 is the first official position Koenig, a high school social studies teacher, has held. Pavley and Leary have been on the council since the city’s 1982 incorporation, and McBane and Rishoff served on the Planning Commission before winning their council seats.

Road Closure an Issue

The Aug. 3 closure of Medfield Street is another issue on which Koenig differs sharply from the rest of the council. The county’s closure of the road left the city’s Canwood Street business district with a single access to the Ventura Freeway, and severe traffic jams resulted.

Less than a week after the closure, Koenig called local newspapers with a proposed solution on reopening the street. The council met the night of Aug. 10, but Koenig’s plan never came to a vote. The rest of the council spoke against it, saying city officials had not had a chance to examine whether immediately reopening the street in both directions was technically possible or legal.

In September, Koenig voted with the rest of the council, with Leary dissenting, to reopen Medfield Street to one-way traffic with heavy trucks banned. But in the meantime, the closure had prompted a lawsuit and a claim from area businesses totaling $16 million. The road has remained closed as the city and county disagree on who should accept legal liability.

Koenig is quick to point out that the claims did not exist when he floated his unsuccessful plan.

“They eventually got to my way of thinking,” he said, “but too late.”

Others Blame County

The rest of the council places much of the blame on the county for plunging the city into a political thicket. Medfield Street was built by a developer in 1978 as a temporary construction road. Although the county never officially approved the road, it became an informal second access for business development that was approved by county officials before Agoura Hills became a city.

Medfield Street is among several issues being raised by a pro-development group called United Neighbors of Agoura Hills, which advocates the recall of Leary, McBane, Pavley and Rishoff, calling them “inept and irresponsible.” The four chafe somewhat at Koenig’s unwillingness to stick up for them.

“The fact that he has been unwilling to support us says a lot as to where he stands,” McBane said.

Leary says she and Koenig were friends before the turmoil of 1988, but now she’s not so sure.

“A friend now?” she said. “He probably thinks so, but I just feel rather disturbed by the whole thing. I don’t know what to think anymore. I feel like I don’t completely trust what he’s doing.”