Agoura Hills Recall Supporter Says Councilman Helped Drive

A Pepperdine University professor who was active in a failed attempt to recall four Agoura Hills City Council members charged Tuesday that the fifth member of the council actively supported the recall drive while publicly saying he was neutral.

Councilman Jack W. Koenig helped plot their strategy during a meeting with recall proponents in March, according to a legal declaration filed Tuesday by former recall activist Paul Sheldon Foote.

Koenig responded that he “rejected his allegations against my colleagues” during the recall struggle earlier this year, “just as I reject his allegations against me now.”

The recall effort targeted Mayor Darlene McBane, Mayor Pro Tem Vicky Leary and council members Fran Pavley and Louise C. Rishoff, but not Koenig. Shortly after the recall campaign began in late 1988, Koenig said publicly that “there is no reason to believe” he would not support the four if the recall campaign garnered enough petition signatures to force a special election.

But last May, the recall effort fell short of the required 2,237 signatures, gathering only 1,934.

Rishoff filed suit in connection with the campaign, charging she was libeled by two recall proponents who accused the four council members of conspiring to violate the Brown Act, a state law requiring official decisions to be made in public.

Foote made his accusations against Koenig in a sworn statement filed in Van Nuys Superior Court Tuesday as part of Rishoff’s suit against Carole Dynda and David Chagall.

The charges that Koenig was involved in the recall inject the first controversy into the Agoura Hills City Council campaign.

Koenig is seeking reelection Nov. 7, as are McBane and Fran Pavley. In 1985, the three ran together on a slow-growth slate. But in the past two years, Koenig has distanced himself from the other four council members.

McBane and Pavley said Tuesday that they had not planned to run with Koenig again this year.

“I am not sure I will work to defeat him, but I will not support him,” Pavley said. “The recall, in our seven-year history, was probably one of the most divisive and destructive things that happened to us.”