Rift Stirs Up Agoura Election : Council: Critics accuse incumbent Jack W. Koenig of helping orchestrate an unsuccessful recall drive against his four colleagues.

A widening rift between Agoura Hills City Councilman Jack W. Koenig and the four other members of the council is the major issue in the city’s Nov. 7 election.

Koenig, Mayor Darlene McBane and Councilwoman Fran Pavley are seeking reelection against three challengers in the at-large race.

Traffic congestion and the construction of a new library are also issues facing the city of 20,200. But the primary dispute has become Koenig’s role in an effort to unseat the four other council members--McBane, Pavley and Councilwomen Louise C. Rishoff and Vicky Leary.

Rishoff and Leary will not be up for reelection until 1991.

Koenig, McBane and Pavley won their council seats running as a slate in 1985, but have since had a falling-out. Earlier this month, Koenig was accused of helping foster an unsuccessful recall drive against the other four council members. Koenig denies being involved in the hotly contested, often vitriolic recall effort earlier this year, but he also stresses his independence from other council members--all women--whom he has often criticized and has occasionally called “the girls.”

“This isn’t a ladies’ tea party,” Koenig said in a recent interview in which he criticized Rishoff for filing what he considered a frivolous appeal of a development approval by the city’s Planning Commission.

Tension grew between Koenig and his fellow council members following allegations this month by Paul Foote, a former Pepperdine University professor who was active in the recall drive. In a deposition for a libel suit--brought by Rishoff in the aftermath of the recall drive--Foote asserted that Koenig helped recall proponents plan strategy against the other council members.

This contradicted Koenig’s public position of neutrality at the time.

“Assuming that what Dr. Foote wrote is true, I’m very disappointed in Jack,” Pavley said. “It’s significant in that whoever is elected to serve on the City Council has to be able to work with and respect the other four members.”

At a candidates forum this month, Koenig told the audience: “I have tried to be a strong voice on this council, an independent voice belonging to no special interest group or bloc.”

John Ellis, a Koenig supporter who was active in the recall, said Koenig “has been under quite a bit of pressure by those who put him in office to be a yes man for Fran Pavley and he won’t do it.”

Ellis referred to For Agoura, an influential coalition of homeowners and slow-growth proponents who helped elect Koenig in 1985 by endorsing him on the slate with Pavley and McBane.

For Agoura has not made endorsements yet, but plans to look closely at Koenig’s actions during the recall campaign, spokesman Tom Yacovone said.

“He never verbally, to our knowledge, tried to coordinate any opposition to the recall movement, and he could have,” Yacovone said.

Koenig did send a $25 check to the campaign committee fighting the recall, but Yacovone noted that it was postmarked May 5, just four days before recall proponents announced that they were unable to gather enough petition signatures to force a special election.

“What he apparently was trying to do was play both sides of the fence so that if the recall succeeded, he would be supporting it implicitly if not overtly, but when it failed, he tried to say that he was really in sympathy with us,” Yacovone said. “We returned it.”

Koenig said he did not write the check earlier, in part because he had to pay large family medical bills.

Last week, Yacovone’s group and McBane said Koenig failed to account for $1,365 that the city advanced to him for expenses on eight trips related to city business. McBane said the charge was based on research done by city employees at her request.

Koenig said he spent all the money on the trips and knew of no policy that required expenses to be reported. He added that the accusation was an attempt to distract the campaign from more important issues.

But McBane insisted that city policy calls for expense reporting, and that she and Pavley followed it. She said Koenig was guilty of sloppy bookkeeping that reflects poorly on his ability to serve as a city official.

“It’s the issue of responsibility, fiduciary responsibility,” McBane said. “If someone gives you money to take care of, you’re responsible.”

The controversy surrounding Koenig is among several issues being argued by candidates in the election. Here is a sketch of the candidates and their positions:

* Koenig, 54, is a social studies teacher at El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills. He opposes the city’s plan to build a library on land donated by the Kanan family, saying the city could build the library faster by putting it in an existing park. The city’s condemnation powers could be used to acquire more parkland, he said.

* McBane, 50, is a free-lance graphic artist and former city planning commissioner. She helped negotiate the Kanan land donation for a library site on Canwood Street near the city’s business district. In the past year, McBane established and headed a committee to study ways to address child-care needs in Agoura Hills.

* Pavley, 40, a teacher at a Moorpark middle school, was elected the first mayor of Agoura Hills when the city was incorporated in 1982. Pavley, who supports the Kanan library site, holds a master’s degree in environmental planning from Cal State Northridge. Her agenda has included many environmental issues such as hillside preservation and beautification of the Ventura Freeway corridor.

* Ed Kurtz, 37, runs a promotional advertising company in Reseda. He is past chairman of a citizens committee on parks and recreation in Agoura Hills. If elected, Kurtz pledges to “only support development which blends into Agoura Hills’ natural surroundings” and to be a “team player” on the council. He supports the Kanan site for the library.

* Paul G. (Gary) Mueller, 37, owns an auto parts store in Agoura Hills and is president of the Agoura-Las Virgenes Chamber of Commerce. Mueller, a longtime business and civic activist in the area, said he is “not a firm believer” in the Kanan library site. He promises to reduce city spending and legal expenses if elected.

* Barry S. Steinhardt, 32, is a securities representative who ran unsuccessfully for the council in 1987. Steinhardt promises to “do everything legally possible to stop any type of growth.” He said building a library on the Kanan site would be too expensive and proposes trying to persuade the Kanan family to let the city sell the land and use the money to build a library just west of the site.