This Mayor’s Candid Nature Speaks for Itself : Thousand Oaks: Alex Fiore has been a driving force in the city since the ‘60s, and some of his critics have had enough.

Thousand Oaks Mayor Alex Fiore loves to talk tough and argue with anyone who does not agree with him.

A few local residents refuse to address him at City Council meetings for fear that he will embarrass them in public.

“I hide nothing,” said Fiore, 64, who retired in 1984 as vice president of finance for Rocketdyne. “It’s my Italian blood, I guess. If I’m angry, you’ll know it. If I’m happy, you’ll know it. It’s my style; I can’t help it.”

He said he is the kind of person who gets impatient at stoplights. If the cars do not move the instant the light turns green, he honks. He’s never late for a meeting, and he expects others to be prompt as well.

Despite his abrupt, abrasive style, Fiore has been elected to six terms on the City Council, finishing first almost every time. He’s one of the founding fathers of the city, spearheading the incorporation movement in the early 1960s and helping build Thousand Oaks into what it is today. The City Council has appointed him mayor half a dozen times.

Although his popularity runs deep, several vocal residents say the veteran mayor has overstayed his welcome. A movement is afoot to oust Fiore from office if he decides to run for reelection in November.

Although his foes agree that it will be difficult to remove the city’s eldest statesman, activist Dick Booker and attorney James N. Brown said several weeks ago that they are searching for a candidate to put up the fight.

“It’s time for a change,” Booker said. “He acts like he owns the place.”

Heinrich (Corky) Charles, who was fired as a city planning commissioner in 1978, and County Supervisor Madge L. Schaefer have launched bitter attacks against Fiore, criticizing him for his support of the controversial Jungleland civic center project.

His foes are hoping that the $55.6-million project, which will include a civic auditorium and a new government center, will be his undoing at election time.

Although the mayor is confident that he can survive the attacks of his critics--whom he calls crackerjacks and jokers--this city of 107,000 could be in for a few fiery exchanges before the battle in November.

Fiore’s involvement in local issues started shortly before the city was incorporated in 1964. He settled with his wife, Katie, and their three children in a mid-size house, which they purchased for $25,000 in an area called the Meadows. The neighborhood was filled with young couples and children, the perfect place to raise a family, he said.

But there were problems. It was difficult to get sewer hookups. The water quality was poor. The foundations of some of the houses cracked because of shoddy workmanship permitted under lax county building codes, Fiore said.

Fiore became president of the homeowners group and began searching for ways to solve the problems. He and others decided that the solution was to form a city.

The group gathered signatures, and the issue was placed on the ballot. It passed with about 60% of the votes.

After incorporation, one of the first major measures Fiore introduced as a newly elected council member was the city’s ridgeline protection ordinance.

“You can develop on the floor of the valley and enjoy looking at the hills,” Fiore said, “or you can build around the hills but leave the floor of the valley alone for things like golf courses and parks and farms.

“We had already started in that direction of developing the floor. We thought we should leave the ridges pure, and I think we’ve done that.”

Fiore also wanted to preserve the thousands of oak trees that dot the hillsides. In the early 1970s, he introduced the city’s first measure protecting the majestic trees. “The easiest way to build a tract is to bulldoze everything,” Fiore said. “We wanted the developers to work with the oaks to the best of their ability.”

Despite Fiore’s fight to protect the trees and ridge tops, he has occasionally taken pro-development positions.

In 1980, he opposed Measure A, the residents’ growth-control initiative approved by voters.

Fiore said he did not see the need for a growth-management ordinance, which allows the city to issue only 500 residential building permits a year. The mayor said the free market and the council could monitor the expansion without a law on the books.

In addition, he said he didn’t like the idea of being “locked into an ordinance that was written by neophytes.”

“Measure A left so much for interpretation,” Fiore said.

Fiore has also supported several major housing developments--including the MGM Ranch, Lang Ranch and Dos Vientos--bringing criticism from some of his constituents.

“He’s too pro-development for me,” said Ken Bauer, a local environmentalist who served on Supervisor-elect Maria VanderKolk’s election committee. But Bauer said that while he does not agree with Fiore’s stand on many issues, he believes that Fiore has served the city well.

“I have the utmost respect for him,” Bauer said. “No one is as honest and as forthright. I don’t think there is anyone who works harder at the job than Alex.”

Nowadays, Fiore spends much of his time working on the civic center project.

“My main objective if I run again is to oversee the completion of the Jungleland project,” Fiore said during an interview at his home.

“We’re going to be spending some bucks . . . but we’ll get it back and more,” he said. “I’m trying to do what people want me to do. I get the very strong message that people in this community want a civic auditorium.”

But a small group of vocal residents have said Fiore and other city officials should never have approved the costly project.

Although the council set a $55.6-million budget for the venture, opponents say the civic center will cost more than $100 million when it is completed in 1993.

“Jungleland will be a burden on the city’s treasury,” said Schaefer, who recently lost her reelection bid to political novice VanderKolk. “It was impractical, and they should have let the people decide.” Furthermore, Schaefer, a longtime adversary from their days on the Thousand Oaks City Council, said Fiore is nothing but a “schoolyard bully” who insists on having his way.

Fiore dismisses the comments.

“It’s funny; you get people who don’t live in the city and they just rave about it,” Fiore said. “Yet you get some people in the city who think you’re ruining it.”

Still, Fiore is extremely sensitive to criticism about the city, and he does not like to leave complaints unanswered.

Almost every day, he scans the letters to the editor in the local newspaper for residents grumbling about Thousand Oaks. He calls them up one by one to defend the city.

“Unfortunately, it seems when you read a letter that is real juicy and filled with erroneous impressions, they have an unlisted number and you can’t get them,” Fiore said. “That really bothers me.”

A few of the residents that Fiore reaches say they appreciate the call. A few argue with him for a while and then hang up.

On Saturdays, he sets up a table at Janss Mall near a hamburger restaurant to talk with residents. Sometimes he’ll just baby-sit children while parents are shopping.

He admits that his abrasive style sometimes hurts people’s feelings, but he says his feelings have been hurt too.

“When people come up and make statements like, ‘You’re not doing what’s best for the city,’ and you know in your heart that you are . . . you just let go,” he said.

Recently, a resident addressed the City Council about an apartment complex planned for his neighborhood. The resident feared that the project would increase traffic on his street. He said he had tried to talk to city staff about his concerns but was ignored.

Fiore decided to debate the issue. “I’ve been here for 26 years and he’s telling me he’s been calling the city,” Fiore said. “Who has he been talking to? I guess I was a little bit abrupt with him. I was just trying to straighten him out. I felt bad about it afterward.”

Humiliated, the man sat down. But he came back the next week to tell Fiore that he did not appreciate being berated in public.

Fiore said he was sorry, but when the man refused to accept the apology, the discussion turned into another argument. The mayor asked the police chief to escort the man from the council chambers.

Joan Gorner, another of Fiore’s adversaries, said she has not talked to the mayor in 20 years because of an argument they had concerning a city project.

“He was rude and said I didn’t know what I was talking about,” Gorner said. “You can’t talk to him; he won’t listen.”

Grant Brimhall, Thousand Oaks’ cool and methodical city manager, chuckles when he talks about Fiore’s fiery disposition.

“He’s intense and he’s very passionate,” Brimhall said. “But he’s anxious to do the right thing.

“He has helped build Thousand Oaks from a little town of 25,000 or 30,000 to a world-class city. I’m sure he has made some decisions he would like to rethink. But look around the city; the proof is in the pudding.”