THOUSAND OAKS : Mailer Targets 2 Council Incumbents

A Westlake Village businessman hoping to unseat Thousand Oaks Councilmen Alex Fiore and Lawrence E. Horner has spent $8,000 on a publication he is mailing to city residents.

Copies of the eight-page publication--called the Thousand Oaks Clarion--were mailed earlier this week to 25,000 households in the city, Don Mallas said. Another 2,000 will be handed out at malls and public places, he said Tuesday.

The publication is aimed at an estimated 54,000 registered voters in Thousand Oaks, he said.

Fiore and Horner have been in office too long, Mallas said. Fiore has been a councilman for 26 years and Horner for 16 years.

The publication urges voters to support council candidates Ray Grams, Patricia Halfhill, Bob Hughes, Michael Markey, Robert O’Brien and Elois Zeanah.

It also calls the city’s plan to build a $63-million government center and arts auditorium at the site of a former wild animal park a “boondoggle” and urges voters to place an initiative on the project on the ballot.

Fiore said Mallas was bitter about a decision the council made rejecting his proposal to build a house on sensitive ridgelines. “He’s bitter that I voted against the lots,” Fiore said. “Up to that time, I was one of the finest councilmen he’d met in his life.”

Horner said he had not read the publication but said that Mallas’ complaints mirror many of those he has heard from other citizens.

“I don’t think his views are any different from what I’ve heard in the community over the last few months,” Horner said. “They don’t use the word boondoggle, but they also feel the project itself is too overwhelming.”

Mallas said he is working with the Committee for Government by the People and for the People, a citizens group gathering signatures to qualify an initiative on Jungleland for a special election.