Calabasas Council Candidates Vow No New Business Tax : Forum: Twelve of the 13 seeking seats also identify issues such as growth management that they consider vital to the proposed city.

Candidates for the proposed city council of Calabasas may be political neophytes, but they demonstrated Thursday at their first joint public appearance that they know at least one political axiom: Remember your audience.

The 12 candidates appearing before about 100 members of the Calabasas Chamber of Commerce said they would not levy business taxes in the proposed city.

“We don’t want to drive our tax base back into the county area away from the new city we worked so hard to form,” said candidate William Melcher, an attorney who is seeking one of the five seats on the council.

Calabasas residents will vote March 5 on whether to approve the incorporation of Calabasas as an independent city. Of the 13 candidates vying for council seats, only Gary Klein, a Los Angeles city planner, was absent.

The forum also provided the first opportunity for candidates to identify the issues they consider the biggest challenges facing the proposed new city: managing growth, fostering a strong community identity, preserving the environment and developing parks and recreation programs for all ages.

Melcher was the first to raise the issue of local business taxes. Others agreed with him, saying they never considered new taxes because Calabasas will already have enough money if it becomes a city.

The Local Agency Formation Commission has estimated that after paying for basic services, such as police and fire protection and the administrative costs of running the government, the new city will have a $1.2-million surplus.

“There is no question in my mind that we don’t need increased taxes on businesses,” said Peter Eason, a banker with a graduate degree in public administration.

Bob Hill, a stockbroker who served as president of the cityhood committee for five years, said a government for the proposed city could provide many services and would “set up an agenda and set priorities” for which services to establish first.

Three candidates--Lesley Devine, Ron Gold and Marvin Lopata--stressed the need for managed growth and preserving the natural environment of Calabasas.

They said development in recent years has irreparably damaged the environment and outpaced the ability of the Las Virgenes Water District and Las Virgenes School District to serve new residents.

“Growth management means that you think ahead of time so that classrooms are available for children when they get here,” Devine, a writer and environmentalist, said.

Gold, an attorney, said he favors a “restrictive growth policy tying development to existing services and existing capacity.”

Lopata, who has served on the cityhood committee for five years, said if incorporation occurs the council will have to stop developers from “plowing down the mountains . . . uprooting oak trees” and altering courses of streams.

“These are natural resources; once gone, they are gone forever,” he said.

Dennis Washburn, who has been active in the cityhood drive for more than a decade, also said his “prime passion is to preserve and conserve the environment.”

Two candidates--Jack Bethel and Michael Fichera--told listeners that it was critical that new city officials be responsive to the community.

Bethel, a banker, said he wants Calabasas to be “the city of tomorrow, the Shangri-La of the Santa Monica Mountains.”

Fichera said the public should have significant say on every question that affects the community. “My door will always be open. Unlike the treatment we have gotten from the county for a long time, you will never have to go through an agency to be heard,” he said.

Other candidates had different ideas about what is most important to the proposed new city.

Doris La Violette, a 25-year resident of Calabasas, said she believes that if incorporation is approved the new city should develop an emergency plan so community residents would know what do to in case of a natural disaster.

Jeffrey Kurtz said his primary reason for running for council is to “foster and promote our identity as the last of the Old West.” Karen Foley, a longtime community activist who is running on a platform of creating new parks programs, said that if she was elected she would not use the job as a platform to run for other political offices.

“This would be the proud culmination of 16 years of working for you,” she said.