Petitions to Recall 2 Councilmen Submitted

An effort to toss out two Thousand Oaks councilmen cleared a hurdle Tuesday when recall organizers submitted petitions bearing nearly 22,000 signatures supporting their removal.

The 1000 Oaks Recall Committee turned in 11,096 signatures calling for the ouster of Alex Fiore, a veteran councilman and one of the city’s founders. Separate petitions containing 10,715 signatures supported the removal of eight-year council veteran Frank Schillo.

Recall committee Chairman Ken Bauer said he and other volunteers collected more signatures than necessary.

To place the recall on the ballot, the committee had to gather signatures from 8,374, or 15%, of the 55,830 registered voters in Thousand Oaks, officials said.

“We’ve achieved our goals, and we got more signatures on this petition drive than in any petition drive we’ve ever seen,” Bauer said.

County elections officials have 30 days to verify the signatures.

Four months ago, leaders of the recall effort launched the drive against Fiore and Schillo because of the councilmen’s longstanding support of the city’s Jungleland development.

Opponents of the development maintain that Fiore and Schillo have been unresponsive to public criticism of the $63.8-million project to build a new city hall and performing arts auditorium.

Fiore said he is confident that the recall effort will be unsuccessful. A councilman since the city incorporated in 1964, he was reelected to his seventh term two years ago.

“I’m totally optimistic about it if it gets to the ballot,” Fiore said. “I don’t think the people of Thousand Oaks are that mean-spirited that they are going to kick two people out that have made this the fine city that it is.”

Schillo, who was elected to the City Council in 1984, said he was angry about the way that leaders of the recall campaign conducted the petition drive.

“What they’ve done is spread lies in this community and told people falsehoods to get them to sign,” he said.

Both councilmen said they are counting on voter loyalty. They pointed out that a campaign to counter the recall effort has resulted in many people changing their minds.

A total of 546 people have sent letters and postcards asking that their names be removed from the petitions, City Clerk Nancy Dillon said.

Bruce Bradley, assistant registrar of voters, said county elections officials may finish verifying signatures within two weeks. He said he wants to give the Thousand Oaks City Council ample time to decide whether a recall election would coincide with the June 2 primary.

Bradley said the city has until March 6 to meet that deadline.

Dillon said she will wait until the county verifies the signatures before recommending that the City Council call an election. She said some petitions may be ruled invalid.

City Atty. Mark G. Sellers said he will decide whether 1,000 signatures are invalid because they arrived 15 minutes after the recall committee’s leaders said all petitions had been submitted.

Dick Booker, a spokesman for the 1000 Oaks Recall Committee, said the petitions dropped out of a box and were discovered only a few minutes after the first batch arrived.

“They had fallen out of a box in my car,” he said. “I got them in before they started counting.”

State elections codes require that proponents of a petition file signatures at the same time, Sellers said. The 1,000 signatures may not be important in deciding whether to call the recall election, he said. “It may be moot, but I’ll be looking at the answer before we get to that point,” he said.

A recall drive against Fiore in 1988 was abandoned.