Thousand Oaks : City Councilwoman Defends New Panel

At the first public meeting of her new citizens group, Thousand Oaks City Councilwoman Elois Zeanah answered critics who have accused her of creating the group to further her minority council positions.

“This has no partisan agenda. Anyone who wants to can take part,” Zeanah said at the meeting of the Citizens Q of L Action Alliance. Zeanah frequently is a lone dissenter on the council, often at the losing end of 4-1 votes.

Nearly 50 people crowded into the small Casa de la Senda neighborhood center for the meeting Wednesday night.

Councilmen Alex Fiore and Frank Schillo have criticized the group as biased and called it a thinly disguised alliance of political activists.

However, Zeanah said she spearheaded the group’s formation to give Thousand Oaks residents a bigger say in civic affairs. “We will present all points of view,” she said, adding that the group’s board of directors will not take sides at the meetings.

Zeanah said city officials have been invited to give their points of view on redevelopment at the alliance’s Sept. 23 meeting.

Guest speaker Robert E. Murray, a Thousand Oaks retiree, criticized the city’s use of redevelopment funds for its $62.8-million Jungleland civic center, now under construction.

Murray said Thousand Oaks and other California cities have misused their extensive redevelopment powers to avoid restrictions on the use of property taxes. He said the civic center project is far removed from the redevelopment law’s original intent of clearing slums and improving urban blight.

As people filed out at the end of the meeting, resident Joyce Johnson quietly handed them leaflets in support of the Jungleland project.