THOUSAND OAKS : Recall Group Weighs Appeal on Legal Fees

A citizens group that won a legal battle against the city of Thousand Oaks may appeal a judge’s ruling that the city does not have to reimburse about $8,500 in legal fees that the group spent in the fight, one of its leaders said Wednesday.

“We are looking into an appeal,” said Joan Gorner, a leader of the 1000 Oaks Recall Committee. The group sought to recall Councilmen Alex Fiore and Frank Schillo but failed because too many of the signatures it gathered were disallowed by county elections officials.

Superior Court Judge Richard Aldrich ruled Dec. 18 that the group was not eligible to recoup court costs.

“If this is the final word, nobody will take any city to court,” Gorner said. “And it’s very important that cities know that their citizens are watching them and when they do wrong things that the citizens are going to right those wrongs.”

But Fiore on Wednesday called the ruling “a wise and proper decision by the judge.”

“The city clerk has the responsibility to protect the integrity of those petitions and, in her opinion, they were going a little too far in trying to jot down the names of good signatures,” he said. “They didn’t deserve to get a penny’s worth of attorney’s fees as far as I’m concerned.”

The legal dispute began when committee members contended that some of the signatures on its recall petitions had been improperly invalidated and the city subsequently attempted to restrict their access to the documents, Gorner said.

At a court hearing in August, Aldrich chastised the city for trying to block the group’s examination of the petitions and granted recall leaders 20 more hours to complete their inspection.

Gorner said the group hopes to inspect the documents in early January and will continue its bid to recall Fiore. The group is no longer targeting Schillo, who was reelected in November, she said.