Thousand Oaks Leaders Plan to List Lofty Goals

Preparing to map out a city agenda for 1993, Thousand Oaks leaders vowed Wednesday to set lofty goals despite the worrisome threat that the state may again raid city coffers.

The three-day goal-setting session that starts today will be resolutely forward-looking--”no hand-wringing,” City Manager Grant Brimhall promised.

“You have to assume that you’re going to be able to accomplish something during the year,” Councilman Frank Schillo said. “If you accomplish just one goal out of 10, that’s something, but if you don’t set any goals at all, you won’t know what the heck you accomplished--or what you missed.”

Yet while they pledged to set optimistic objectives, council members acknowledged that the state could pull the rug out from under them by commandeering property taxes, vehicle licensing fees or redevelopment funds.

A state raid into the general fund, which pays for services ranging from the local cable station to police patrol, remains a much-feared possibility. As a result, many proposals considered over the next three days will contain unspoken caveats. The council may provisionally allocate funding--but only if the city’s $76-million budget remains intact.

At a Tuesday night budget workshop, Schillo warned his colleagues and the public to be prepared “for the inevitable hit the state is going to give us.”

To ensure the flexibility of plans developed during 20-plus hours of goal-setting, Schillo suggested that each department divide its 1993 wish list into the mandatory and the discretionary. That way, the council will have lists of non-vital programs ready if the state demands handouts.

“We will ask the staff to come with alternative budgets--fallback positions depending on what the state decides to do,” Councilman Alex Fiore said.

But in angry speeches, several council members said one of their key goals would be blocking Sacramento’s intervention in the first place.

“I’m sure the state is going to try to reach into our pockets again, and we’ve got to head them off at the pass,” Fiore said. Urging Thousand Oaks officials to lobby hard in Sacramento, he predicted that the city would not “take raiding by the state as easily as it did last year.”

With major budget negotiations between Gov. Pete Wilson and the legislature still to come, city officials could not say how much money Thousand Oaks might lose in 1993. Gloom-and-doom forecasts, however, suggested that the city might have to give up millions in property taxes, vehicle licensing fees or other sources of revenue already listed as assets in the budget.

Ironically, Thousand Oaks may be better positioned to ride out the recession because the city took such a blow during last year’s budget crisis. The state demanded $1.5 million in redevelopment funds, but the city cuts went even deeper.

Slashing even beyond what was necessary to balance the books after the unexpected loss of $1.5 million, the city laid off 35 workers and left another 40 full-time positions vacant. The salaries attached to the frozen slots remained in the budget, as a sort of rainy-day reserve.

And that rainy day may soon arrive.

“We acted in anticipation of another incursion by the state into our budget, and it will help cushion the blow significantly,” Brimhall told the council and the dozen citizens who showed up for Tuesday’s four-hour budget workshop.