OAK PARK : Advisory Panel Seeks Meeting Compromise

Members of the Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council and Ventura County Supervisor Maria VanderKolk are negotiating a compromise to her proposal that council meetings be slashed from once a month to a minimum of once a year, council member George Anterasian said Wednesday.

Anterasian said VanderKolk has agreed to consider a schedule where the council would meet every other month, with alternating “working sessions” during interim months. He said members of VanderKolk’s staff and other county officials would not attend working sessions, reducing the cost of the council to county government.

“We want to meet the supervisor halfway. We want to meet her concerns about reducing costs halfway,” Anterasian said.

VanderKolk was unavailable for comment Wednesday. But earlier this week, she said she planned to ask the Board of Supervisors next week to reduce the number of mandatory meetings.

She has said the council is no longer needed because Oak Park, an unincorporated community in eastern Ventura County, is mostly developed and no longer generates the kind of land-use issues originally considered by the council. She said the council often duplicates the efforts of her staff.

The five-member council is elected, but serves solely as an advisory board to VanderKolk. The council has been at odds with VanderKolk over several issues, such as getting started on building a new library for Oak Park.

Council members say their body serves as Oak Park’s main public forum, where residents can discuss issues without going to VanderKolk’s office in Thousand Oaks or the County Government Center in Ventura.