Council Adjourns for Annual Summer Hiatus : Thousand Oaks: Mayor Lazar creates a stir with announcement that she will run for another term next year.

After fending off angry day-care providers and other petitioners demanding attention, the Thousand Oaks City Council has adjourned for its annual summer recess, taking a four-week break before picking up in the fall with a heavy agenda and a new mayor.

Councilwoman Elois Zeanah will take up the mayor’s gavel Sept. 14. But before handing over the limelight, Mayor Judy Lazar stirred up some political excitement Monday, when she announced plans to seek reelection to the council in 1994. Lazar’s surprise radio statement quelled rumors that she might step down after just one term.

Zeanah, too, has declared her intention to run for a second council term next year. The third seat on the ballot will be up for grabs, as Councilman Alex Fiore has said he will “absolutely” retire when his eighth term expires in 1994.

With the campaign still a year away, however, council members vowed to used their August break to catch up on long-neglected paperwork. Only Ventura’s City Council enjoys as long a vacation. Moorpark’s elected officials take three weeks and most other city councils have no recess at all.

But in Thousand Oaks, not everyone welcomed the vacation.

The month-long hiatus has frustrated those hoping for speedy resolution of their cases, from nightclub managers to housing developers to child-care providers, who last week packed council chambers in furious protest when their hearing was postponed to Oct. 12.

“I wish they would have just dealt with it then so we could move on,” said Geri Haili, president of the Conejo Valley Day Care Assn.

Developer Aaron Raznick, who has watched in dismay as a hearing on his Newbury Park housing project got pushed from spring to summer to fall, echoed Haili’s irritation. “Sure I’m frustrated,” he said. “This thing just goes on and on and on.”

The council is scheduled to consider the Raznick case Sept. 21, in what promises to be a marathon hearing. But that agenda is nothing compared with the first post-break meeting.

Booked solid with seven public hearings, the Sept. 7 council session will feature debates on regulation of nightclubs and the home-occupancy ordinance, which limits the number of unrelated adults who can live in single-family detached homes.

In fact, with controversial cases slated almost every week through the end of October, the backlog will clearly challenge the endurance of a council already accustomed to eight-hour meetings and 2 a.m. adjournments.

For a respite, the council will devote the second Tuesday to the ceremonial swearing-in of Mayor Zeanah, who will shift two seats over to the center of the dais and take over as chairwoman on Sept. 14.

Ekbal Kidwai, a veteran council watcher, predicted that Zeanah’s ascendance to mayor will spark more lively, confrontational debates, as she takes on the three-member majority with the power of the gavel behind her.

But council-watchers will have to wait until mid-September to find out.

In the meantime, the 47% of Thousand Oaks residents who at least occasionally tune their TVs to council meetings will suffer through a dry spell.

Because the city destroys the tapes four months after each meeting, Channel 10 technicians cannot compile a “T.O.’s Greatest Hits” to air during the summer break, said production specialist Eric Goor.

Instead, TOTV devotees will have to content themselves with informational programs such as “Wheelchairs Can’t Fly,” a look at how a Lake Tahoe community overcame bumpy sidewalks and steep curbs to make the city convenient for disabled residents.

That’s good news for some council-trackers.

“There are other things in life besides City Council meetings,” said Kidwai, who shows up at nearly every session to comment on issues from flooding in Pakistan to the redevelopment agency along Thousand Oaks Boulevard. “Also, the hiatus really isn’t that long.”