THOUSAND OAKS : Gadfly Forms Group to Evaluate Council

He sits through every Thousand Oaks City Council meeting, offering comments and taking notes, and now perennial gadfly Ekbal Quidwai wants to gather other council junkies into a new citizens action group.

Quidwai, a Pakistani immigrant who has lived in Southern California for nearly 23 years, has founded the Concerned Citizens of the Thousand Oaks City Council to analyze and influence the fractious politicians.

He plans to convene the group regularly to discuss the council’s actions, debate upcoming issues and suggest items for future agendas. Already, more than a dozen people have expressed interest in joining, Quidwai said. The first meeting is scheduled at 7 p.m. Feb. 10 in the Thousand Oaks Library.

Quidwai’s group joins a handful of other grass-roots organizations formed in the past year.

Mayor Elois Zeanah leads the Citizens Q of L Action Alliance, which is working on crime-fighting proposals. Our Town Forum gathers residents concerned about a potential anti-development bias in the city.

Other groups focus on specific areas of Thousand Oaks. The Heart of the City Committee looks at issues relating to the city’s central neighborhoods, for example, and the Newbury Park Civic Organization and Residents to Preserve Newbury Park emphasize development issues in western Thousand Oaks.

Quidwai said he hopes his group will work “not on (the principle) of ‘What’s in it for me,’ but for the common good. We want to see less divisive items on the agenda and more proactive measures, like longer library hours or cleaning up city streets.”