Leaders in Thousand Oaks Urge ‘Buy Local’ Campaign : Business: City Council members tonight will consider a proposal encouraging residents to spend money inside the city limits.

Seeking to keep residents from spending money outside the city, Thousand Oaks business leaders want City Hall to join them in a “buy local” public relations campaign.

The City Council tonight will consider a proposal from the Mayor’s Business Roundtable to use city staff members to help spread the message to consumers.

With billboard-like placards, inserts in city mailings or messages on the TOTV cable television station, members of the mayor’s panel hope to encourage residents to buy in local stores, use local services and understand how local businesses contribute to everyone’s quality of life.

“We’re all in this together--it’s not us versus them,” said Harry Selvin, a local executive who chairs the Mayor’s Business Roundtable. “We want businesses to understand the residents’ problems, residents to understand the businesses’ problems and the city to understand both of us.”

The committee has not established a detailed game plan nor determined how much it would cost or who would pay. But in a one-page memo to the council, Selvin and Karen Livesay, co-chairwoman, are asking for government backing of their concept.

Because of legal limitations, the city may be unable to support a campaign that advertises specific businesses. As a taxpayer-financed government channel, for instance, TOTV is prohibited from airing advertisements, according to Shirley Cobb, the city’s media service manager.

But a generic “buy local” message would be acceptable, she said, considered as information rather than promotion.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Councilman Frank Schillo said. “We all stand to gain from this--the whole city as well as the business community.”

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To kick off the program, committee members hope to develop an ad campaign thanking residents for shopping locally. They also want to emphasize that each purchase in Thousand Oaks generates sales tax dollars used to support city services from street lights to crossing guards to landscaping.

The Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce has already launched a similar campaign, distributing “buy local” buttons and talking up the slogan “It’s good business to do business in the Conejo.”

Given that ongoing effort, chamber President Steve Rubenstein said he feared that the new campaign would be redundant.

Yet, ever a business booster, Rubenstein added: “I don’t think it can be said enough.”

Councilwoman Judy Lazar agreed that such a message bears repeating.

“We need to better explain the relevance of businesses to our community,” she said. “I, for one, have real guilt if I shop outside Thousand Oaks. I cringe whenever I go to the Price Club, and I try to avoid letting anyone see me there. We need to encourage our own residents to think about that.”

While setting a bottom-line goal of increased local sales, committee members also talked about a more lofty aim: improving communication between commercial, residential and governmental sectors in Thousand Oaks.

Too often, they said, stereotypes impede conversation; some residents may distrust the motives of business people, and some company executives may view homeowners as impediments to growth.

“The fact is, we’d really like to be recognized as part of the community,” said Livesay, a management consultant. “We’re all here for the same reason--because we like it here--and we might as well talk to each other.”