Lazar Proposes Abolishing Council Panels

Fed up with bickering about the role of council committees, Thousand Oaks Councilwoman Judy Lazar has suggested dramatically altering local government by abolishing all council committees.

Most of the city’s five standing committees include two council members, a staff representative and several residents.

The committees review major policy issues each month, making recommendations on topics ranging from affordable housing to city officials’ perks. The entire council then reviews each committee report and takes appropriate action.

But recently, Mayor Elois Zeanah and Councilwoman Jaime Zukowski have revived complaints that some of the committees operate secretively and fail to inform other council members about their deliberations. They have targeted in particular the finance committee, which includes Lazar and Councilman Alex Fiore.

In response, Lazar and Fiore say they regularly brief the council on finance committee decisions, although they do not provide detailed accounts of each discussion.

“Since there seems to be so much distrust, perhaps we should abolish council committees altogether and work as a whole group,” Lazar said.

Her suggestion won partial support from Zeanah and Zukowski, who agreed that the finance committee, at least, should be eliminated.

“I do feel that we have too much subcommittee work and, in some ways, that divides us and contributes to strife on the council,” Zukowski said.

But Councilman Frank Schillo argued that delegating work to committees saves countless hours. If the entire council had to debate every single issue from scratch, he said, the government would face an overwhelming logjam.

“The council is perfectly capable of tearing a committee’s report apart, but at least when a committee reviews something, we all have a well-thought-out plan to look at,” he said.