Panel Backs Away From Tightening Smog Rules : Thousand Oaks: Budget-based action excludes major changes to the city’s air pollution policies.

Fearing that the city won’t have money to pay for improvements, Thousand Oaks planners have backed away from plans to tighten the city’s smog and traffic guidelines.

The Planning Commission on Monday night unanimously approved a revised traffic control ordinance that excludes any major changes to the city’s existing traffic and smog-reduction policies.

The new version, which still must go before the City Council, eliminates several tangible proposals, including plans to link traffic signals to a master computer and require city buses to run on alternative fuels.

“It doesn’t mean that we don’t want to do these things,” said city Traffic Engineer John Helliwell, who put together the revised plan. “But because we don’t have a confirmed source of funding, we don’t want to put them in the ordinance. We just don’t want to commit to them and then find out later we can’t do them.”

The city is required by law to submit a smog-reduction plan to county officials for approval.

The plan approved Monday contains major changes from the draft submitted to the commission April 11.

Several commissioners left the meeting with the sense that the measure had no teeth.

“I saw this as a bureaucratic exercise,” Commissioner Mervyn Kopp said. “The bureaucrats like paper, and that’s all we’ve given them.”

The purpose of the transportation control ordinance is to set goals that the city must meet to reduce pollution and traffic. If the city does not meet its goals, it could face federal sanctions.

Sanctions could include the withholding of federal highway and waste-water funds, a staff report said.

Fearing those sanctions, Planning Commissioner Irving Wasserman said it would be a mistake for the city to overcommit to smog-reduction programs.

“My understanding is that this is the minimum we can submit and still get away with it,” he said. “We really have no choice in the matter because this is a commitment that is going to be nailed to the wall and that we cannot back away from.”

The measure passed Monday offers only two additions to the city’s existing policy. They are a commitment to add a smog-reduction element to the general plan and an addition proposed Monday by Planning Commissioner Linda Parks that would encourage businesses to start a “shoppers’ shuttle.”

Since the proposal asked only for the formation of a business association, it would not cost the city, she said. And, at the same time, it could result in a bus taking shoppers from store to store.

But Parks said she was disappointed that the city was unwilling to take steps toward other new programs.

“I was disappointed that we weren’t attempting to do anything innovative,” she said. “I see so many opportunities for innovative programs like ride-sharing and transit shuttles that we are just not pursuing.”