THOUSAND OAKS : Bid to Alter Name of Houston Street Fails

When there’s only one fatal drive-by shooting in town, people tend to remember it.

That’s why 35 residents of Houston Drive recently petitioned the Thousand Oaks City Council to change their street name to Cameron Drive.

They wanted to erase their street’s association with Thousand Oaks’ sole drive-by slaying, which occurred on Houston Drive in June, 1991. And they hoped to drive away the young gangbangers who call themselves the Houston Hoods.

“It’s common knowledge that there was a drive-by shooting on our street, and there’s no question that our neighborhood is stigmatized by that,” resident Andy Fox told the council on Tuesday. “Our property values did go down after the incident.”

But after a brief debate, council members decided they could not support the name-change proposal.

The 35 signatures represented barely half the families on Houston Drive. And petition passers made no attempt to get signatures from property owners, allowing renters to support the name change on behalf of absentee landlords.

With such a lackluster showing from the pro-Cameron Drive faction, council members decided they could not make the residents go through the inconvenience of changing their stationery, drivers’ licenses, checkbooks and every other document listing their mailing addresses. On a 4-0 vote, they denied the name change.

The decision cheered resident Debbie Bavaro, who called the proposed name change a “placebo” to make Houston Drive families feel safer.

“I really, really think (petition organizers) should spend their energies elsewhere,” Bavaro said. “Improving the community and making it a better place to live--that’s what’s going to bring our property values up.”