AGOURA HILLS : Recall Leader to Aid Effort in Cypress

Barbara Murphy, leader of a group trying to recall the five-member Agoura Hills City Council, plans to volunteer time to help a group of Cypress residents launch a recall against the Cypress City Council.

“We should all help each other to get the message across, because they won’t get the message otherwise,” Murphy said. Her group, Citizens Against New Local Taxes, launched its recall movement in the summer after the Agoura Hills City Council voted to levy a 4% utility tax on residents.

Bob Pepper, leader of the fledgling recall movement in Cypress, said he has talked by telephone with Murphy, who is considered knowledgeable about recent changes in recall laws. He called Murphy, he said, at the urging of Tom Babcock, a Fullerton resident who led a successful recall effort in that city about a year ago.

“Barbara is an extremely hard worker under a very difficult situation,” said Babcock, who said he advised Murphy as she was launching the Agoura Hills recall effort.

“She’s had attacks on her house, bricks thrown through sliding-glass doors,” Babcock added. “Under some very nasty circumstances, they were successful with the petition drive and I give Barbara 100% of the credit.”

Pepper said his group wants to recall three council members who voted to approve a 24-hour trucking warehouse, an operation he says will be disruptive to nearby residential neighborhoods. Now, the council--despite a lawsuit by residents to block the warehouse--wants to approve another trucking facility in the area, according to Pepper.

Fran Pavley, one of the five Agoura Hills council members targeted, said Tuesday that she finds it “interesting” that Murphy would concern herself with the affairs of another, distant city.

“What is she doing in Cypress?” Pavley said. “I find it ironic that someone who is supposed to be so concerned about (local) taxes would be involved in an effort that has no relationship to the well-being of the city of Agoura Hills.”

Pavley and other council members maintain that the recall effort is being financed by local business people angry at the council for its support of an ordinance banning freeway signs, a charge the recall group denies.

Petitions containing the signatures for the Agoura Hills recall are still being validated by the office of the Los Angeles County clerk/registrar-recorder, according to city officials. The process is expected to be complete within two weeks.