THOUSAND OAKS : 2 Candidates Unveil Plans for Business

Two candidates for Thousand Oaks City Council introduced plans for improving the city’s business climate this week, ranging from hiring a full-time city staffer to attract new businesses to sponsoring a film festival to increase revenue.

In a written proposal outlining seven action points, attorney Trudi Loh proposed using a film festival or other annual cultural event to draw in consumers from outside Thousand Oaks.

Among her other ideas are suggestions to enhance the Buy Local program, focus more local law enforcement attention on schemes to defraud business owners and cut the red tape of city bureaucracy burdening merchants.

Loh also proposed increasing recruitment efforts to fill the city’s vacant office and warehouse space with more high-tech, “clean manufacturing” and service-industry companies.

One of her opponents, Compton homicide detective Mike Markey, would take that proposal even further, hiring a business-economic liaison to pursue companies and bring their businesses to Thousand Oaks.

Markey said the liaison would establish time lines for bringing “distressed” properties back onto the market as well as host business workshops and bring economic information to businesses around the city.

“The cities that surround us have a jump on Thousand Oaks,” Markey said. “They have already hired new staff to facilitate their economic base.”

But Loh took aim at Markey’s suggestion in her proposal, scoffing at the idea of hiring a new city employee.

“The business community and the taxpayers of our city deserve strong, innovative leadership and solutions from the council, not another solution in the form of a high-priced consultant,” Loh said in a written statement.

Four other candidates are also running for the empty seat, considered a key position on the Thousand Oaks City Council, which has had only four members since December and frequently deadlocks on key issues.

A special election is being held June 6 to fill the vacancy. Real estate broker-engineer John Ellis, businessman Ekbal (Nick) Quidwai, juvenile dependency court investigator Ramaul Rush and mobile carwash owner Lance Winslow are also running.