Group Offers City Suggestions for Cutting Costs : Thousand Oaks: Task force presents council with 62-page report. Some proposals meet with raised eyebrows, others with consensus.

Dump the sister city in Armenia. Sell off the water company. Find $350,000 to hire more cops. And how about charging more for a round of golf at the city’s public links?

Wednesday night the community’s first-ever Budget Task Force presented Thousand Oaks City Council members with a 62-page report chock full of recommendations on how to increase revenues while decreasing spending.

The 16-person task force was appointed by the council in March to study the budget. Members range from the owner of a local feed store, Jeff Alexander, to the founder of a now-defunct local bank, Fred Raio, to arts commissioner Harry Selvin. The group is chaired by public safety advocate Otto Stoll.

Members met once a week, often with city department heads, looking for things to slash and ways to save.

The committee’s recommendations will serve as a framework for council deliberations on the budget, expected to occur in September. But the council is not bound to the ideas.

Some suggestions met with raised eyebrows, others with immediate consensus.

Task force member David Hare, who ran for the council unsuccessfully last fall, said the city is not getting its fair share of property tax revenue from the state. The task force recommends lobbying harder to change this.

“I second that,” Councilwoman Judy Lazar said.

“Amen,” City Manager Grant Brimhall said.

The group looked at ways to unload some city assets that don’t make a profit. The Thousand Oaks Water Co., which serves about 13,000 homes and businesses in central Thousand Oaks, has an estimated worth of $15 million to $26 million and the group believes it should be sold.

That is a somewhat radical idea in an era when many municipalities are trying to buy water companies to give their residents a break on high water costs. Task force member Fred Wilson concedes as much, but said it makes sense in Thousand Oaks because the city competes against two private companies that serve the other two-thirds of the population.

“If the city owned 70% of the water enterprises, I think our recommendation would be different,” Wilson said. “But we don’t think a minnow should try to swallow a whale.”

Councilman Mike Markey expressed doubts about the idea, citing the effect it would have on the 30% of residents who have enjoyed relatively low water rates through the city for years. The task force acknowledged that rates for those customers would soar, probably doubling, if the city sold its water company.

Director of Public Works Don Nelson said the water company would be easy to market and sell, but added that “it is an issue that needs a lot more analysis than we have here.”

When the task force suggested that the city form a committee to advise Finance Director Bob Biery on ways to increase returns on its investment portfolio, Fox and Markey both balked.

“The first thing that jumps out at me is you would want to have members of this committee that really know what they are doing,” Fox said. “I definitely wouldn’t qualify for this committee.”

“If they made an ill-advised investment, we’d be out the door,” Markey said.

Member Jim Bruno said the task force was not trying to suggest the city’s current investment policy is not effective.

“But passive management can be more risky than pro-active management,” Bruno said.

To bolster reserve funds, the group wants the city to set aside an amount each year that would be at least equal to 15% of what it spends annually. That fund could only be tapped if four members of the council agreed.

The group believes the library can be open seven days a week instead of six by staffing with volunteers and reorganizing some fee structures, including for reference and on-line services.

Chopping off administrative support to the sister city program with Spitak, Armenia, would save the city $32,000 annually in staff costs, task force members said.

Leasing the golf course to a private operator could raise revenues, they said, and at the very least, the city should consider bumping up rates, which are low contrasted with some other Ventura County golf courses.

And while the task force does not know where the money will come from, the group also wants the city to spend $350,000 more for police services to enhance public safety.