Westlake Village : PriceCostco Foes Aim to Oust 2 on Council

Opponents of a planned PriceCostco store in Westlake Village have launched a recall attempt against two City Council members who voted to approve the project.

The group has served papers on Kris Carraway and Doug Yarrow informing them of its intentions, City Clerk Laura Johnson said Monday. The group, she said, needs 1,274 valid signatures--or 25% of the city’s registered voters--to force a recall election.

Two other council members who voted in favor of the project, Mayor Kenneth Rufener and Councilwoman Berniece Bennett, have decided not to seek reelection in November. James Emmons, who abstained, was not targeted in the recall attempt.

“We elect our leaders to make tough decisions, and when they do we bash them about the head,” Yarrow said.

PriceCostco plans to build a 136,000-square-foot store in a 296,000-square-foot shopping center at Lindero Canyon Road and Thousand Oaks Boulevard. It is part of the Westlake North Specific Plan, approved in 1989, which allows for 1.4 million square feet for offices, business park and commercial space, and condominiums on a 130-acre tract near the Ventura Freeway, about one-half mile east of the Ventura County line.

Opponents sued the city in an effort to block the project, which was approved in April. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert H. O’Brien ruled last week that an environmental study done in 1989 was sufficient and turned down opponents’ request for a new study. Opponents say the project will increase noise, traffic and crime. City officials say Westlake Village is legally bound to approve the project under a development agreement that requires the city to pay up to $3 million in damages if it fails to abide by the agreement.