Park Board Assails Joint Land Measure

Effectively killing the City Council’s drive to create a joint open space initiative for the November ballot, the Conejo Recreation and Park District board has warned council members that such a measure would cause friction between the two agencies.

In a strongly worded letter to the council, Dennis Gillette, chairman of the park board, said a proposed ballot measure to prevent public open space from being developed without a vote of the people would harm the amicable relationship that the two agencies have enjoyed for decades in working to preserve open space.

“Frankly, much of the discussion centered around the simple question . . . Why?” the letter stated. “The elected officials of this community . . . have succeeded in establishing the framework of a park and open space system second to none.”

As proposed, the measure would not only prevent the park district from selling public open space to developers without voter approval but also would prohibit land swaps. Such deals often result in the district having more open space than before.

Mayor Andy Fox, who along with Councilman Mike Markey was the chief proponent of the initiative, said that without the park district’s support the council should abandon its support of the ballot measure.

He said good relations between the council and the park board were much more important than the initiative, and added that there may be other ways to deal with residents’ concerns about excessive development in Thousand Oaks.

“I think obviously we’re going to have to revisit the issue as a council and determine what we want to do from here on out,” Fox said. “I would not want to put an initiative on the ballot that goes against the wishes of the park board.

“I’m not interested in getting into an agency war with them,” he added. “It’s clear that they have done a great job over the years, and I take their recommendation very seriously.”

Last month, the City Council agreed to draft an open space initiative for the November ballot with help from the park district and Ventura County. The decision came days after Planning Commissioner Linda Parks launched a similar initiative drive.

But with its letter, sent to the council Monday, the park district board made it clear it does not believe any initiative is needed.

The letter states that because of the collaborative efforts of the city, the park district and other regional agencies, about one-third of all the land in Thousand Oaks will remain open space when the city is built out.

It asks the council to think carefully before reacting to “perhaps flawed and short-sighted initiatives,” clearly referring to Parks’ drive.

Parks, who must gather 9,640 signatures by May 15 to qualify her ballot measure, said she does understand the opposition to her initiative.

“They see my actions as an affront, but they shouldn’t,” she said. “All [the initiative] does is take away the temptation from the local agencies to sell parkland. We know the voters aren’t going to sell their parkland.”

Parks said she was excited that the council would not compete with her initiative by placing a rival measure on the November ballot. She had been concerned the council would move forward with a similar, but loophole-ridden measure.

“I don’t want to see them muddle my initiative,” she said. “I want to see the voters decide this, not the council.”

Councilwoman Elois Zeanah agreed. She said she believes the council should now drop its initiative and give the public a chance to focus on Parks’ plan.

Zeanah said she wasn’t surprised the park district board did not like the idea of residents exercising more control over public lands.

“Most elected officials are going to say, ‘You can trust me,’ ” Zeanah said. “But people have learned that they cannot trust public officials to always make the right decisions.

“If the park officials are not opposed to developing open space, they should have no problems with [Parks’] initiative,” she added.

Gillette said in an interview Tuesday that the park board believes its open space record speaks for itself, and the public should trust its elected representatives to listen to them, as they have been doing for years.

“The Conejo Recreation and Park District was here doing its job before Thousand Oaks was even incorporated,” Gillette said. “We have been acquiring and managing open space for 33 years. We believe we have done a good job.

“Every time there is an attitude survey, Thousand Oaks residents overwhelmingly say that they are pleased with what we are doing,” he added. “We see no reason to change something that serves the community very well.”

The park board’s letter may have derailed the council’s open space initiative, but it has apparently given birth to another proposed council measure--this one focusing on limiting growth instead of legislating preservation.

Fox said he will soon propose a slow-growth measure to his fellow council members that would freeze all growth in Thousand Oaks at 138,000 residents, the number called for in the city’s General Plan. If a developer wanted to build more residences and exceed that limit, the project would have to be approved by a vote of the people. Thousand Oaks’ population is now 110,000.

“Residents are concerned about Thousand Oaks becoming another San Fernando Valley, and the best way to prevent that is to restrict how many people can live here,” Fox said. “That seems to be the way to take care of this problem.”