Items Address Porn, Campaign Spending

Sick of looking at those porn magazine racks throughout the city? Councilman Mike Markey’s got an ordinance to take care of that. It would require blinders on all vending machines selling sexually explicit materials.

Tired of big money influencing politics? Councilwoman Jaime Zukowski has an ordinance in mind for that too. She wants to limit campaign contributions in Thousand Oaks, much like Ventura County restricts donations and spending limits for Board of Supervisors candidates.

These two items will be considered by the City Council on Tuesday.

Markey’s proposal, to shutter porn magazine racks so passersby can’t see inside, has come before the council before but was postponed in part because Thousand Oaks is awaiting the results of a related court case.

But Markey believes that because Thousand Oaks is not trying to ban the sale of porn in outside racks the city should not encounter legal problems.

“This is something all the council members are interested in,” Markey said. “We need to get this on the books so it can be implemented as soon as possible. We’re not taking it [the porno racks] away. We just want to cover it from the eyes of the kids.”

Zukowski brought up the campaign finance reform proposal last month. But the council meeting dragged on late into the night and the issue was postponed.

She has slightly amended her pitch since that time, in response to public criticism by Fox and Markey, who say that limits would favor the rich because candidates cannot be forced to limit how much of their own money they spend.

“We do need to do something,” she said. “Because there may be some kind of limitations on what we can do doesn’t mean we should do nothing. What can we do so people can run without spending all their savings or taking money from developers?”

Among the ideas Zukowski would like to discuss are asking candidates to voluntarily accept spending limits, and sponsoring more public forums and airing them more frequently on Thousand Oaks’ government channel.

“Let’s even the playing field. We need to give everyone a chance to serve in public office without the perception, real or not, that candidates are being influenced by developers and business.”