Audits OKd for Plaza, Hill Canyon Plant

The battle royal over Mayor Andy Fox’s proposed audits of the Civic Arts Plaza and the $75-million plan to upgrade the Hill Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant flared to new heights Tuesday as the council voted to proceed with the inquiries.

After a lengthy and often personal round of accusations, council members voted 3 to 1 to pursue audits of the Civic Arts Plaza and the treatment plant.

In a major reversal, Councilwoman Elois Zeanah voted against the audits. Councilwoman Jaime Zukowski, who also had originally sought the inquiry, was unable to attend the special hearing.

The council plans to meet within the next three weeks with representatives of Price Waterhouse, an accounting firm that recently performed an audit of Orange County government, to determine whether the firm should perform the work.

The City Council’s special meeting was an opportunity to review Fox’s plans, along with any other proposals that council members had for independent, outside audits of controversial Thousand Oaks issues.

Fox and his ideological allies, council members Judy Lazar and Mike Markey, believe that the audits are necessary to restore faith in city government. They contend that Zeanah and Zukowski have tarnished the city’s reputation with unfounded claims of corruption and mismanagement.

“I want to restore some of the public confidence in our city government that you and City Councilwoman Zukowski have single-handedly destroyed,” Fox told Zeanah during the meeting.

Zeanah and Zukowski have angrily disagreed with such accusations, saying they have never accused anyone of outright corruption or incompetence. They contend that they have simply tried to perform their roles as the city’s fiscal watchdogs, asking tough questions and questioning why they don’t get good answers. If they have questioned the actions of city officials, Zeanah has said, they have done so for a reason.

During the meeting, Zeanah, who had said for years that Thousand Oaks needed to conduct audits of several city projects, including the Civic Arts Plaza, said such inquiries were no longer necessary.

She said city officials had already provided the same information that an audit would reveal, and she called the audits politically motivated.

“You have made it clear that you want to use this audit as a political hammer for a political goal,” Zeanah told Fox.

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“Beautiful speech,” Fox countered sarcastically.

The meeting dissolved into shouting and accusations numerous times. At one point, when Zeanah tried to make a comment to Fox, Lazar leaned forward to move between the two. “Please, just talk about the issues,” she told Zeanah.

Later, when Zeanah accused Fox of “blowing smoke” with the audits, he shot back: “Excuse me, you’ve got to be living in a dream world. You’re the one blowing smoke every Tuesday night.”

Fox has said that if a probe into the Civic Arts Plaza and Hill Canyon treatment plant unearth the type of bureaucratic corruption and mismanagement that he believes Zeanah and Zukowski have long implied was there, then some city officials could lose their jobs.

But if the audits do not find anything fishy, Fox believes that Zeanah and Zukowski are going to have some explaining to do.

The complex financial gymnastics that went into financing of the Civic Arts Plaza have been a source of controversy since before the $64-million City Hall and performing arts center was even built.

In particular, Zeanah and Zukowski have charged that so many internal city funds were drained to pay for the building, and so much money was transferred between funds, that neither the council nor the public has a true picture of what Thousand Oaks’ financial status really is.

The planned $75-million expansion of the waste-water plant--and the large sewer fee increase that has been proposed to help pay for it--has also been the subject of council controversy. The project has been completely sidetracked due to a bitter council stalemate that began last year.

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Zeanah and Zukowski contend that the monthly $7.35 fee increase originally proposed by city officials and supported by the remainder of the council was much higher than necessary. They question where millions of dollars from the city’s depleted waste-water fund went, saying that other projects--especially the Civic Arts Plaza--sucked up more of the fund than city officials have admitted.

The City Council, which by law needs a four-fifths vote to raise sewer fees, recently approved a more modest $1.80-a-month increase.

But city public works officials say that will only cover operating costs, and will not allow for the upgrades and expansions of the city’s waste-water system that they consider critically necessary.