Chiding Fails to Halt Testy Council Debates

Oscar Wilde once said that although all of humankind may be lying in the gutter together, “some of us are looking at the stars.”

In the eyes of many of the 40 people who spoke before the Thousand Oaks City Council on Tuesday night, their elected leaders are not focusing on their higher calling--serving the people. Instead, they are just looking at each other, pointing fingers and leveling accusation after accusation, many of the speakers charged.

“Are we fighting fire with fire?” asked Tom Grasmehr. “What ever happened to turn the other cheek? Statesmen don’t act this way.”

A few citizens actually addressed the matters at hand--albeit in colorful, unusual manner. Dressed in combat fatigues, Suzanne Duckett stepped up to the podium. In her view, the “11,000 crusaders” who signed Planning Commissioner Linda Parks’ open space protection initiative, which is now law, had been “ambushed” by Mayor Andy Fox, who was looking to “sabotage” the Parks law with his own growth control measure.

After the two hours of public testimony, the council resumed its duties--and quickly became embroiled in testy, often personal debates about the Fox growth measure, the $75-million expansion of the Hill Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant and other city issues.

Council members agreed to make additional minor word changes to the Fox plan, this time targeting an exemption clause in his measure that Parks and others said would nullify her open space ordinance. The Fox measure goes before the voters in November.

“It can only be political that this is being rushed,” Councilwoman Elois Zeanah said.

“It is political,” Fox countered. “There are individuals in this community that do not want to see this go to the ballot, and that is because it is being proposed by the council majority . . . this will leave some potential council candidates with no issue this fall.”