City to Audit Expansion of Treatment Plant

In a tense, often quarrelsome meeting, the City Council on Tuesday hired accounting firm Price Waterhouse to perform a comprehensive audit of one of the city’s most divisive proposals: the $75-million expansion of the Hill Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Council members voted 4 to 1 to approve a contract with the international accounting firm to conduct the audit, which should cost $100,000 to $125,000, according to Price Waterhouse. Councilwoman Elois Zeanah voted against the audit, saying it was too expensive and covered only a small area of concern.

But Mayor Andy Fox repeated his theme that an audit is necessary to restore the public’s trust in Thousand Oaks government. “I think $100,000 is a small price to pay to restore the confidence of the community,” Fox said.

Councilwoman Jaime Zukowski, who pushed unsuccessfully for the council to approve a more wide-ranging audit of city finances on Tuesday, said a probe of the waste-water system would not take care of her concerns or those of citizens.

“The waste-water treatment plant is only a small part of community concerns,” Zukowski said.

The city council voted 3 to 1 two weeks ago to pursue audits of the waste-water treatment plant and the financing of the Civic Arts Plaza, two issues that have been the subject of a fierce political debate for months. Zeanah voted against the audits, and Zukowski was unable to attend the meeting.

But the council needed to hire a firm to do that work, and decided, after listening to a proposal by Price Waterhouse on Tuesday, to proceed with an audit of the waste-water treatment plant before authorizing any additional work.

The council majority of Fox and council members Mike Markey and Judy Lazar say the audits are necessary to restore the public’s trust in city government. They believe Zeanah and Zukowski have sullied the city’s reputation with unfounded claims of mismanagement and corruption.

Zukowski and Zeanah strongly deny that they have ever made accusations without evidence. They say that questioning city officials is part of their role as elected watchdogs.

Zeanah asked the City Council to consider some more general issues as a part of the audit. But Fox, Lazar and Markey refused, saying they intended to proceed one step at a time, with the waste-water treatment plant as the first step.

Lazar said she was sickened to spend so much taxpayer money on an audit she believes is unnecessary. Nevertheless, she said she supported the waste-water audit--and would possibly support others--if that is what it takes to put long-standing council disputes to rest.

“I think this is a huge expenditure of funds that could be better spent somewhere else,” she said. “But because of the accusations . . . that have been made by some council members, I think we owe it to the public to clear this up.”

However, Lazar said she was skeptical about whether the audit of the waste-water plant and a future audit of the Civic Arts Plaza would end the debate. “I think there are people who will say, ‘We need a third audit,’ ” she said. “People on the council who have been asking for audits for years are now reluctant to support it.”

The planned $75-million expansion of the Hill Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant and the large increase in monthly sewer fees that has been proposed to pay for it have also been a contentious topic for the council. The project has been completely sidetracked due to a council stalemate that began last year.

Zeanah and Zukowski contend that the monthly $7.35 fee proposed by city officials and supported by the rest of the council was higher than necessary. They say the expansion being proposed is larger than needed, and they question where money from the city’s depleted waste-water fund went, saying that other projects--most notably the Civic Arts Plaza--drained more of the fund than city officials have admitted. They also believe that existing Thousand Oaks residents would be charged for too much of the project.

The City Council--which needs a four-fifths vote to raise sewer fees due to state laws--approved a more modest $1.80-a-month increase earlier this year. But city public works officials say that will cover only operating costs and will not allow for the upgrades and expansions of the city’s waste-water system that they consider necessary.