2 Officials Win Fight to Write Ballot Argument

The scuffle over who will write the opposition argument to a growth-control ballot measure--a developer’s ally or two slow-growth elected leaders--quickly fizzled Wednesday when one of the contenders was ruled ineligible because he lives outside the city limits.

Landscape architect Lee Newman, who was vying with City Councilwomen Elois Zeanah and Jaime Zukowski to write the official argument opposing Measure E on the November ballot, lives in Westlake Village and cannot vote in Thousand Oaks, according to City Clerk Nancy Dillon.

That means the argument written by Zeanah and Zukowski is the only valid document, and Dillon will not have to pick names from a hat to decide the winner, as she had proposed Tuesday.

“We’d just assumed nobody would make this sloppy blunder,” a jubilant Zeanah said Wednesday. “I guess justice has won out.”

Measure E, proposed by Mayor Andy Fox, would prevent any commercial or residential development from exceeding the guidelines for density in the Thousand Oaks General Plan without approval from a majority of voters. Supporters and opponents can each submit short statements for a pamphlet that will be mailed to voters.

Newman, developers’ attorney Chuck Cohen and other local building industry representatives oppose the measure, which they consider unnecessary.

Zeanah and the outgoing Zukowski, who will officially resign from the council Aug. 13, are against the measure for much different reasons: They believe it contains loopholes that would actually loosen restrictions on developers.

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They also believe it is based on legally unsound premises and would probably be thrown out in court anyway because similar ordinances have never withstood legal challenge.

“Why make taxpayers pay to defend an untested law that deprives citizens of private property rights and doesn’t control growth?” Zeanah and Zukowski wrote in their argument. “Measure E could cost the city millions.”

Newman did not return phone calls Wednesday.

Zeanah said she went to City Hall on Monday to file papers seeking to write the opposition argument--only to learn that someone else was on his way to do the same. Cohen then came in and dropped off paperwork on behalf of Newman.

City Clerk Dillon found herself with a politically difficult decision to make because there can only be one official opposing argument.

Saying she did not want to choose one group over the other, Dillon announced a plan to draw lots to decide the winner--a solution that angered Zeanah and Zukowski, who claimed that as elected leaders they should have the first shot.

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Dillon and City Atty. Mark Sellers disagreed. Because the City Council has already taken a position on Measure E--Fox wrote the ballot argument in support of it with council members Mike Markey and Judy Lazar--Zeanah and Zukowski only had the same rights as an average citizen, Dillon said.

An average citizen of Thousand Oaks, that is.

Zeanah, who had threatened to go to Ventura County Superior Court to obtain the rights to pen the opposing argument, said she was happy the development industry committed a blunder. Now voters would be able to read what the rest of the council thinks about Measure E, she said.

She charged that Fox and city officials had cut short all efforts by herself and Zukowski to air complaints about the measure during council meetings.

“By suppressing our arguments and this ridiculous idea of drawing lots, they would have once again prevented the public from finding out that this so-called growth-control measure would benefit big developers,” Zeanah said. “It’s a big smoke screen.”

Fox could not be reached for comment Wednesday. But he said Tuesday that Zeanah and Zukowski, outspoken proponents of slow growth, were only opposing Measure E because he and the rest of the council supported it.

“Zeanah and Zukowski’s whole purpose for opposing this is political to begin with,” Fox had said. “It wasn’t their idea, and I think it’s rather obvious that they would never be opposed to a growth-control measure that freezes the General Plan if it came from one of their cronies.”