Parks Urges Quick Listing of Recall Gifts

With dueling drives to oust City Council members heating up again, Councilwoman Linda Parks has proposed an ordinance requiring all recall contributions exceeding $250 to be disclosed within 24 hours of when they are received.

Mayor Judy Lazar, Councilman Andy Fox and Councilwoman Elois Zeanah are all facing recall drives, and Parks said it is important for the public to follow the money behind the ouster efforts right away, while the propaganda is still fresh.

“I think it’s crucial to know who is funding the recall campaigns,” Parks said. “There’s a lot of rhetoric in campaigns, and knowing who’s paying for the campaigns is in many ways more informative than the rhetoric. It’s important for voters to know the interests behind something like that.”

State law requires recall committees to disclose finances four times a year, and more often as a recall election nears. But Parks does not consider that enough, even though the first deadline for reporting is the end of this month.

She will ask the council Tuesday to direct city officials to draft a recall disclosure ordinance for the council to consider at its May 6 meeting. Since the recalls affect both sides of the city’s notorious political divide, she is hoping for a rare moment of consensus, although she concedes that probably won’t happen.

“Three council members are up for recall, so you would think they would want to know who wants to get rid of them,” said Councilwoman Elois Zeanah, who supports the proposal. “But we’ll have to see.”

Meanwhile, Parks and Zeanah say a recent letter to a state elections commission has bolstered their long-standing claims that the family of former Mayor Chuck Cohen, a prominent Thousand Oaks developers’ attorney, is involved in the campaign to oust Zeanah--a charge the Cohens deny.

Cohen’s son Thomas, himself an attorney, wrote a letter to the state Fair Political Practices Commission in December asking whether recall elections are exempt from Proposition 208, a recently enacted state law that limits local campaign contributions to $250 a person.

“Our review of Prop. 208 and its substantive changes to campaign financing has revealed an area untouched by campaign contribution limits and other reforms,” Cohen wrote. “I speak of recall elections.”

The letter, written on the stationery of the Cohens’ Thousand Oaks law firm--Cohen, Alexander & Clayton--went on to say that “a recall election is expected in our city,” and clarification of the issue “would guide the citizens of our town in the proper direction.”

The state commission, apparently deciding it was an excellent question, posted the letter on its Internet site, where it was discovered by Parks.

The answer, incidentally, is yes. Recalls are exempt from Proposition 208’s campaign contribution limits.

“It seems to me that this was information they were trying to gather before launching the recall,” Parks said. “They knew this was a way of getting around campaign limits.”

Tom Cohen said in an interview Friday that he was simply inquiring about recall finance laws due to his own curiosity, pointing out that the letter merely states a recall was expected in Thousand Oaks, not that either he or his father was behind it.

He stressed they are not involved in the Zeanah recall group, Yes! Remove Elois Zeanah, in any way, not even in an advisory capacity.

“I was not asked by anybody to do it,” Cohen said. “We’re not working for the [anti-Zeanah] group. I am not a supporter of any of the recalls. Obviously, we have our political views, but we’re not part of anything.”

Parks and Zeanah contend the letter shows otherwise.

“It leaves no doubt that Chuck Cohen’s political machine is behind my recall,” Zeanah said. “We’re talking about one of the pillars of the development community.”

After problems with their original petition, Zeanah’s foes have received approval to start gathering signatures again. Residents seeking to recall Fox and Lazar must still clear some procedural hurdles before starting their petition drives. Each drive must collect more than 10,000 signatures--or 15% of the city’s registered voters--to qualify for the ballot.