City’s Telephone Poll an Experiment in Direct-Dial Democracy

Want to scoop up more open space? Grab the phone. Prefer down-home restaurants to upscale shops for the east side of the Civic Arts Plaza? Start dialing.

With the aid of a touch-tone phone, residents here could start pressing buttons to weigh in on pressing Thousand Oaks issues by Nov. 7 through an experiment in direct-dial democracy.

Called Public Opinion Tele-Registration, the service could be set up gratis by GTE and run for about $1,200 a month, if the Thousand Oaks City Council approves the program at its Tuesday meeting.

Councilman Mike Markey is a fan of the proposal--suggested by his colleague Andy Fox--although he expects it will have a few bugs at first.

“I don’t think you can really object to it, because it gives citizens a chance to participate in government,” he said. “People want to be involved, and this is a good system to get them involved. . . . It’s really innovative--that’s the direction the city needs to move in in the ‘90s.”

Fox, who could not be reached Friday for comment, first proposed the program in March to generate more public input on what to do with the vacant lot east of the Civic Arts Plaza. The program’s premise is not complicated.

Say, for example, the City Council wants community input on what to do with the 11 1/2-acre lot east of the Civic Arts Plaza, purchased by the city for $9 million in the real estate frenzy of the late 1980s.

People with project proposals would submit them to the city, where staffers would make sure the developers are legitimate and have the wherewithal to build the project.

A winnowed-down field of projects would be pitched to the public through Thousand Oaks TV. Each segment would include two phone numbers--one for a yea vote, the other for nay. Residents could call in their opinion for a couple of weeks before the council made any decisions.

Once the call is made, “they will hear a recording that can be customized,” said John Dokken, GTE’s public affairs manager for Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. “Most likely along the lines of ‘Thank you for calling. Your response has been tallied.’ ”

The local call would be toll-free, and daily vote tallies would be transferred to an Internet Web site. Council members would not be bound by the push-button results, but would use them to gauge community reaction.

Similarly, the program could be used to see if residents want the city to snatch up more open space, adopt a new assessment district or add more recreational facilities, said Housing Services Manager Olav E. Hassel, who worked with GTE to develop the program.

“It wouldn’t provide a scientific survey, but it would provide an easy way for the public to call in and register their approval or disapproval of a particular project,” Hassel said.

The program was dubbed “Dial-a-Developer” when first introduced, but it seems to have won over its critics.

Councilwomen Linda Parks and Elois Zeanah--who had worried that the system could be manipulated by development interests--have been appeased by the fact that the GTE system would record the phone numbers of callers to ensure that no one stacks the development deck.

“I applaud having all the input we can from citizens,” said Parks on Friday. “If this makes it convenient for people who otherwise wouldn’t have their opinions heard, I’m all for it.”

Just as some folks visit council chambers more than others, Parks said she and her colleagues will have to be aware that some people will cotton to direct-dial democracy more than others.

“Certainly, some groups will use it more than others, just as there are people who are more interested in any of our votes,” she said. “I think we have to recognize this would not be one-person-per-vote here.”

If successful, GTE thinks the program might just appeal to other cities and public agencies.

“This is a pretty new thing, [although] it’s been talked about in a lot of other areas,” Dokken said. “We’re hoping that after the system is in place with the city, if anyone else is interested in it, we’ll be happy to sell it to them.”