Blue Ribbon Cooperation

Residents of Thousand Oaks ought to be proud of the Citizens’ Blue Ribbon Campaign Finance Reform Committee, which last week finished drafting a set of bold recommendations to the City Council.

The committee had an almost impossible mission: Find ways to reduce the influence of money in local elections. The U.S. Congress, only slightly more fractious than the Thousand Oaks City Council, has struggled ineffectively for years with the issue on a national level, and the political challenges are just as daunting for the city.

Surprising even some of its members, the appointed committee wasted no time on rhetoric or grandstanding. It immediately set to work and within weeks worked out a proposed campaign-spending ordinance.

The ordinance would limit contributions to $250 per candidate, establish a nine-month period during which that money could be given and mete out criminal penalties for violations. Mindful of last fall’s ugly and expensive attempt to oust Councilwoman Elois Zeanah, committee members made the rules apply to recall elections as well.

The committee, led by Jim Bruno and Dot Engel, didn’t stop there, although the ordinance was all it was commissioned to create.

Concerned that they were missing the forest by focusing on the trees, members identified other problems that residents perceive in local campaigns and crafted a series of proposed remedies.

These recommendations, to be presented to the City Council separately from the ordinance, call for:

* A campaign ethics committee to enforce the new law.

* Direct election of the mayor, a job that now rotates among council members each year.

* Term limits for council members.

* Free time for candidates on the city’s cable television channel.

The common thread among these recommendations: Committee members concluded that each would improve how residents feel about local politics by encouraging public involvement in elections and giving more candidates a fair chance to be heard.

None of these ideas emerged without debate. With a range of political views, committee members disagreed with each other on details, and some of the recommendations won only bare majorities.

But the group never fractured into the kind of partisan wrangling that gives Thousand Oaks politics a bad name. Committee members never allowed the pursuit of individual agendas to derail the common effort.

It is exactly that spirit needed on the Thousand Oaks City Council beginning June 23, when committee members are scheduled to present their recommendations.

Council members may well disagree with many of the ideas--by concluding, for example, that term limits would usurp voter rights. But they must consider each one carefully and then do just what committee members did: put aside their differences and act only in the best interest of the people they serve.

“Even if they don’t accept any of them, our job is done,” Co-Chairman Bruno told the committee at its final meeting last week.

Right. And the council’s job is just beginning.