Panelist Retained in Blow to Parks

Dealing new Mayor Linda Parks a political defeat, the City Council has refused to oust one of her former political allies from the Planning Commission.

The council, in a 2-2 stalemate with one abstention, turned back Parks’ request to replace Dave Anderson--midway through his four-year term--with outgoing Planning Commissioner Marilyn Carpenter, a 40-year veteran of Thousand Oaks’ planning issues.

The vote was a dramatic political loss for Parks, who had gambled she could persuade at least one of her council rivals to agree to remove her own former nominee to the commission, just weeks after taking over as mayor.

But Parks garnered only the support of newly elected Councilman Dan Del Campo--her running mate in the 1996 council race--while Councilmen Michael Markey and Dennis Gillette opposed the motion and Councilman Andy Fox abstained.

Parks has said she supported the reshuffling only to keep Carpenter’s considerable expertise on the board. But her critics have complained the move was political payback for Anderson’s campaign against candidates that Parks had endorsed in the Nov. 3 council election.

Ultimately, however, council members who had rejected Parks’ motion cited only their interest in protecting the process of city government.

“I have some grave concerns, and it doesn’t deal with personalities,” Gillette said during the Tuesday meeting. “My concern is with the process. One of the single most significant acts that a council member makes is the nomination of a planning commissioner.

“But once that decision is made, and the council accepts that commissioner, it is no longer a council member’s commissioner--it becomes the city’s commissioner,” said Gillette.

Anderson did not attend the meeting Tuesday night, but after the vote he urged council members to bury their animosity and move on with the business of the city.