Real-Life Role Not Wowing Critics

Edward L. Masry will put on a tuxedo tonight and hop into a limousine headed for the elegant Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, where an actor who played him in the hit film “Erin Brockovich” is up for an Academy Award.

Two days later, Masry will brush off his navy suit, roll into the concrete parking garage at Thousand Oaks City Hall and step into a much less glamorous forum--one where his performance as a councilman is not so widely acclaimed.

Since being swept into office in a November landslide, Masry has quickly built a reputation for being a hardheaded, sometimes bumbling and often brash local politician.

While his supporters say his aggressive, adversarial style is just what the city needs, many longtime community leaders and former elected officials are simply aghast at Masry’s manner and are questioning whether he’s fit to serve on the council.

The mounting criticism may boil over Tuesday, when the panel will meet in a closed session called by Masry to consider firing either City Atty. Mark Sellers or City Manager MaryJane Lazz, both of whom Masry has publicly berated about their performance.

“He’s a disaster,” said Alex Fiore, a former councilman whose three decades of service earned him the title of mayor emeritus. “I think he’s dense, has no understanding of how government matters are handled, and on top of all that, he’s crude. Frankly, I think he should resign.”

Regardless of what the critics say, Masry, 68, has a loyal audience in a faction of the community that has long been at odds with the city establishment.

“I think Ed is doing exactly what we voted for him to do, which is to say it like it is,” said Joy Meade, a slow-growth advocate and city gadfly. “He may be a little flamboyant, but he has got our best interests at heart.”

And the councilman himself is making no apologies.

“If people don’t like what I’m saying, I really don’t care,” he said at a recent council meeting. “I’m telling it as I see it and if I’m making misstatements of fact, vote me out. I’ll sign the recall petition.”

The 1 billion people worldwide expected to watch tonight’s broadcast know Masry only as the benevolent, strong-minded plaintiff’s attorney in Oscar-nominated “Erin Brockovich.” As portrayed by actor Albert Finney in the true story, Masry helps his scrappy, street-smart legal assistant win $333 million for residents of Hinkley, Calif., in a ground water contamination case against Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

But that celluloid image, which helped Masry win 30% of the November vote, at times clashes with his real-life persona on full display every Tuesday night for thousands of local cable subscribers.

The contrast is so stark, in fact, that Thousand Oaks land use attorney Chuck Cohen recently was compelled to proclaim: “Mr. Masry, . . . you’re no Albert Finney.”

Part of the criticism stems from Masry bringing the same righteous indignation expected in a life-or-death legal battle to markedly less consequential council chamber debates about advisory committees and flood control basins.

He grills city bureaucrats as if cross-examining them on a witness stand. Often raising his voice, he uses dramatic courtroom terms such as “under penalty of perjury” even when discussing the more mundane business of government.

In long, vitriolic speeches, Masry questions the credibility of staff members, referring to their proposals as “snake oil” and spinning alleged webs of corruption that have left many bewildered.

“He seems to think of himself so much as an attorney that he’s been unable to be a council member, and the people elected him to be a council member,” said Frances Prince, a former mayor who waged the war against growth in the late 1970s and early 1980s. “This cloak-and-dagger stuff, if it weren’t serious, would be humorous.”

Thousand Oaks is a town known for its divisive politics and its colorful City Council characters, so much so that people once watched the meetings for their sheer entertainment value.

But some observers have argued that Masry’s recent diatribes against specific staff and council members have crossed a line that pre-Masry politicians stayed behind.

“It’s as if he’s looking for something to be outraged about, and he comes across mean,” said Herb Gooch, chairman of political sciences at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. “If the issues he’s fighting were clear, it would be different. He looks like he’s beating people up.”

Masry and his supporters say, like it or not, that’s who he is. His style, honed by decades of trial lawyer experience, is to size up a situation and say exactly what he thinks, regardless of how it makes others feel.

He wants clear answers quickly and has zero tolerance for hedging. Masry says it’s paying off in Thousand Oaks because he believes he’s getting to details and truths that otherwise would never surface.

Nonetheless, it’s stirring people up.

Immediately after Masry harshly criticized City Atty. Sellers at the March 13 meeting--calling him a “deaf mute” who let the council make legal mistakes and likening questioning him to cross-examining serial killer Charles Manson--several audience members spoke out.

“I find that you are a cheap-shot artist to sit up there and take shots at the city attorney, when you know this individual is not in a position to respond to you,” said resident Skip Roberts. “I don’t find it worthy of a council member in this city.”

Dozens of reaction calls and e-mails poured into City Hall, particularly after Masry called for the firing of a top administrator. Some exclaimed “Bravo!” and called him a “champion” and applauded him for standing up to the “ill-informed ‘yes’ men and women” of the city. Others labeled the councilman an embarrassment and expressed regret for having voted for him.

In an e-mail sent to Masry, Jere Robings, a local taxpayer advocate, wrote: “Let me say this in the most polite way possible. YOU MUST BE NUTS!”

Masry’s behavior in meetings may come off as obnoxious, but it’s not ill-intentioned, said Dave Anderson, a Masry supporter and former chairman of the Thousand Oaks Planning Commission.

“Ed sees his client as everybody outside of City Hall, and he’s representing those hundreds of thousands the only way he knows how, and that’s as if it were in a courtroom,” Anderson said.

Still, some observers say Masry seems confused and unprepared, making motions for items not on the agenda and flying off the handle over things that could easily be deemed misunderstandings.

“He does not go to the substantive issues, and it’s clear to me he does not understand the process of government,” said Chris Buckett, an unsuccessful City Council candidate and local volunteer. “There is a lot of grandstanding.”

Anderson said he knows Masry to be a brilliant trial lawyer who throughout his life has crusaded for good causes and given of himself to help those in need. If those qualities are not showing themselves on the council dais, Anderson said, it’s only a matter of time.

“I think we need to see more of Ed Masry before we judge the man,” he said.

Masry’s brutal frankness is also refreshing in the otherwise sanguine bureaucracy, argued Councilwoman Linda Parks, his only close council ally.

“It may be not politically correct, but I don’t see him as a politician,” she said.

If anything is certain, it’s that Masry is not one to retreat in mid-battle. He said lashing out at employees who aren’t performing to his satisfaction is a fact of life in any business, and as a self-proclaimed “old dog” he doesn’t plan to change.

“No one has called me more names than Erin Brockovich, and I’ve called her everything in the book, but we love each other,” Masry said. “I’ve been called the worst by the best, but at the end of the day I can still go have a beer with them.”

The behavior, however, can produce serious consequences in the public sector.

The labor union to which the city’s roughly 60 management employees belong is looking at the legalities of targeting lower-level people by name in public meetings, as Masry has done, said Bob Carson, president of the Thousand Oaks Management Assn.

And City Manager Lazz, whom Masry has also publicly lambasted, said the environment has created a feeling of anxiety and concern among the city’s 424 employees.

“It makes it very difficult when you have a dedicated and hard-working staff who are very professional,” she said.

Instability among top executives also puts at risk “everything related to quality of services--from building inspection to water to filling potholes,” said Norm Roberts, vice president of executive search at DMG Maximus, a national government jobs recruiting firm. “Everything that happens in city government really affects the average citizen daily.”

Masry, who moved to Thousand Oaks four years ago from the San Fernando Valley to escape ever-encroaching urban sprawl, said he ran for City Council to ensure that the same doesn’t happen to the Conejo Valley.

Though he has yet to propose anything groundbreaking, he said he thinks he has made a difference.

“Frankly it’s more work than I anticipated,” Masry said. “It seems like every week you get a new pile of faxes and documents.”

He has been juggling the job with supervising the 13-attorney firm of Masry & Vititoe in Westlake Village, which is handling the largest toxic damages cases in the country against major companies. He also has kidney dialysis three times a week, which adds to the busy schedule.

Now, with the movie’s success on the awards circuit, there are interviews with a seemingly never-ending stream of television news crews. There are tapings for cable stations such as A&E;, which recently aired an episode about the Hinkley case in its “American Justice” series. And there are exclusive Hollywood dinner parties, including a star-studded bash a few weeks ago for “Brockovich” director Steven Soderbergh.

But every Thursday night is reserved for going over the sometimes-hefty Thousand Oaks City Council packet.

“I am going to let my voice be heard,” Masry said of his remaining 44 months on the council. “I want to make it really clear: You can criticize me all you want. I was elected to do a job, and I’m going to do the job.”