Local Race Turns Nasty

The battle to control the future of Thousand Oaks shapes up along familiar lines: a slate of City Council candidates extolling a slow-growth mantra who want to unseat incumbents accused of being too cozy with developers.

One of the four seats on the Nov. 5 ballot, to replace incoming Ventura County Supervisor Linda Parks, is being sought by Randy Hoffman, the millionaire businessman defeated by the slow-growth councilwoman in the spring supervisorial election.

He faces Parks’ hand-picked successor and slate member, Bob Wilson Sr., and retired aerospace engineer Don Morris.

In all, a dozen candidates are vying to lead this maturing suburban city. They are a highly educated and diverse group: two rocket scientists, an engineer, a pair of Emmy-winning television producers, a Harvard-trained accountant, a firefighter, a teacher, a retired police chief, a health-care executive, a marketing manager and a restaurateur.

Campaigning has turned nasty.

Councilman Dennis Gillette has been accused of using the city seal improperly in campaign brochures, but city lawyers say Gillette can use the seal in photos because he is an elected officeholder.

Hoffman has labeled Wilson a Lake Sherwood carpetbagger who rented an apartment in the city days before filing for office -- a claim Wilson says is irrelevant because he has lived in or near Thousand Oaks for three decades.

Herb Gooch, chairman of the political science department at Cal Lutheran University, said he is not surprised by the level of attacks.

That happens when a city is in good shape, he said. And Thousand Oaks has relatively little crime, is economically healthy and has no divisive issues on the ballot.

“The rule of thumb in local politics is: The lower the stakes, the more vicious the politics,” he said.

As usual in this leafy and affluent city not yet 40 years old, the debate has centered on the pace of development, preserving open space and traffic.

“The issue is growth. There really is no other issue,” Wilson said at a recent candidates forum. “I do think we can slow this [growth] down to almost nil.”

At 64, the silver-haired owner of Cisco’s Mexican Restaurant is the senior member of the self-proclaimed Certified Slow Growth Team.

Its four members are endorsed by the council’s anti-development minority: Parks and Mayor Ed Masry, the environmental attorney portrayed in the movie “Erin Brockovich.”

The team -- Wilson, Planning Commission Chairwoman Claudia Bill-de la Pena, former Planning Commissioner Michael Farris and English teacher Laura Lee Custodio -- is endorsed by the Sierra Club and several environmental and community groups.

Custodio, 50, lost in runs for the council four years ago and the school board in 2000. The Newbury Park resident has a law degree and directs the English department at Granada Hills High School.

Bill-de la Pena, 36, who works as a news writer and is an Emmy-winning producer for KCBS-TV Channel 2, has served nearly two years on the Planning Commission.

She became the chair this spring after Farris was ousted from the panel, along with Commissioner Nora Aidukas, in a high-profile political flap.

The pair wanted to delay a vote on a city plan to transfer rights to develop houses from an area near Hill Canyon to the huge Dos Vientos project in exchange for leaving as open space 191 acres known as the Western Plateau.

Farris, 33, has taken this fight to court, claiming that part of the land swap -- allowing construction of three estate homes where a private equestrian center was planned -- violates a city ordinance requiring voters to decide park and open space changes. City lawyers insist the parcel was only proposed -- not approved -- as a parks location, years after it was designated for low-density residential use.

“I want to make sure our wonderful city does not fall captive to overdevelopment like the San Fernando Valley,” said Farris, a former Assembly candidate who has a doctorate in space physics. “We live in such a beautiful place with such a high quality of life that it deserves preserving.”

On the other side of the debate are incumbents Gillette, Dan Del Campo and Andy Fox. They say their records prove they have acted as good stewards of the city’s land, pushed to acquire more open space and resisted rampant growth.

Del Campo, 54, said during his four years on the council the city has doled out fewer than one-third of the housing allotments allowed under Measure A, a 22-year-old ordinance that limits such permits to 500 a year. He favors a new city law that would require voter approval before builders can increase the number of dwellings allowed per parcel.

Fox, a 44-year-old firefighter whose more than $78,000 in campaign funds is far more than that raised by the other 11 candidates, characterizes himself as a champion for slow growth and open space preservation. The two-term incumbent cites conversion of more than 1,500 acres into public open space since he took office and his authorship of a measure that gives voters the right to weigh in on any change to the city’s General Plan for development.

A statistic Gillette, a former police chief in Thousand Oaks, likes to cite is that nearly one-third of Thousand Oaks’ planning area, about 15,000 acres, is public open space. That does not include public parks, golf courses, school campuses or other publicly held properties. Gillette, 62, was on the Conejo Recreation and Park District’s board when it acquired both McCrea Ranch and Broome Ranch for permanent open space.

Hoffman, 48, is running on his seven-month record as a city planning commissioner. Hoffman, who teaches management and finance classes at Cal State Channel Islands, said he has been an independent voice on the commission. He said he has voted to protect ridgelines and open space and supported affordable housing for seniors and working families.

Looking past housing construction, several candidates suggest the next council will have its hands full addressing a principal by-product of growth: traffic.

Morris, 58, a retired Rockwell engineer, said some improvements could include realigning street lanes, retiming traffic lights and enhancing the city’s transportation center. But projects such as widening the Ventura Freeway near clogged California 23 will require pressure on Caltrans.

David Seagal, 72, a structural engineer making a third run for the council, encourages greater reliance on ride-sharing, park-and-ride lots, carpool lanes and giving employees staggered work hours.

In the future, he said, the billions of dollars spent on expanding freeways could instead go to install rail systems along existing rights of way to accommodate people and drivers of compact, hybrid automobiles. He also wants to overhaul the city’s administrative processes and cut cost overruns on construction bids.

Concerned about Los Angeles criminals who drop into Thousand Oaks to rob banks and shoppers, television producer and multimedia entrepreneur David Sams, 44, proposes placing security cameras at schools, malls, every major intersection and public gathering places.

“We need to send a clear-cut warning to the bad guys who travel up and down the 101 that they are not welcome,” he said.

Sams said he wants to run the city like a private business by putting corporate banners along main thoroughfares for a price. He moved his family from Bel-Air to Thousand Oaks two years ago.

Another relative newcomer is health-care executive Rick Velasquez, 33, who purchased his first home in Thousand Oaks in March 2001. Velasquez, who served nearly 10 years as an aide to two Los Angeles County supervisors, supports ongoing audits of city departments to guarantee efficiency, investing in youth programs, preserving open space, retaining existing businesses and attracting new ones to the city.