Thousand Oaks: Revisal Underway at the City Council’s last meeting before elections

By Kelsey Stuart and Shelby Baker

“More transparency and civic engagement,” Mayor Andy Fox said of the emotional roller coaster meeting for the city council last Tuesday.

The council meeting was mostly packed with elderly residents of Rancho Mobile Home Park, an ongoing dispute, as they feel uncared for with the rising rent costs and their lack of monetary ability to provide for their basic needs.

“Most of the seniors living there only bring in $500-$600 a month and with rent at $250, it leaves little room for living expense,” Beryl Baldwin said, who has lived at Rancho Mobile Home Park for the last 16 years.

Baldwin quoted her friend who is a Holocaust survivor, she said she wonders if now, at her age, she will lose her home.

Due to ongoing litigation with the City and Rancho Mobile Homes, most participants were tight lipped with the hopeful resolutions of the differences to be handled by their attorneys.

Rancho Mobile Homes are located off of 2193 Los Feliz Drive—a hot topic zone for council meetings these days and the planning of Vision 2064. The last meeting approved the beginning process of a new 45-unit luxury apartment complex on the street.

“It’s unbalanced,” Barbara Shamoon said, a resident of Thousand Oaks. She argued against the low-income housing that, she said, seemed to be constantly centered solely on Los Feliz Drive and the repeated rent increase on the elderly residents of Rancho Mobile Homes. “A few of the council members have an agenda,” she said.

Bill-de la Pena was the only council member who objected to the expansion of zoning laws for the construction of the 45-unit luxury apartment complex at the last council meeting.

The council also addressed the progress of the Vision 2064 on Tuesday. At the first of the year the council members, after coming up with the main ideas of Vision 2064, broke into groups to assess the community’s response to the plan.

City of Thousand Oaks goals for 2014 and what has been completed so far:

“We divided up the categories, (Environment, Education..). I chose Community and Civic Engagement because I feel strongly about senior and youth services, as well as support for the non-profits,” Councilmember Claudia Bill-de la Pena said.

The council, at Fox’s suggestion, offered a public meeting that will take place sometime in December to pull in the focus groups they each met with as well as the public to get an overall feel for the progress Vision 2064 and focus on three objectives: process individual recommendations or address conflicting ideas, modify, and eliminate any redundancies.

“We want everyone to have their fingerprints in this,” Fox said referring to the entire City’s involvement in the plan for the City’s future.

The packed hall was also briefed with a live show of Cabrillo Music Theatre’s Memphis coming to the Civic Arts Plaza November 14-23. Recognition was also given to the internationally covered capture of the albino cobra last month.

. Cabrillo Music Theatre’s actors and actresses performed a short musical for the council and city in promotion of their new musical, Memphis, to hit the Civics this November. http://www.cabrillomusictheatre.com/shows.php

“We were just as terrified as everyone else,” Marcie Mayeda said, director of Los Angles County Animal Care and Control. “We’ve never had a cobra before and we hope we won’t have it again.” Mayeda said the cobra ended up at the San Diego Zoo, as the L.A. Zoo didn’t keep anti-venom on hand.

Police Chief, Tom Hagel, and Fire Chief, Ted Smith, updated the council on the upcoming COMPSTAT program.

Recognition for the capture of the Albino Cobra, was accepted by Director of Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control, Marcia Mayeda, as well as other organizations present.

“We are working with the City manager office to build a system where we can upload crime information trends to the city website,” Hagel said.

Hagel said that for right now citizens that live in county areas or cities patrolled by the Sheriffs office can track crime incidents neighborhood by neighborhood at VCSD.ORG.

Fox commented that the city would like to a quarterly report to the council, with the eventual completion of a ‘dashboard’ that will give quick and easy updates to City residents on what is going on.

“We are looking forward to a more robust crime – trend application being developed in the future city at the website,” Hagel said. “It will be in a user friendly dashboard type format.”

“In the spirit of transparency,” Fox said of the COMPSTAT system.

On November 4 the city votes on three vacant city council seats. The council meetings will commence the following Tuesday, November 18.

October 14 City Council article: https://citizensjournal.us/thousand-oaks-council-approves-controversial-new-apartment-project/

Minutes/agenda/CSPAN of meeting: http://toaks.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=3&clip_id=1767

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Kelsey Stuart is a freelance journalist in Ventura County, she is a published writer of more than 200 articles ranging from the Fresno Bee to the Ventura County Star, and everything in between.

Shelby Baker recently graduated with a BA in Political Science Cum Laude. She has done research, humanitarian, and mission work in Brazil, Bolivia, and India. Most recently, Shelby spent two months in India researching culture, religion, and society and volunteering as an English teacher. She is pursuing a career in international justice.

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