Elois Zeanah

Apparently Lee Laxdal doesn't get it (Letters, Feb. 9). Elois Zeanah is the cause of the viciousness and untruths on the Thousand Oaks City Council. She always has been and as long as she is in office, she always will be. She orchestrated the attempted recalls of Laxdal's colleagues, Alex Fiore and Frank Schillo, and she has orchestrated the retaliatory recalls against Andy Fox and Judy Lazar. Yes, recall is tough medicine, but for our beautiful Thousand Oaks it is the only cure. Zeanah should be recalled; thank God some people finally had the courage to do something about it besides talk.

There's not much room for anyone to eat in Elois Zeanah's dining room any time soon. Not with the dozen or so boxes filled to the brim with city staff reports sitting on chairs and around the floor. Not with the countless binders stuffed with notes on the table. And not with the stacks of newspapers highlighting City Council decisions scattered around the room. But the former city councilwoman, whose tenure ended two years ago after she served two terms, likes it that way.

Time and again Elois Zeanah has been quoted as saying that she is the protector of small business in Thousand Oaks. I've been waiting a long time now to see what practical solutions or ideas she is going to present to back up all that talk. Her standard approach seems to be that we must keep out large retailers in order to save our small businesses. Well, believe me, if we didn't have the big guys bringing in the traffic, many of the little guys would have a tough time surviving. Does she think the Janss Mall would have lasted without Sears, Marshalls or Toys R Us?

When she was sworn in as mayor in 1993, Elois Zeanah proposed a new rule requiring developers and lobbyists testifying at public hearings to take an oath swearing to tell the truth. Her colleague, Judy Lazar, meanwhile, has taken a lower-profile approach to politics over the last eight years, devoting herself to tackling the decidedly unglamorous topic of solid waste disposal. Theirs is a difference in both style and substance.

I'm working on a screenplay which I hope will be produced in time for the Academy Awards. The title of the play is "Elois Zeanah, Councilwoman Extraordinaire, a Captain Courageous." The title song of the film will be "Don't Cry for Me, Thousand Oaks, I didn't promise you runaway development and its attendant costs: increased waste-water fees, more police, more firemen, more landfills, more cars and buses, more parks and park services, ad infinitum." Development does increase city coffers in the short run, but the costs far outweigh the gains in the long run. SAMUEL M. ROSEN, Newbury Park

Re "Impact of Proposed Golf Course Under Study," July 4. Why is it that Joy Meade is never referred to in your newspaper as Linda Parks' campaign manager and the organizer of the recalls against Judy Lazar and Andy Fox, yet Jill Lederer, who has not been Fox's campaign manager since 1994 and who has done many other things in the community, is always referred to as Fox's campaign manager and the leader of the recall against Elois Zeanah? Do Joy Meade, Linda Parks or Elois Zeanah hold some special privilege the public doesn't know about or are you just trying to make an unlevel playing field for those who have the guts to be honest?

It is time to remove Elois Zeanah from office. Our city can't afford to wait for the next election. She has already cost us nearly $13 million of taxpayers' money as she hid behind the veil of the judicial system. It has been nearly a year since we, as a group of citizens, felt strongly enough to exercise our constitutional right of recall.

As a longtime Thousand Oaks resident and City Council watcher, I am in disbelief at the outrageous display of arrogance and hostility by Judy Lazar and Andy Fox in passing over Elois Zeanah for mayor pro tem. All of us should ask why. Zeanah is the beacon of our community. She consistently works for and stands up for residents' rights. But Fox and Lazar apparently feel that they must discredit and silence Zeanah to protect their majority control. The November election results showed that the council majority is skating on thin ice that is beginning to break.

Re "U.S. Inquiry Into Spill Puts City on Short List," April 5. It is a pity that this generally excellent piece was flawed by inaccurate information. Since the article also reports how newspaper stories draw the attention of investigators, I would have expected scrupulous fact checking prior to repeating politically based charges in print. The article implied that the sewage spill was somehow due to delays in approving the bond in that "for two years . . . the replacement project was tied up while council members fought."

What do you call a person who: Has clucked like a chicken during Thousand Oaks City Council meetings . . . Made faces at speakers during Public Comments in an attempt to intimidate them . . . Passed around hate-ridden fliers about the council majority . . . Orchestrates the worst of the worst people in our community to come down to City Hall to take potshots at those who oppose her during Public Comments . . . Has taken...

Re "Impact of Proposed Golf Course Under Study," July 4. Why is it that Joy Meade is never referred to in your newspaper as Linda Parks' campaign manager and the organizer of the recalls against Judy Lazar and Andy Fox, yet Jill Lederer, who has not been Fox's campaign manager since 1994 and who has done many other things in the community, is always referred to as Fox's campaign manager and the leader of the recall against Elois Zeanah? Do Joy Meade, Linda Parks or Elois Zeanah hold some special privilege the public doesn't know about or are you just trying to make an unlevel playing field for those who have the guts to be honest?

Re "U.S. Inquiry Into Spill Puts City on Short List," April 5. It is a pity that this generally excellent piece was flawed by inaccurate information. Since the article also reports how newspaper stories draw the attention of investigators, I would have expected scrupulous fact checking prior to repeating politically based charges in print. The article implied that the sewage spill was somehow due to delays in approving the bond in that "for two years . . . the replacement project was tied up while council members fought."

As a longtime resident and parent, I have watched the Woodridge approval process carefully and would like to share the following facts: 1. Linda Parks and Elois Zeanah originally approved 700 homes on this property as members of the General Plan Review Committee. This original approval included no donation of the open space owned by Woodridge property owners. 2. Andy Fox and Judy Lazar were the council members who negotiated with Woodridge to build only 250 homes and got them to donate the remaining acres of open space to complete the ring around Thousand Oaks.

In a tension-packed vote that saw all pretensions of council unity quickly disintegrate, a fiercely divided City Council on Tuesday appointed Councilman Mike Markey as the city's mayor for 1998. Council members voted 3 to 2 to appoint Markey, who as mayor pro tem was next in line for the job, instead of Councilwoman Elois Zeanah.

The fox wants to rebuild the chicken coop. Why should we trust him? After three years of promoting fast growth and violating our community standards for developers who contribute to his war chest, [Thousand Oaks City Councilman] Andy Fox now wants to tell us chickens what slow growth should mean to us. I find this as hypocritical as a fox in sheep's clothing. In light of the 67% who voted for [Councilwoman Elois] Zeanah [in her recall election], Fox knows that his chances for getting reelected next year are as thin as a hair on a fox's tail.

Despite numerous calls for unity and an end to animosity and infighting following this year's failed recall drives, it did not take long for this notoriously quarrelsome City Council to resume its old ways. During an hourlong discussion Tuesday night that started with talk of turning over a new leaf but ended with the same old sniping, council members drastically scaled back a proposal by Councilman Andy Fox to hold an out-of-town team-building retreat.

Re: Dec. 10 letters of Bill Williams and J. Kraus. I voted for both Elois Zeanah and Jaime Zukowski. There must have been quite a few others who did the same, since both women were elected to the Thousand Oaks City Council. Zeanah and Zukowski both represent the slow- or no-growth attitude I came to love a long time ago. Most of my neighbors out here in the "sticks" feel the same. Newbury Park has been the bucolic harmless, backward "cousin" of Thousand Oaks for years. Thousand Oaks has annexed most of Newbury Park without our permission.

I am one of those people who take voting very seriously. Therefore, I am most concerned by recalls. For whatever reasons, a group of believers (or nonbelievers) can reverse the electoral process, by collecting a mere 10,000-plus signatures in Thousand Oaks. I am not a political novice. I have worked in campaigns both partisan and not, and have learned that if you want to know the real agenda of either a group or a candidate, follow the money. I see newspaper ads on the Elois Zeanah recall effort, and I received an anti-Zeanah mailer.

It was interesting to read that Elois Zeanah views the failure of the recall effort as a mandate. I voted against the recall for a number of reasons, the most important ones being that I do not believe that a small group expending an obscene amount of money should be able to overturn what the voters have stated was their choice, and also to ensure a precedent of this sort was not established. I did not, however, vote against the recall as a statement of support for Zeanah. I have watched numerous City Council meetings in which it was clear that Zeanah was arguing solely for the sake of arguing.

For a community to bond together like Thousand Oaks did Tuesday is a history-making moment. Not only did the recall of Elois Zeanah, my mother, show where the big money in this city is stored, it showed that the residents of Thousand Oaks took a stand to say "Your money will not buy our home." There were many votes from citizens who have never agreed with Elois or what she stands for. And those citizens didn't cast their "no" votes to support her. Those residents cast their votes to make this statement: No one deserves what Elois has endured.