Doing the Right Thing

By Michael Farris

There is constant pressure by the development interests in our city to go with the flow. The pro-developer forces don't want the tough questions asked and will get rid of those of us who do.

Sometimes there is pressure to give in and just go with the flow. In many cases, there isn't a lot riding on that decision; it might be a few hundred dollars when negotiating the price of a car, or the kind of pizza that you and a group of your friends decide to order for a party. But when it comes to sitting on the Thousand Oaks Planning Commission, if you don't go with the flow, you'll lose your position.

The City Council of Thousand Oaks recently took the unprecedented action to remove two Planning Commissioners, merely for requesting more time to evaluate the Western Plateau plan in light of potentially critical errors that were discovered in the Land Use Element of the General Plan. Rather than receive an educated and well-thought out recommendation from the Planning Commission, the Council chose to trump up bogus charges of conspiracy and collusion, in order to justify removal and to gain swift and final approval of the deal.

Just for background, the General Plan is like the Constitution for land development in the City; no development can be approved if it's inconsistent with the General Plan. Also, the General Plan is comprised of a number of elements, such as Land Use, Circulation, Noise, and Open Space, so a development would need to be consistent with all of these General Plan elements. Integrity of the General Plan elements is fundamental for effective city planning.

Here is the truth: There is no accurate Land Use map to the General Plan in the City of Thousand Oaks right now, and there hasn't been one for many years. I didn't even know this until this week.

It is possible that there are good explanations for these map errors and that the background information, such as resolutions of previous Council action, can back up these accounts. However, the Commission felt that it needed more time to evaluate that background information, given how critical the General Plan is to the planning process.

Some would say that it's just a coloring error and that we shouldn't be so concerned about checking any further. But with the importance of saving the Western Plateau and the convoluted nature of the massive developer land swap deal, anyone in their right mind would want to make sure before acting.

I look at it like this. Let's say you wanted to invest your life savings in a company that looks like it's growing fast and the advertised benefits of this investment are outstanding.

However, you find out that the company has inaccurate financial statements (and they've been incorrect for several years). The company shows you a huge box of receipts and invoices as proof that what they're saying about their finances is true. So what would you do?

You'd certainly want to review those records before you took such an important step as investing your life savings. You're not distrusting the company by wanting to be extra careful when making this important decision.

That's all the Commission wanted to do, look at the information, and make sure before we made our recommendation.

I have no regrets in making the motion to continue the Commission hearing. If given the opportunity to do it again, I would, even though I know it could cost me my position.

If the development interests in this City want to play hardball with the public, they'd better bring a bigger bat. I will run for the Council, and I'll do so to make sure this never happens again.