On Sept. 17, Thousand Oaks City Council candidates met at California Lutheran University for a candidate forum to discuss their priorities and plans for the city if elected, through interviews with Becca Whitnall and Dr. Haco Hoang. Nominees include Karen Arreola and Mikey Taylor for District 1, Kyle Rohrbach and Gus Gougas for District 2, and Victor Hayek and David Newman for District 3. They shared their views on topics such as housing, limited resources, and the downtown project, along with their ideas for the future of Thousand Oaks.
Thousand Oaks continues to face rising housing costs. Do you see this as a problem the city can meaningfully address by building more housing? If so, how much more housing would significantly affect housing costs?
Mikey Taylor: We have a state mandate that is telling every city how many units we’re adding, and we can also have more people looking for housing than housing is available. The question is not whether we build or whether we don’t. Unfortunately, they took that power from us. The focus that we have put on the City Council is to protect our existing neighborhoods. Something that makes the city very unique is that about 42% of the city is protected open space. I think that’s what’s allowed us to have a large city that feels like a small town. But there is a trade-off, which means there’s a little less land to build on. I believe the responsible thing to do is manage this housing mandate correctly, protect our residential areas, protect our open space, and protect the small-town feel that we currently have.
Gus Gougas: We live in an area that is heavily protected by open space and built out. I think the city has done a pretty good job of looking at areas where we can build out strategic areas. The question still remains: we need to have more local control over our own housing,so what I’d like to see established is the Ventura Housing Coalition that applies to every city in Ventura County, as well as hopefully going beyond Ventura County. Allow us to have some say as to the timeline, the number of houses, where and when, and we’ll work with you. But please work with us.
Victor Hayek: We’re a successful community because we’re planned. I spent four years on the general plan advisory committee, looking at our 1970 general plan and updating it for how the city has changed over the decades before. My opponent voted against that general plan. That plan includes where we’re going to develop housing, making sure we’re not disrupting neighborhoods, addressing public safety, and addressing all the issues that we’re concerned about in this community. I’m in favor of following that plan and doing what’s best for our community that protects our quality of life while ensuring we have enough housing for our community. I want my children to be able to live here. I want seniors to be able to downsize if they want to.
David Newman: I did go against the general plan, not because I dislike, as I said at the time, 95% of it I agree fully with. The general plan is the operating system for our city, and in my opinion, when you change the city’s operating system the first time in 50 years, the people should have a voice in what that operating system should be. Now, moving on to the question of how much housing we need, in the previous Raina cycle, we made a decent percentage of quota for market-rate housing, but only 3 percent for low-income, which are those firefighters, nurses, and teachers. So literally, the score is 614 to three. Now in the current cycle, it’s 77 to five. This is not a one-size-fits-all problem. We need to address our most unmet need, which is workforce housing, and that’s what we’re doing.
Karen Arreola: One thing that keeps getting said is that the state has taken away our power. True and not true. We comply with our housing element, so there’s no risk here. There’s no shortage of luxury housing around here. We need to get to the portions of the housing element for the lower-income and affordable portions of the table. I want a full cumulative assessment along the safety corridors of our risks and vulnerabilities of all the development that has gone on up and down the boulevard or the 101 [freeway].
Kyle Rohrbach: I think part of the reason this is such a serious issue is that someone who’s just trying to make a living in the city of Thousand Oaks with a good, well-paying job cannot afford a basic apartment in the city, and I know this because I just went back to my old apartment that I first moved into. It was $1,400 a month 14 years ago, and now it’s $3,100 a month. That means you need to be earning a salary of about $125,000 a year in order to afford that apartment. Your average starting Ventura County Sheriff’s trainee cannot afford to live in that apartment where I started my family in here. We have a general plan that has helped us ensure that we are putting housing in reasonable places, and that’s something that I want to make sure that we continue to focus on.
With limited resources and competing needs, what should be the city’s top priorities, and where, if anywhere, should spending be reduced, redirected and/or increased?
Karen Arreola: We always need to look at making sure that we’re building the housing we need and fostering the biotech strategy first, and that can sound a little bit in conflict, but I think that we can do both at the same time. The other part of that is budget priorities, making sure that we have spent our money on. I would like to see the Civics Arts Plaza project reevaluated for scope and, if there isn’t a little bit of opportunity to bring that money down, then using that money to improve some of the city systems that might help us save money from fraud, especially in the procurement process.
Mikey Taylor: Our city is in a very healthy financial position, because we could fund every single thing the city is currently funding for an entire year. Currently having about $211 million in reserves, I think that’s so important because our city has a different outlook than others. We are very mindful that we are not charging too many fees on the front end, and that our permitting process is not too thick, so it incentivizes businesses to come into our city. The reason why that’s so important: if it’s so difficult on the front end, the city doesn’t get to experience the growth on the back end.
Gus Gougas: Obviously, financially, we’re in a very, very good position; however, the question is: in the event we had some financial challenges and we had to prioritize our budget, I think we have to look at it and do so in a tiered approach, which is, things that we cannot cut that we need to protect, and those are public safety, fire, police, our utilities, and maintenance. So, we have to look at the second area, which is to preserve these areas, but look for efficiencies, and that might be something such as libraries and parks that we might be able to make some changes. Finally, I would defer discretionary grants indefinitely until our financial situation changes.
Kyle Rohrbach: The city operates with about a $300 million operating budget every year, and most of that resides in our general fund at 122 million, which is where most of the flexible spending comes from. Your top two things that you get as taxpayers are public safety with our contract with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, and all of the incredible city staff that we employ. I am proud to say that many, many folks say no when asked if there are concerns with the city, because they’re immediately fixed. That costs money, and so we have to prioritize the foundation of what makes this city great to live in.
Victor Hayek: I have been managing a $200 million-plus budget over the last 10 years for the school district. I’ve been through deferrals, state budget cuts, declining enrollment, and we’ve gone through cuts in federal funding, reductions in state funding, and all along the way, we’ve never cut a program. I have no compromise on public safety. We can’t enjoy our quality of life if we don’t feel safe in our communities, and that’s something that I will not give up on. I would focus on generating additional revenue and working with the businesses in the community to continue that economic development that adds to the other side of the equation on the revenue side, as opposed to cutting on the expense side.
David Newman: So, what would we do if there were a downtown? I would point to two areas that I would not cut, that I would emphasize are very important, number one being our extraordinary public works department, who spend a lot of money and time on infrastructure maintenance. It’s very expensive, but you should see what it costs when we don’t do it. The other thing is that I would continue to spend on social services that actually make the police’s life easier through diversion, through prevention, through arts programs, and through essential services. Those are important things, and they will help keep us safe.
The City Council recently approved the downtown projects. Where did the city go right? Where did it go wrong in the planning process moving forward? And what should its role be in creating the active downtown the council desires? Are there changes you’d make to the plan?
Gus Gougas: There’s nothing for young people to do here, and I think where the city got it right is that they’re creating a vibe in the downtown. They’re creating something for all ages, including the younger generation, who now will have more than just Tarantula Hill. The one thing that I think I would like to change is that, with all this new development, there’s going to be some potential congestion on T.O. Boulevard. So what I would like to see is the creation of the T.O. Trolley, which is a free shuttle that goes up and down the street and takes people anywhere from the Promenade to the Oaks for free, which will lessen the congestion on the freeway.
Kyle Rohrbach: I am admittedly biased because I spent the last six years serving on T.O. Arts, which is the largest arts nonprofit in Ventura County. We are also the largest presenting partner at the Civic Arts Plaza. Where the city got it right would be to help drive more focus into our arts. I would say an area where the city did a tremendous amount of community outreach on this, and yet I still have heard from folks that they felt like their opinions were not heard. So I think that there’s a big conversation we can have about community engagement.
Victor Hayek: A question about downtown keeps coming up, and conflict makes for good headlines. But I want to focus on the future. I want us to look forward to it now. The City Council approved the entitlements on this project. The approval of those entitlements opened the door for a developer to come in and propose their plan for that downtown area, and looking forward, I want to make sure that this project becomes fiscally viable, sustainable, and works for our community.
David Newman: I think carefully managed growth is a very good thing, but we don’t have slow growth right now. We have instead rapid loss. 1,200 people left last year alone, and 11,000 people in the last 10 years, and that’s because of housing affordability in this workforce category we’ve been talking about. So this one project is not going to solve that, but it’s a step in the right direction. And I introduced an amendment to have some condos as part of that because I think everyone deserves a chance to be able to build equity.
Karen Arreola: What the city did right is looking at revitalizing that area. Who doesn’t want a beautiful area for us all to gather? What I think they got wrong is not doing enough outreach to hear what the residents of our community really feel. We’ve heard there’s outreach, but the city could have done a mailer or a relatively cheap way to communicate to every resident, or at least a statistical sampling of residents. So many residents have said they don’t feel heard. I’d like to see the residents give their voice.
Mikey Taylor: On this project, we had a 5-0 vote, which is very atypical for something like this. When we’re navigating through the state mandate of housing, what we’re really looking at is on the affordable side. Where can we concentrate it? So when we looked at this site, which was designated as a housing opportunity, it had infrastructure. The height allowance was changed back in the 90s; we felt like this was a good area to concentrate this housing unit. Now, what am I excited about downtown? We’ve never had a town square before. We’ve never had a home for a farmers market. My kids are going to be all over the Splash Pad, and I think it’s cool that families will be able to spend an entire day there. And secondarily, on the economic point, this project will single-handedly raise every single business along the boulevard. I’m really looking forward to that.
Conclusion: This panel covered topics such as Thousand Oaks developments, financial management and the candidates’ plans for the city so that voters can determine the best candidates on Nov. 3. Because of limited page space, responses were shortened, and some questions were not included. Readers who would like to hear the candidates’ full responses or view the full discussion can watch the livestream on the Greater Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce Facebook page.
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