ELECTIONS / THOUSAND OAKS CITY COUNCIL : Development Concerns Dominate Race : Politics: A new Circuit City and a city hall project are at the center of debate over growth. Nine candidates--three of whom are under age 35--seek two seats.

For months, earthmovers have rumbled across an oak-studded field off Thousand Oaks Boulevard in the process of building a new city hall and cultural arts center at the former Jungleland site.

Across town, a tall Circuit City store has stirred a hornet’s nest of discontent.

The two projects have riveted attention among voters on development concerns that Thousand Oaks City Council candidates say will come to a head on Election Day, Nov. 3.

Nine candidates have announced their bids for two council seats, including two incumbents.

Councilmen Robert E. Lewis and Frank Schillo say they represent a leadership that has kept the city in financial health and has steadfastly supported building a new city hall and performing arts center.

This year, as in past years, the $63.8-million project--the most expensive project in the city’s history--has prompted strong anti-incumbent statements among the challengers.

Thousand Oaks is at a turning point, challengers say.

Declining revenues and a sagging economy have prompted them to raise new questions about the wisdom of building a new civic center and the competence of those who support it.

Two candidates support a limit on the number of terms that council members are allowed to serve. For the first time, three challengers under age 35 are running, saying the city needs to throw out the Old Guard.

The seven candidates seeking to replace Lewis and Schillo are Ken Bauer, 43; Paul Herzog, 24; Bob Hughes, 54; David Naegeli, 32; Hagop J. Sagherian, 21; Ellyn H. Wilkins, 55, and Jaime Zukowski, 35.

Thousand Oaks, a 28-year-old city of 104,000 people on Ventura County’s southeastern edge, sits against the scenic backdrop of the Santa Monica Mountains. Between 1980 and 1990, it grew by nearly 30,000 people.

It is a city whose residents have sought to escape the urban problems of their neighbors in Los Angeles County.

Longtime residents like to boast of avenues free of the kind of strip malls that line San Fernando Valley’s Ventura Boulevard and giant skyscrapers of the Warner Center complex in Woodland Hills.

Thousand Oaks and the Conejo Recreation and Park District jointly own more open space than any other community in the county. About 11,000 acres, more than a third of the city, are permanently dedicated to open space.

“We all get spoiled because things are pretty nice here,” said Rorie Skei, chairwoman of the Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency. “We all kind of feel proprietary about anything that’s open.”

Critics of city government, however, say that behind the pastoral face of Thousand Oaks is a community that is becoming more dense, more ethnic and more urban.

They say residents now have to contend with congested streets, unsightly buildings and crime, all due to a lack of responsiveness on the council’s part.

“We are concerned about crime, we live in an area that has its share of it,” said Lori Rae, a resident of the Las Casitas condominiums in Newbury Park, one of the densest areas of the city where 2,500 people live within a few blocks of City Hall.

Schillo and Lewis say their plans to attract businesses and new residents to the city will rely on sticking to proven policies.

Schillo, 58, a financial consultant, has been involved in city government since 1979, when he helped establish Many Mansions, a nonprofit affordable housing group. In 1984, he ran for the council.

Ironically, that same year he opposed Measure B, a ballot measure that asked voters to support the construction of a cultural arts center with the caveat that it be built on donated land, supported with an endowment fund and constructed with redevelopment funds.

Since then, Schillo has become one of the most ardent supporters of the city’s civic center project now being built at Jungleland, a former wild animal park at Conejo School Road and Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

He defends himself against opponents who say he has been in office too long. He has been a strong supporter of recycling programs, the Newbury Park Library and the Substance Abuse Prevention Authority, among others.

“I’ve proved my leadership in the community,” he said. “I’ll continue to stay in as long as I can get a lot of things done.”

A nine-year veteran of the Planning Commission and three-year council member, Lewis, 48, calls himself one of the city’s early environmentalists.

Lewis takes credit for co-authoring the city’s growth-control initiative, passed by voters in 1980, and a ridgeline ordinance to protect hillsides from grading and development.

But he makes no apologies for supporting the civic arts center, despite continued opposition.

“In any kind of major project, you never have 100% who say ‘I love this,’ ” he said.

However, Lewis said the council made a mistake when it failed to anticipate the recent uproar over a Circuit City store at Lynn Road and Hillcrest Drive.

“That building in its early stages looked like a bloody prison,” Lewis said. “It was four walls of concrete block.”

Lewis said the city has learned its lesson. He has promised to keep homeowners informed as new development crops up in the city.

Perhaps no one is a stronger critic of Lewis and Schillo than Ken Bauer, a personnel director at Arco Products in Los Angeles who headed the 1000 Oaks Recall Committee, a group that unsuccessfully tried to oust Schillo and Councilman Alex Fiore.

“The average person who moved out here is seeing their dream community taking a turn in a direction they don’t wish it to go,” Bauer said.

Bauer, who has been endorsed for the council by Ventura County Supervisor Maria VanderKolk, pointed to recent protests over the Circuit City as proof that citizens are fed up with incumbents.

He believes that the demonstrations will be repeated when the city erects its performing arts auditorium, which will have a 115-foot tower, just north of the Ventura Freeway.

“A lot of people have trouble envisioning what a 115-foot tower will look like,” he said. “I have a feeling that when that tower starts going up, it will pale the Circuit City demonstrations.”

When candidate Jaime Zukowski announced her campaign for the council, she also stood in front of the Circuit City and criticized the city.

“There’s an enormous gap between what the citizens see as important in this community and where it’s headed,” she said. “Many people don’t realize how crucial this time is for us. They see the qualities that drew them to Thousand Oaks in the first place. They don’t realize how easy it is for us to lose that.”

A former teacher in the local school district, Zukowski believes that residents want new faces on the council.

She has called for stricter planning guidelines on critical gateways to the community, a complete overhaul of the city’s height ordinance, and a neighborhood councils program.

Development has also been a critical part of Bob Hughes’ campaign. Two years ago, Hughes, real estate salesman and former radio announcer, ran for the City Council vowing to oppose the Jungleland project.

Though he came in next to last in a field of nine candidates, Hughes said he is not giving up.

“Lewis said at a City Council meeting a year ago, ‘I don’t want Thousand Oaks Boulevard to become another Warner Center,’ ” he said. “But I think the city has plans to do that” with Jungleland.

Former Conejo Valley Unified School District board member Ellyn Wilkins has accused city officials of ignoring residents’ concerns on other issues, including gang activity.

At a Neighborhood Watch meeting in Newbury Park last week, Wilkins and other candidates accused the city of failing to create opportunities for youths that would deter them from gang activity until last year’s first fatal drive-by shooting.

“I was told, ‘We have only wanna-bes here. The only real gangs were the Bloods and the Crips,’ ” Wilkins told 20 people at the Las Casitas condominium complex. “That’s burying your heads in the sand, and I was very upset about that.”

Wilkins, who along with Bauer favors term limits, said she opposes what she sees as back-room politics in city government and has promised fiscal restraint.

A new crop of candidates this year are younger than 35, and they are urging young voters to have a voice in Thousand Oaks politics.

Paul Herzog, a recent political science graduate of Cal State Northridge, said he believes that the council spends too much time trying to lure big corporations to the city at the expense of local businesses. He believes that most council members are out of touch.

“We have no one on the City Council below the age of 40,” Herzog said. “I think younger candidates are running because their interests are not reflected on the council.”

Herzog said he would work to create more affordable housing and more recreational activities for teen-agers and young adults.

Those sentiments were echoed by David Naegeli, a musician who bills himself as “the punk-rock candidate.”

Although his trademark Mohawk haircut and skull earring sets him apart from the rest of the candidates, Naegeli said he is seriously concerned about the city’s recent overdevelopment.

Naegeli has lived in Thousand Oaks since 1963 and has watched the city grow from a small town to a suburban metropolis. Many of his younger friends have turned to gangs because there are no activities to keep them busy.

“A lot of people who have lived their lives out here, they can’t afford to live here, and there are no jobs for them, there’s nothing for them to do,” he said.

Hagop Jay Sagherian, a CSUN engineering student who works as a salesclerk at May Co., said he hopes to capture a portion of the protest votes from younger constituents.

Sagherian said he has received enthusiastic comments from youths who are registering to vote for the first time.

At recent council meetings that he has attended, Sagherian said, he has opposed the city’s stance on issues such as the Circuit City building and California Lutheran University’s proposed 150-foot tower on Mountclef Ridge. He has promised to give homeowners a stronger voice and to look carefully at new development.

“I believe strongly there should be someone on the council younger than age 35,” he said. “We, the young people, are going to inherit this city. I’m planning to live in Thousand Oaks and raise my family here, and I don’t like the way things are headed.”

Thousand Oaks Council Candidates Councilmen Bob Lewis and Frank Schillo are running for reelection and seven challengers are also seeking their two seats. All candidates appear in alphabetical order.