ELECTIONS / THOUSAND OAKS CITY COUNCIL : Activist Takes Aim at 2 Officials

Brian Collier doesn’t want to change Thousand Oaks, he wants to save it.

Not from flood or famine or fire, but rather from a couple of women he considers lacking in common sense and hell-bent on halting the city’s growth: Councilwoman Elois Zeanah and Mayor Jaime Zukowski.

As president of Citizens to Save Our City, Collier cheerfully admits to the pro-business group’s plans to influence the June 6 special City Council election by playing the “bad guy” and spending thousands of dollars on negative advertising aimed at opponents of candidate Mike Markey.

What Collier really wants is to see a fifth council member seated who is the antithesis of “the Zs,” as he refers to the two councilwomen. And he believes Markey, who ran in the November election on a pro-business platform and placed fourth, is just that.

Citizens to Save Our City was founded last October, a result of Collier’s growing dislike for Zeanah’s politics. She was running for her second council term at the time, and while Collier confesses to having voted for her in 1990 on the basis of their shared opposition to building the Civic Arts Plaza, the enchantment had worn off because of her slow-growth views.

“I said, ‘I’m tired of this woman,’ ” the 46-year-old computer consultant said.

He splashed his opinion across his front yard, on a 4-foot by 8-foot plywood panel he propped up facing Moorpark Road. Lit by floodlights, it proclaimed: “Vote for Anybody But Her,” and underneath he wrote “Save Our City” and “Z” with a slash mark through it.

Resident Raul Guttierez saw the sign and came knocking. Out of their meeting, Citizens to Save Our City was born.

In the three weeks before last November’s election the group raised $7,475, and spent nearly all of it on radio and newspaper advertising directed against Zeanah and her slate. While Zeanah finished third and was reelected, the two members of her slate, Ali Issari and David Hare, finished sixth and seventh, respectively. The group’s fervently anti-Zeanah message apparently had some impact.

“It’s just really sad,” Zukowski said. “When you say something enough times, after a while I think there is a residue that remains. It’s very negative. And sadly enough I think they were effective in their despicable tactics.”

Now there is a whole new election season ahead, and Collier already has a gleam in his eye over the role his organization will play. He is intent on boosting Markey’s chances of winning the crucial fifth seat on the council while deflating those of attorney and former supervisorial candidate Trudi Loh.

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In person he is as flamboyant as his anti-Zeanah sign. A tall, beefy man with a flushed face and strawberry blonde hair, he is outspoken and candid about his goals.

“I want to save us from lawsuits and doing stupid things like we have in the last four years,” Collier said.

Although he has never held elected office--in 1979 he served as the volunteer president of the Westlake Village Chamber of Commerce--Collier is completely unabashed about throwing his weight around in local politics.

He wrote a three-page letter to Forrest Frields last week advising Frields not to bother running for the open council seat. Frields, a planning commissioner, could potentially take votes away from Markey. Frields has not responded to the letter yet, Collier said.

A week from the final filing date for candidates, Collier has bounced happily back into fund-raising efforts.

“I picked up $3,000 in cold, hard cash contributions in the last week,” he said. “It’s sitting in the bank and I’ve already got pledges for $3,000 more next week.”

He declined to name any of his donors, saying only that they are pro-business individuals.

Campaign contribution statements from the fall election show he got most of his money from developers and business owners. Los Angeles-based Courtly Homes, one of the developers of the Dos Vientos project, gave $3,500 to Collier’s cause. Lang Ranch Co. gave $2,500 and Home Depot $500. All three have pending business with the city.

David Green, managing partner of the Lang Ranch Co., declined to comment on why the company made such a large contribution to the group.

“We contribute to a lot of different organizations,” Green said. “This is just one of them.”

A brash fund-raiser, Collier is pitching his case to business owners around the city. After a Feb. 2 meeting to discuss campaign strategy with other members of Citizens to Save Our City and like-minded individuals, Collier sent a letter to 25 potential funding sources, outlining an ambitious budget for the group during the special election.

In order to take out advertisements on local cable television, radio and in three local newspapers, Citizens to Save Our City hopes to raise $13,600 this spring in support of Markey’s candidacy.

Collier looks to people with deep-seated resentment toward restrictive city policies for funding. After reading newspaper stories about Albert Cohan, the developer who recently won a lawsuit against the city for delaying his family’s Newbury Park development, Collier called Cohan and made his pitch.

“I told him about the group,” Collier said. “I told him, ‘Let me know if I can help you.’ ”

Then Collier asked for a contribution.

“I didn’t get a commitment from him,” he said. “Not yet. He said he’s in bankruptcy.”

Also in Collier’s files is the phone number of North Ranch businessman Charles Probst, who made his own mark in the fall campaign by donating more than $35,000 to several pro-growth candidates.

“I might call him,” Collier mused.

While Collier seems to have little trouble raising money in the wealthy Conejo Valley, many of his financial backers have distanced themselves from the group. Green, for instance, said he is not a member, even though he authorized the donation. And even those who say they hold similar political beliefs prefer to remain unconnected.

“I have no affiliation with them,” former Councilman Alex Fiore said. “But I find no fault with them.”

“I know all of them,” Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Steve Rubenstein said. “I’m not a member though.

“I’m not a member, no,” said Chuck Cohen, the land-use attorney who hosted the Feb. 2 meeting with Collier and others to talk about campaign strategy.

Collier’s connection with Cohen, who represents both Courtly Homes and Home Depot but has never given money directly to Citizens to Save Our City, dates back to 1982. Collier was involved in a business deal with several developers who wanted to convert a motel off the Ventura Freeway into an office complex. Along the way they ran into various stumbling blocks from the city’s zoning and permitting process. Frustrated, they hired Cohen.

“I learned what it was like to go through the city,” Collier said. “There was one planning commissioner . . . I’d stick pins in a doll of him.”

The experience with the motel-conversion plan shaped his view of city politics, he said. But in general, he remained happy with the city’s development until last year, when he developed his disdain for the two councilwomen.

“I would never say they are incompetent,” he said. “I just don’t think they have common sense. They can get swayed very easily, they let their emotions set in. But they are both bright women.”

Given that he is open about plans to target Loh during the special election, is it possible that this Rush Limbaugh-loving, Ronald Reagan Republican has a problem with women politicians?

“Oh no. I’d much rather watch a woman up there than a man,” Collier said, laughing. “They are much better-looking.”

Collier attends most City Council meetings to take jabs at Zukowski and Zeanah, something he seems to enjoy quite a bit.

“We’re trying to act like a truth squad,” Collier said. “We’re bringing out what the two Zs have voted for and against and keeping them in the limelight.”

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The two councilwomen usually remain expressionless when Collier steps up to the podium.

Sometimes his cellular phone rings in the middle of a meeting, and Collier dashes for the hallway to conduct a little business.

Self-employed, he acts as a consultant to insurance companies, selling them computer software to process group medical claims. He travels frequently for his work, but when he is in Thousand Oaks he works out of his house. Twice divorced, he is raising his three children, two of whom are attending Thousand Oaks High School.

He said he has no political aspirations. Citizens to Save Our City is already taking up too much of his time. Two months ago, he was told that the lymphoma he successfully fought off seven years ago has returned. He is trying to get into an alternative treatment program in Germany for the cancer, and he says if he is accepted, he may leave all his political wheeling and dealing behind.

“I will take all of this and hand it over to Raul and the others,” Collier said. “Health comes first.”