ACTIVISTS CALL FOR RECALL OF T.O. OFFICIALS : DRIVE TARGETS MAYOR, COUNCILMAN.

Byline: Gloria Gonzales Daily News Staff Writer

In a move bringing election-style campaigning to Thousand Oaks more than a year away from the next City Council contest, slow-growth activists began recall efforts Wednesday against Mayor Judy Lazar and Councilman Andy Fox.

Kitty Radler and Tommi Denney vow to make good on a public promise to oust the two council members. They still must file the formal recall notice with the city clerk, yet they contend the drive has begun.

``I've had nine phone calls just this afternoon from people wanting to circulate petitions,'' Radler said Wednesday.

Radler and Denney are leaders of the group, ``Recall Fox and Lazar.'' They served Lazar and Fox with papers informing them about the planned recall drive just before Tuesday night's council meeting. Lazar opened her envelope and read the grounds for recall just before a session to set council goals. Fox said he did not open his envelope until after the meeting.

The grounds for recall make no mention of the continuing attempt to recall Councilwoman Elois Zeanah.

Radler, though, said the latest recall effort would level the playing the field.

``It's definitely not a you-hit-me, I'll-hit-you-back situation,'' Radler said. ``But there are no grounds to recall Zeanah. Why not let the citizens vote in 1998?

``If they're going to spend $100,000 for a special (recall) election for Zeanah, let's put them all up to a vote - they're all up for re-election a year early.''

The four-year council terms for Zeanah, Lazar and Fox run through 1998.

Peter Turpel, the businessman spearheading the drive to recall Zeanah, said the group expects to gather enough signatures to schedule a June 3 special election.

Council members Michael Markey - who together with Lazar and Fox makes up the council's majority on many votes - and Linda Parks - a Zeanah ally - cannot be targeted for recall because they were elected last fall. The California Election Code prohibits recall efforts against officials who have been in office less than six months.

Like the ``Yes! Recall Elois Zeanah!'' group, the latest recall effort would have to gather 10,357 signatures from registered voters against each council member. That number equals 15 percent of the city's 60,049 registered voters.

Turpel said Wednesday that the Zeanah recall effort had surpassed the 7,000 mark. He added that Progressive Campaigns, the paid-signature gathering firm the group is using, had checked a sample of the signatures and found 80 percent of them valid.

The campaign to recall Zeanah already has resulted in mailers and radio and newspaper ads. The fight has also caused scuffles between the two camps at petition-signing sites and complaints from both sides to the District Attorney's Office.

All that costs money, and campaigners can spend more in recalls than they can in regular elections. Limits set forth by Proposition 208 apply to elections but not to ballot measures or recalls, said Gary Huckaby, spokesman for the Fair Political Practices Commission.

``They are spending tremendous amounts of money,'' Radler said. ``And we won't know where any of it came from until after the election.''

The recall groups only have to disclose financial information every six months. Since they formed in December, June would be the earliest they would have to disclose who funded the effort.

Radler said that because they had strong grass-roots support, they would not need large amounts of money.

``This is strictly a grass-roots, volunteer effort,'' Radler said. ``We won't have radio ads or mailers - those are essentially campaign materials that are being distributed.''

The recall notice served to both Lazar and Fox listed several grounds for the recall. They include voting for a $135,000 waste water treatment audit and then disregarding the audit results, refusing to charge developers for their fair share of police, park and sewer services, and voting to raise sewer rates. Fox called the recall effort retaliatory Wednesday, though Fox said he was always concerned when a citizen expressed dissatisfaction with his service.

Both Lazar and Fox called the grounds for recall inaccurate.

``I'm appalled,'' Lazar said of the notice. ``Half of it is lies and the other half is half-truths.''

The divided council was unanimous in its opinion that the recall efforts were divisive and frustrating.

``I've said before that I'm against any recall, even Zeanah's,'' Lazar said. ``This shows us that we have a very divided community.''

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2 Photos

Photo: (1--Ran in Conejo only--color) LAZAR

(2--Ran in Conejo only--color) FOX