CABLE STATION WILL TELEVISE STATEMENTS.

Byline: Sonia Giordani Daily News Staff Writer

They have knocked on your front doors, passed out thousands of fliers throughout the city and attended a handful of candidate forums - all to earn your vote.

Now the 13 hopefuls running for three seats on the Thousand Oaks City Council will succinctly state their positions for you on Channel 10, the city's government access channel.

Over the next 11 days before the election, the city will broadcast pre-taped candidate statements up to five minutes each on TOTV.

It's the first time candidates will be featured on the government access channel - where broadcasts are usually limited to city meetings and civic ceremonies.

``The time finally has come for challengers to get the use of Channel 10,'' said Dave Anderson, a planning commissioner and candidate for City Council.

``You have to consider that incumbents had Channel 10 at their disposal forever. Frequently, you'll find taped segments airing on the channel that feature incumbents giving awards or incumbents attending some function. It was just time to let the other candidates have a chance, too,'' Anderson said.

The City Council unanimously approved a plan last week to give candidates free air time on government access in time for the Nov. 3 election. Candidates had only one week to complete their videos, with the tapes due in the City Clerk's Office by 11 a.m. sharp Wednesday.

``Everybody got them in. They'll start playing at noon (today), and I'm looking forward to tuning in,'' said Tom Mitze, the city theatres director who supervises the government access channel.

TCI had agreed to lend candidates their studios and assist them - for free - in completing the videotapes. Mitze said the cable company ended up offering additional studio time to accommodate all the candidates.

Nine of the 13 candidates running used the TCI studio to complete their videos and the four others made their own tapes.

``Our job was to be as politically neutral as we could be and to make sure every candidate had a chance to get the taping done,'' said Peter Scovill, who coordinates the government access, public access and education access channels for TCI.

TCI regularly runs a community access facility in Westlake Village for its local customers to learn how to make their own public access productions and to edit their tapes.

The public access facility was used to provide candidates a studio and assistance in completing their statements, but the city provided higher quality BetaCam SP tapes and a higher quality recorder.

``The city wanted to use the higher quality tapes, which is a big step up. It's important to get the maximum-quality image for this,'' he said.

Candidate Dennis Gillette said he still would have preferred to see the candidate statements on Channel 8, the city's public access channel, which is reserved solely for residents' use.

The government access channel, he pointed out, was intended to be used solely for official city business.

But Gillette said he was pleased with the idea of broadcasting the candidate statement together in a package for viewers to compare candidates.

``Any time the electorate has another opportunity to see all the candidates in context, in a similar setting, the voter benefits,'' he said.

The series will be broadcast 17 times. The order in which the candidates appear will rotate each time, and all broadcasts will be preceded by a statement from the Code of Fair Campaign Practices to relieve the city of any liability for what the candidates say individually.