CONEJO VALLEY GRAPPLES WITH GROWING PAINS : SEWER FEES, SCHOOLS KEY ISSUES.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer

For Conejo Valley residents, growth continued to be at the center of city and school issues in 1996, with officials debating how to handle the area's expanding population.

Thousand Oaks City Council bickered over upgrading the Hill Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant and implemented laws to limit development and protect open space, while local school districts scrambled to implement Gov. Pete Wilson's class-size reduction plan.

The $75 million wastewater treatment project hangs in the balance, as the City Council haggles over approving the 15-year plan.

``It's a health and safety issue that has to be done and we have not been able to do it and we have a tremendous liability at risk,'' Mayor Judy Lazar said.

The state Water Resources Control Board warned the city in September thatit must ratify and submit a financial plan and timetable for the project by Dec. 31 - this Tuesday - or risk having to return $12.5 million in federal grants and forego millions of dollars in low- or no-interest federal loans.

City staff has proposed the ambitious Hill Canyon project to accommodate expected new development, replace aging facilities and comply with recent revisions to the federal 1987 Clean Water Act.

To help pay for the project, the city has proposed raising the monthly residential sewer service fee by $7.35 to $17.85, a hike that by law requires a two-thirds majority, or four affirmative votes, of the council.

But Councilwomen Elois Zeanah and Linda Parks have refused to approve the hike, arguing that the project goes beyond the city's needs and forces current residents to shoulder an unfair proportion of the costs for a project that would benefit newcomers.

Zeanah has also said that cheaper alternatives can be found - a suggestion made in an independent audit which recommended ways to shave up to $28 million from the project.

Like city staff and other councilmembers, Lazar said she is alarmed at theprospect of losing out on federal money and other consequences resulting from the stalemate. These consequences also include a ban on new connections, a court-ordered mandate for compliance and substantial fines, city officials have said.

Lazar said the city's hands may be unfairly tied by the law requiring a two-thirds vote.

``I'm willing to work for a resolution, but it has to be one that's legallyacceptable,'' she said. ``If we can't, then we have to change the law to find a legally acceptable resolution.''

Meanwhile, two land-use laws approved by voters this year will also have far-reaching implications to the city, she said.

The so-called Parks initiative requires a public vote on any proposed zone changes for land currently set aside for parks, golf courses and open space; while Measure E requires a vote on any general plan amendment that would increase the net amount of land designated for commercial use or increase the net amount of residential density over the next 30 years.

After then-Planning Commissioner Linda Parks gathered enough signatures to qualify the initiative for the November ballot, the City Council simply adopted it as law when members saw the level of public support for the idea.

Measure E, drafted by Councilman Andrew Fox, was approved by voters in November.

Although Lazar welcomed the fact that the initiative gives voters more controlover land-use decisions, she also fears it will complicate the decision-making process.

``It makes things unwieldy,'' she said.

But Conejo Valley Unified School District board member Dorothy Beaubien doesn't mind dealing with the complications of implementing the class-sizereduction program.

In fact, she's positively exuberant that the board will have to find the room to achieve the 20-to-1 pupil-to-teacher ratio in first through third grades.

``This is the biggest thing that's happened,'' Beaubien said. ``It's something I didn't think I'd see in my lifetime - I really didn't.''

Under Wilson's class-size reduction program, $771 million in state money was set aside to reduce class sizes in lower grades. Each school district in the state can apply for money to pay for the reductions in up to three grade levels. The Conejo district, one of the first to swing into action to qualify for the dollars, quickly moved to hire 75 new teachers.

Given the limited amount of space in many of its 18 elementary campuses, the district has had to install portable classrooms, assign 40 pupils and two teachers to one classroom, and juggle schedules so that enough classrooms are available.

By spring, however, the state will no longer allow the doubling up and thedistrict will have to ensure that by September each 20-pupil class will have its own, individual room.

The district will have to scramble to buy more portable buildings, divide existing classrooms into smaller rooms, and take other measures to ensure that this happens, Beaubien said. She doesn't mind the work.

``It's worth the hassle,'' Beaubien said.