DEPARTING COUNCILWOMAN REFLECTS ON SUCCESSES, REGRETS.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer

As she approaches the end of a slightly abbreviated four-year tenure, Councilwoman Jaime Zukowski claims her share of victories - plus a few regrets.

Zukowski said she looks back with satisfaction that the city has a volunteer-based public safety program and is asking voters in November to increase the bedroom tax on new construction - issues she has long championed.

Along with those successes, however, she has seen her share of frustrations, the most notable being the lack of support for beefing up the city's public transportation system.

But as she prepares to leave for her new home in Colorado, Zukowski sees a bright future for Thousand Oaks because of a characteristic that she considers essential for the city's continued vitality - widespread community involvement by people who share her ideals.

``I see many more people sharing and expressing and becoming active in expressing their ideas,'' Zukowski said. ``I knew in running for the council in 1992 that most people had similar hopes and expectations, and I still feel that.

``We really are at a crisis point in maintaining Thousand Oaks' best qualities that drew most people here and the large employers here, and made the property values healthy here.''

Zukowski said last week that the July 23 council meeting will be her last. She will formally resign sometime in mid-August when her family moves to Boulder, Colo. She announced her impending resignation in May, citing her husband's transfer from Amgen in Thousand Oaks to its Colorado office.

Zukowski's council seat is one of two open on the Nov. 5 ballot.

Also on the ballot will be the seat held by Councilman Michael Markey, who was elected in the June 1995 special election to complete the remaining 18 months on Frank Schillo's term. Schillo was elected to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors and gave up his council seat about halfway through his term. Markey has said he will run for re-election.

Zukowski won election on her first try at a council seat on a controlled-growth platform in November 1992. She frequently has been allied with Councilwoman Elois Zeanah on land-use and development issues, leading detractors to call the pair ``the Two Zs.''

She notes with pleasure some of the projects that came to fruition during her council tenure.

Among the most pleasing was the Community Oriented Policing Program, which relies in part on local volunteers to make it work and which was partly a result of the city's first Crime Symposium several years ago.

She is also happy with the storefront sheriff's station, staffed by volunteers, where residents can file crime reports, obtain crime-fighting information and find other police services.

``Having citizen volunteers is probably the best move the city of Thousand Oaks has made in years,'' she said.

She is also happy that the council majority has come to agree with her and Zeanah on the importance of increasing the bed tax on new development to help pay for open space and park acquisition and maintenance.

But she regrets that little has been done to improve public transportation or to encourage people to use it. The system's routes, headways and schedules need much improvement, yet not enough has been done to improve them, she said.

She also backs a proposed central city shuttle linking the city's main shopping malls. The council majority has been lukewarm to her suggestion.

``I'm still convinced that money spent in those areas is money well spent, and we will eventually be forced to do so,'' she said.

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Photo: (color) Jaime Zukowski leaves the City Council knowi ng she spearheaded change in her four years.

Dusty Locke/Special to the Daily News