T.O. City Manager Scott Mitnick City Manager Scott Mitnick believes in sticking to a plan.

He got the idea from a fortune cookie he opened many years ago at the former Chin's Chinese restaurant. It said, "You will maintain your goal if you maintain your course." That advice continues to drive Mitnick's vision for Thousand Oaks.

Mitnick read his fortune to the Thousand Oaks Toastmasters At Lunch group last Thursday during an unofficial state of the city address titled "Weathering the Local Economic Challenges."

About 40 attendees learned three important messages, among others, from Mitnick:

1. The city cannot at this time afford a Discovery Center. 2. No layoffs are planned for the city of Thousand Oaks. 3. The city remains in good shape, in spite of obstacles.

Optimism prevailed in Mitnick's outlook for the city and for the local economy, even though the country, he said, is in the worst recession since the Depression of the 1930s.

Conejo Valley, though, isn't Shangri-La.

"It's just now starting to impact Thousand Oaks. We're now starting to feel it. For a while there, we thought we were exempt, but now it's hitting us, though not as hard as the other cities in Ventura County and surrounding counties," Mitnick said.

The city's $200-million budget is in decent shape even with the challenges ahead.

"We don't have the luxury of new development coming in," Mitnick said. Development fees aren't pouring cash into Thousand Oaks like before. Regarding commercial development, he said the city is about 80 percent at buildout. But it will take 20 years or longer, he said, for the remaining 20 percent to be completed.

"We're a low tax city," Mitnick said. Compared to other Southern California municipalities with more than 100,000 residents, T.O. lacks alternative revenue sources, such as utility or child care taxes, he said.

And lower revenue means tough decisions must be made.

"We did a feasibility study for the Discovery Center planned for next door and guess what? We commissioned the study, and we found we couldn't afford it," he said.The city put $5 million into it, hoping the private sector would step forward with the remaining $50 million or more to construct it, Mitnick said.

"The study found we'd have to put at least $1 million general fund money into (the Discovery Center) every year," he said.

It's not panning out.

Money from Washington, D.C., is another problem.

"The federal budget is out of whack," Mitnick said, and California's budget is no better. "We read about (the state budget) and hear about it every day. It's a mess."

Mitnick said he wondered if Sacramento is beyond dysfunctional—possibly "ungovernable."

Despite the bleak picture, Mitnick remained upbeat, promising the city will overcome the downturn and be successful.

"We will survive all of this," he said. "The question is, to what extent and how healthy will we be for the long haul."

Fortunately, the city has political and administrative stability, according to Mitnick.

A hiring freeze remains in effect. Exceptions were made for the hiring of a new city attorney and two resource police officers.

The city of Thousand Oaks is maintaining its service levels despite declining revenue, he said, and although the housing market is also down, the city has the strongest residential real estate market in Ventura County.

"We are down, I've heard anywhere from 5 percent to 30 percent, depending on what neighborhood you're in," Mitnick said.

But supply and demand would seem to imply a quicker recovery here compared to other cities.

Housing is at 97 percent buildout with only about 1,500 homes left to be built.

And Thousand Oaks is still considered one of the nation's safest cities with a population exceeding 100,000.

"We're a highly desirable place for people to live, and so people still pay the premiums to live here," Mitnick said.

Commercial office sites have relatively low vacancy rates even with all of the new office space that's opened here. Commercial and industrial vacancy rates are in the 10 percent range.

In some categories, T.O. is defying national trends. "The Oaks mall actually had a very good Christmas. We were stunned by the data that came in. Several of the department stores—Nordstrom, Macy's, J.C. Penney's—they'd actually done better than the national average. They all did better than their own targets," Mitnick said.

Dimming the good news somewhat, Janss Marketplace had three stores close last year. One was Linens 'n Things. But there may be a silver lining.

"Toys R Us would love to expand and might gobble up that space," Mitnick said.

That potential move might create an opening for another retailer, possibly Babies R Us, to go into the space that Toys R Us previously occupied.

The Auto Mall is also feeling the pinch of a downturn in sales of new vehicles but perhaps not as devastating as at other vehicle shopping malls. "Auto dealers sell 1,300 new or used vehicles every month. That means every day, 43 people buy a new car or lease a new car right down the road," Mitnick said.

Amgen laid off some workers but still employs far more people than just a few years ago, he said.

"We still have 79,000 jobs in Thousand Oaks," he said.