During this holiday season did you go to the library in Thousand Oaks or Newbury Park and find it closed? Or did you try to get a city permit or other city assistance and find city hall closed, too?

That’s the new “Scrooge” holiday spirit provided to us by City Manager Scott Mitnick and our lock-stepping City Council majority of Andy Fox, Jacqui Irwin, Dennis Gillette and Tom Glancy.

They forced all nonessential city employees to take unpaid furloughs so they can save a few bucks to give to their developer cronies instead.

Rather than provide a place for children and adults to read, learn and grow during their time off from school and work, they just poked us all in the eye.

Bah, humbug!

Didn’t Ventura County recently give $200,000 to the city to help pay for library services? What happened to that money? How about the big pay raises the City Council gave last year to Mitnick and City Attorney Amy Albano? Their pay packages are so big they were embarrassed to ask for more money this year.

Maybe a pay cut is in order.

And how about the $100,000 financial handout the city gave to The Lakes’ billionaire developer Rick Caruso to determine how to improve his slumping business there? That was on top of the millions the city paid for infrastructure improvements around The Lakes when it was built. Did you know the city is now considering spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and possibly millions more on further improvements around The Lakes so we can continue to buy $100 T-shirts and eat $200 meals there?

Our city leaders should remember the little people who work, pay taxes and raise families here during this holiday season, including those who work for the city.

The elections of 2010 are expected to bring big changes to Washington, D.C.

Maybe the voters of Thousand Oaks will also vote out Fox and Gillette, who have served on the council way too long, a total of 28 years. Ventura County supervisors recently adopted term limits. It’s time for Thousand Oaks.
John Fonti
Thousand Oaks