After last week’s City Council vote regarding Conejo Mobile Home Park, it seems like Councilmember Claudia Billde la Peña is a thoughtful, caring, generous person and her peers—Andy Fox, Dennis Gillette, Tom Glancy and Jacqui Irwin—are thoughtless, mean and selfish.

Bill-de la Peña, after all, voted to keep the mobile home park open while the council majority voted to throw people out of their homes.

That’s the way it looks on the surface.

Dig deeper, though, and there’s a different story.

Sometimes, elected officials are compelled to vote for things they don’t like . The city of Thousand Oaks had fought the good fight for residents of the mobile home park, but five years later, the city was out of options.

The property owner was holding all the cards, and to continue the fight, the city would have been liable.

Like it or not, property owners have rights, too.

Former City Councilmember Ed Masry was a tough fighter against developers, but unlike Bill-de la Peña, he knew when it was time to throw in the towel. After the city had exhausted its options, when the fight was no longer feasible and the budget would have faced a mountain of lawsuits with no probability of success, Masry held his nose and voted for approval.

Masry knew the truth: Sometimes the fiduciary responsibilities of an officeholder are the trump card. You cannot vote your conscience when costly lawsuits are inevitable and the chances of winning are nonexistent.

The city doesn’t have an unending supply of cash to wage war on the owner of Conejo Mobile Home Park or in giveaways to its residents, especially now.

Bill-de la Peña knew her vote wouldn’t change the outcome. As it stands, she can live with her principles, and she probably hopes that she’ll collect a few votes at election time because of her principles.

Other voters might also remember that it was her principles and our tax dollars.