Harrison, Lewis in Tight Race for Thousand Oaks Council Seat

Planning commissioner Bob Lewis appeared to be edging out former planning commissioner K. Reed Harrison in Tuesday’s special Thousand Oaks City Council election, and incumbents appeared to be leading in races for the Conejo Valley and Moorpark Unified School districts, according to early Ventura County election returns.

In the Thousand Oaks City Council race, Lewis was leading Harrison, another attorney, and both were walloping six other candidates.

In the Conejo Valley school board race, incumbents Mildred Lynch, William Henry Jr. and Dorothy Beaubien were in the lead. Richard (Dick) Newman, a Conejo Recreation and Parks commissioner, seemed to be capturing a fourth opening on the five-member board.

Moorpark school board incumbent Lynda Kira also appeared to be leading in a six-person race for two seats, followed by city parks commissioner Sam K. Nainoa.

In countywide races, the son of Supervisor John Flynn--Timothy Flynn--was falling behind opponent Pete Tafoya in a close race for a Community College Board seat. And in the county Board of Education race, a retired teacher from Simi Valley, Al Rosen, was leading veteran incumbent Fauvette Bean Rollyson.

The early returns were based on absentee ballots and mailed-in votes.

In an election season generally lacking in controversy, the Moorpark school board race pitted Kira against candidate Pamela Castro, who used a 1988 recall movement as a springboard for her own campaign. Kira was one of the four school board members that Castro, a day-care center owner, tried to recall.

The other candidates were: construction supervisor John G. Roberts, college professor Thomas Bryan and finance executive James D. Stueck.

In other Ventura County elections:

* Eight candidates competed for the unexpired Thousand Oaks City Council seat of Lee Laxdal, who moved to Australia last summer.

The candidates were: former sales manager Grant W. Peterson; construction supervisor Gregory Lance Spencer; financial consultant Jim Donovan; handicapped rights activist Phyllis Ellis; homeowners representative Elois Zeanah; and auto mechanic Norm “Blackie” Jackson.

* Ten candidates vied for four full, four-year terms on the Conejo Valley Unified School Board, and two competed for an unexpired term vacated last year. The district serves Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park and the Ventura County portion of Westlake Village.

Those challenging incumbents for the Conejo school board were: contractor Vance (Skip) Rodgers; retired police lieutenant and Conejo parks and recreation commissioner Newman; engineer Charles Rittenburg; dental supply salesman Chuck Castaing; mother and computer programmer Jeanie Mortensen Savage; mother Martha deBurgh; Compton police detective Michael Sean Markey and computer programmer Ken Penchos.

Retired teacher Beaubien and small business owner Thomas Murphy vied separately for an unexpired term that ends in 1991.

* In the race to represent Oxnard and Port Hueneme on the Ventura County College Board of Education, engineer Tafoya, 40, provided some fireworks by accusing account executive Flynn, 30, of exploiting the political experience of his father.

The junior Flynn, meanwhile, described Tafoya’s charges as “a desperate measure by a dying campaign.”

In the race for the college board’s Thousand Oaks seat, dentist Gregory Cole, 38, of Newbury Park, held a hefty lead against attorney Joel Bryan, 36, of Thousand Oaks, according to early returns.

The college board oversees campuses in Ventura, Oxnard and Moorpark that serve 33,000 students.

* In the county Board of Education election, incumbents Robert Viles and Doylenne Johnson ran unopposed.

Rollyson was challenged for the first time in 15 years by Rosen.

The county school board oversees 1,400 students with a budget of $34 million.