Candidate for
Council Member; City of Thousand Oaks; 4 Year Term

Private Life

Growing Up in a Small Town

Michael Farris was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, at the United States Air Force Academy, on November 19, 1968. His parents, Donald (a Vietnam War veteran) and Judy (a school teacher), soon moved their family to the Los Angeles area to begin work in the booming aircraft industry. Michael's younger brother, Jason, was born in 1973.

As big city issues such as crime, poor performing schools, traffic, and congestion mounted in Los Angeles, Michael's family moved back to the Midwest. Settling in Virden, Illinois (population 3800), Michael attended an elementary school with seven rooms, one for each grade from K-6.

Later, the family moved to Brillion, Wisconsin (population 2900), where Michael graduated from high school in 1986 with honors in a class of just over 90 students. Growing up in a small town gave Michael the appreciation for the simple pleasures of life, safety, family, and friendship.

Michael was also instilled with the values of hard work. In the summer, he would take a job pulling weeds from soybean fields and bailing hay for $2.50 an hour. During the school year, Michael worked at the local grocery store as a bagging clerk. He also worked at the local factory making parts for lawnmowers.

Michael earned an award from the Mathematical Association of America as a junior, and the next year, he earned the Eagle Scout Award, the highest award in the Boy Scouts of America.

Rocket Science

After high school, Michael attended the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, where he was one of two Physics majors in a graduating class of 2000 students. He graduated in 1990 with cum laude honors, obtaining a Bachelor of Science in Physics and a minor in Mathematics.

Michael was then awarded a Space Science research assistantship from UCLA, so he returned to Los Angeles to attend graduate school. While at UCLA, Michael received an Outstanding Student Paper Award from the American Geophysical Union and a Young Scientist Grant to attend an international scientific conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

While it usually takes five years to receive scientific graduate degrees, Michael received both his Masters of Science and Doctorate of Philosophy degrees in three years. His comprehensive studies of collisionless shock waves in front of planets allowed him to receive his Ph.D. in Space Physics in 1993.

Business Professional

Michael went on to work in high technology after his studies at UCLA. Granted Top Secret and higher clearances from the Department of Defense, Michael led research efforts at Arete Associates as Senior Scientist. After seven years in the defense industry, Michael entered the business side of technology companies, serving as Director of Sales and Marketing for Elanix and as Marketing Manager for Mentor Graphics.

Family Life

Michael met Stephanie while attending UCLA in 1992. In less than a year, they were engaged, and married a year later on December 3, 1993. Michael and Stephanie grew their family with the addition of their daughter, Monroe Savannah, in 1999.

Stephanie is a well-respected educator, serving as a teacher in the Conejo Valley Unified School District. She has given presentations for Cal State-Northridge, Cal State-Channel Islands, Los Angeles Unified School District, and the Ventura County Superintendent of Schools office on techniques for effectively teaching students learning English as their second language.

While she still gives presentations and tutors students occasionally, Stephanie is now a full-time mom to Monroe. Michael and Stephanie enjoy relaxing and reading in their quiet Newbury Park neighborhood, while Monroe enjoys ice cream and is an avid blower of bubbles.

Public Service

Action, Not Just Talk

Michael Farris has been active for causes that he believes in and for issues where people want action, not just talk. In 1995, Farris organized the Conejo Valley effort to collect signatures for Proposition 208, the voter-initiated campaign finance reform measure. Prop 208 passed, establishing the first real contribution limits for state and local candidates.

In 1997, when the developer-backed efforts to recall Slow-Growth Councilmember Elois Zeanah gained momentum, Farris appeared in a resident documentary, opposing the obscene amounts of money that were being spent to recall her. The Recall was defeated by a 2 -1 margin.

The next year, Farris helped to collect signatures for Ventura County SOAR (Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources) and the Thousand Oaks CURB (City Urban Restriction Boundary) measures. In order to stop urban sprawl, the voters would have the right to approve decisions which would seek to develop open space, farmland, or expand the Thousand Oaks city limits. These measures were approved by the voters in 1998.

Local Leadership

Michael Farris has served as a leader in Thousand Oaks since he and his family moved to the Conejo Valley in 1994.

In 1998, Farris served on the Thousand Oaks Blue Ribbon Campaign Finance Reform Committee. This committee established the current campaign limits on Council candidates, limiting the excessive amounts of money that candidates can receive from outside sources.

In 1999, Farris was appointed to the Thousand Oaks Planning Commission. During his tenure, he led efforts to:

Support Residents

• Increase public hearing notices to a minimum of 14 days
• Allow the public a minimum of three minutes to speak at Commission meetings, abolishing the one minute limit
• Retain the opportunity of a City recreational tennis facility at Racquet Villas
• Modify the terms used in our Municipal Code to better reflect the diversity of religions practiced within the Thousand Oaks community

• Zone more lands within the city as open space
• Limit development on protected ridgelines
• Support the Ahwahnee Principles, development principles for building prosperous and livable communities

• Prevent violations of building height limits by developers
• Stop excessive waivers from city's development standards
• Reduce the number of time extensions for development permits
• Enact statutes that further regulate wireless antennas and prevent over-intensification of antenna arrays
• Oppose the unnecessary storage of Auto Mall vehicles on undeveloped property.

Independence and Integrity

Michael Farris has always shown his independence as a public leader and his willingness to dig deep for the hidden impacts of development projects and city policies. As we all know, the devil is in the details.

When the plan to preserve the Western Plateau was being considered, Farris asked targeted questions about the deal, finding that city maps had been altered, protected lands suddenly became "unprotected", and laws were being reinterpreted to conveniently favor the developers.

Farris also found that a "quid pro quo" was being pushed; developers would pay $2.5 million for houses to be built on protected open space. This land, called Broome Ranch Addition, is an area identified in the City's General Plan as an "area with important open space resources ... having exceptional scenic qualities" ... and "to be protected."

However, in actions that have been described as the St. Valentine's Eve Massacre, the pro-development City Council majority called for a special meeting to remove Farris from the Planning Commission, making an "emergency" appointment to rubber-stamp the deal. They went further to conjure up bogus allegations of conspiracy to violate public meeting laws, calling for a District Attorney investigation against Farris.

The District Attorney quickly dismissed the allegations as having "no reasonable basis for having been alleged" in the first place. The local newspapers blasted the firing as unwarranted and politically motivated.

Since the Massacre, Michael Farris has vowed to continue fighting for residents in upholding our city standards and preventing overdevelopment. Farris has challenged the approval of houses on protected open space on Broome Ranch Addition and is seeking a seat on the Thousand Oaks City Council