Get to Know Your City Council Candidates

Three incumbents and a newcomer are competing for three open seats on the Calabasas City Council in the March 5 election.

Mayor Mary Sue Maurer and councilmen James Bozajian and David Shapiro are seeking to retain their seats. They're joined in the race by longtime Calabasas resident Jody Thomas. The deadline to file papers for the election was Dec. 7.

The winners will join Mayor Pro Tem Fred Gaines and Councilwoman Lucy Martin, whose terms expire in 2015. All council members are required to be residents of Calabasas and are elected to four-year terms.

Thomas, who has lived in Calabasas for more than two decades, is the president of Old Topanga Homeowners, a member of the former Calabasas Environmental Standards Committee and a delegate of the Las Virgenes Homeowners Federation.

She has been a volunteer in the community for years, including with the Las Virgenes Unified School District and the Calabasas Pumpkin Festival. Thomas is a freelance foley artist and is an Emmy-winning member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

James Bozajian, a deputy district attorney for the County of Los Angeles, is the longest serving member of the city council, first elected in March 1997. His fellow council members have selected Bozajian to be mayor four times: 1998-1999, 2003-2004, 2007-2008 and again from 2011-2012.

Bozajian currently sits on several boards, including the Calabasas Historical Society and the Agoura Hills/Calabasas Community Center Joint Powers Authority.

Maurer was first elected to the city council in 2005 and has served as mayor twice, from 2008-2009 and from 2012 until her term is up in 2013.

A high school teacher at the Westmark School in Encino who has won a “Teacher of the Year Award,” Maurer has long been active in the community. She was a field deputy for Sen. Fran Pavley when Pavley was in the state Assembly, and she was a proponent for getting A.C. Stelle Middle School built.

Shapiro, a Calabasas attorney, will face election for the first time after having been appointed to the council in January to fill the seat vacated by Jonathon Wolfson, who moved out of Calabasas.

Shapiro currently serves on the Recreation Commission Agoura Hills/Calabasas Community Center Joint Powers Authority board and the Community Center Alliance. Prior to being appointed to the council, he served as president of both the Library and Park and Recreation commissions. Shapiro has also coached youth sports in Calabasas for about 14 years.