Seabees to Build Bridge for City Groundbreaking : Thousand Oaks: It will make foot traffic easier for ceremonies at Jungleland, the site for a City Hall and performing-arts complex.

Forty U.S. Navy Seabees stationed at Port Hueneme will use construction skills designed for war to build a bridge for a Thousand Oaks groundbreaking party.

The Seabees, the engineers and tradesmen of the Navy, will build the 100-foot-long bridge today at Jungleland, the site of a planned $63-million City Hall and performing-arts complex. Thousand Oaks officials plan to celebrate the groundbreaking at the site next Saturday.

City officials say they asked the Seabees about a month ago to build the bridge across a ravine that runs along the 23-acre site.

The ravine plunges 12 feet in some areas, said Ed Johnduff, a city administrative services manager. Without the bridge, visitors would have to trudge up and down the ravine or walk 400 feet around it to get to the ceremonies from a parking lot on Thousand Oaks Boulevard near Conejo School Road.

The bridge also would allow the disabled to attend the event, Johnduff said.

The program, which will take place between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., includes musicians, dancers, a clown and animal acts.

Construction of the 25-ton bridge not only will contribute to the celebration, it will train Seabees how to build and dismantle such structures during a war, said Capt. Mike Johnson, chief staff officer for the 31st Naval Construction Regiment stationed at the U.S. Naval Construction Battalion Center.

Seabees--construction battalions--built landing strips, helicopter pads and prisoner-of-war camps in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm.

The Seabees’ bridge, which city spokeswoman Shirley Cobb described as a “giant Erector Set,” is used in training exercises and is being brought over partially assembled from the Battalion Center. The Navy will not spend any money on the project, Johnson said.

Work will begin at 8 a.m. and is expected to take less than a day to complete. The Seabees will return to disassemble the bridge a couple of weeks after the ceremonies, Johnson said.

Johnduff said that organizers had only $10,000 to work with and decided not to spend it on a bridge that would be used for only a day.

“We’d have to buy the stuff to build it. It would be a big waste of money,” he said. “It’s kind of nice of them doing it at no cost for us.”

Federal regulations prevent Seabees from taking part in projects that would compete with private industry or would directly benefit political or religious organizations.

However, representatives of three unions that represent the county’s building trades say they do not object to the Seabees working on the bridge as long as it benefits the public.

Seabees have worked on at least 14 community projects since 1986, Johnson said.

In January, the Seabees drilled a well in Rose Valley north of Ojai for the Sheriff’s Department. They helped renovate the Zoe Christian Center’s bathrooms two years ago. And in 1987, Seabees cleared and leveled land on which Camarillo’s city museum was later built.

In addition, the Seabees put up tents for an annual Boy Scout convention in Camarillo in May, Johnson said.