Tickets for Celebration Go Mostly to Officials : Reagan library: Mainly government representatives will attend a special community day. Thirty members of the public will get in by lottery.

Although officials of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library have designated Nov. 5 as Community Appreciation Day--a day for thanking Ventura County residents for helping to make the library a reality--nobody can get in without a ticket.

And most of the about 1,300 admission tickets will be in the hands of elected and appointed officials and their friends.

At the library’s dedication on Monday, when former President Ronald Reagan will be joined by several other former Presidents, admission is limited to former Reagan aides, financial backers and a variety of dignitaries.

Initially, Reagan library officials hoped to open the library to the public on the afternoon of Nov. 5, after Reagan thanks community leaders for their support.

But library Director Ralph C. Bledsoe said he and other planners feared that a massive traffic jam would develop if the public was admitted before Ventura County leaders could tour the library’s museum and head down the library’s long driveway.

“We were worried about a traffic jam, people moving down the hill while others were trying to get up,” Bledsoe said.

By postponing the public opening to 10 a.m. Nov. 6, Bledsoe said, the public will have a full day to tour the museum instead of just a couple of hours in the afternoon.

He added that for the first five days after the library’s opening, Ventura County residents will be admitted free instead of having to pay a $2 admission fee or the $1 fee charged to senior citizens.

Community Appreciation Day will include appearances by the former President and his wife, local members of Congress and state legislators. There will also be a guided tour of the library.

“We’ve tried to get as many tickets as we can out to the community,” said Charles H. Jelloian, director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. “The distribution has really gone through the cities and the county.”

“I’ve probably given out about 100 to other people who have written in,” Jelloian said. “Unfortunately, we can’t send out any more. We just don’t have the room to do that.”

The bulk of available tickets, about 1,200, went to officials in Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Moorpark and at county offices, officials said. But some have been distributed to service clubs and county residents who called the library expressing interest in visiting.

“We’ve given the muckety-mucks the tickets. It is up to them what they do with them,” Bledsoe said.

“There will be plenty of other opportunities for the public when President Reagan is here,” he added. “We wanted to start out with the public officials.”

Of the more than 600 tickets that went to the county, many went to county planning commissioners, county agency and department heads, and presiding judges of the Municipal and Superior courts, said Kathy Ventura, a spokeswoman for the county’s chief administrative officer.

Each county supervisor received about 75 tickets from the allotment of 600, Ventura County Supervisor Maggie Erickson Kildee said.

Erickson Kildee said she understood that the intent was to distribute tickets countywide to people who had some involvement with the library, not just to relatively high-ranking officials.

To that end, she said she planned to give some tickets to leaders of grass-roots groups who do not ordinarily attend official county events, and the rest to appointed officials and others who had worked to help bring the Reagan library to the county.

“One of the things they were really stressing is that this is supposed to be a community appreciation day, not a dignitary appreciation day,” Erickson Kildee said.

Spokesmen for Supervisors Maria VanderKolk and Susan K. Lacey said they planned to give tickets to appointed officials and other citizens active in community affairs.

Supervisor John K. Flynn said Friday that he had not decided how to distribute his tickets. Supervisor Vicky Howard could not be reached for comment.

For those who do receive tickets to Community Appreciation Day, the gates open at 9:30 a.m., Jelloian said. Guests should arrive by 10:15 a.m., he said, although the program will not begin until 11:30 a.m.

Moorpark and Simi Valley each will hold a lottery to give away some of their allotment of tickets.

Residents of the two cities may register by submitting 3-by-5-inch index cards to their respective city halls, listing name, address and phone numbers for work and home. The deadline for entries is noon Thursday in Simi Valley and 5 p.m. Thursday in Moorpark.

Moorpark city officials received 110 tickets and are making 20 available in their lottery. Simi Valley officials, who received about 200 tickets, are putting 10 into their lottery.

Moorpark Mayor Paul W. Lawrason acknowledged that most of the city’s tickets were given to past and present elected and appointed officials, including 15 that went to the local school district. But the city also distributed several tickets among the schools to enable some students to attend the event.

“We’re trying to hit a broad spectrum in the city,” Lawrason said.

Times staff writer Kenneth R. Weiss contributed to this story.