Thousand Oaks to Sell Current City Hall to Firm : Government: The council accepts $9.2 million from Amgen. Officials will occupy another building until the civic arts plaza is completed.

First the Thousand Oaks City Council voted to close down City Hall one day a week. Then it voted to sell the place.

But neither action means that the city has any plans to go out of business.

The actions came Tuesday night and early Wednesday. The building’s sale comes as the city prepares to move into its new headquarters. The vote for a four-day week is a city attempt to comply with a county air-pollution law.

The Amgen biotechnology firm has been negotiating with the city to acquire the present City Hall, a 58,000-square-foot building at 2150 W. Hillcrest Drive, for about eight months, City Manager Grant Brimhall said.

Early Wednesday, council members unanimously agreed to seal the deal for $9.2 million.

“It works out to be a good situation for the city,” Brimhall said. “The planets just lined up. There’s fair return to the citizens. There’s benefits to Amgen.”

Amgen has agreed to pay for the city to move into an 80,000-square-foot building at 275 Conejo Ridge Ave., several miles from the present City Hall.

The city will occupy the building rent-free until December, 1994, when it is expected to move into its civic arts plaza, a $63.8-million project under construction at the corner of Conejo School Road and Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

In return, the city will move all its workers out of the present City Hall in January or February but leave most of its furniture and its phone system behind, Brimhall said.

An Amgen official said the City Hall building is a critical component in the expansion of the company’s manufacturing and research complex in Newbury Park.

“The company is growing,” said Amgen spokeswoman Kimberly Dorsey. “It will provide us additional space that is relatively close to the other facilities.”

Amgen also owns a distribution plant in Louisville, Ky., and research facilities in Boulder, Colo., and is building another manufacturing plant in Puerto Rico.

Earlier this year, the company bought two buildings in Westlake Village and has moved about 300 sales and marketing staff workers there, Dorsey said.

Amgen, one of the fastest-growing pharmaceutical companies in the nation, produces two drugs--Epogen, an anti-anemia drug for kidney dialysis patients, and Neupogen, which strengthens the immune systems of chemotherapy patients.

The company owns or leases about 100 acres in Thousand Oaks, including 911,823 square feet of offices and manufacturing facilities in Newbury Park. It employs about 1,600 people, most of them in the Thousand Oaks area. It does not expect to add any employees because of the move.

In addition to the eight-acre City Hall, Amgen will also buy a 10-acre municipal service center that the city owns at 1851 De Havilland Drive. It has agreed to build an entirely new service yard for the city in a nearby industrial park being developed by Shapell Industries.

At the same meeting, the council voted 4 to 1 to approve a pollution-reduction plan that will close City Hall on Fridays and extend hours from Monday to Thursday. Councilwoman Elois Zeanah dissented.

“It’s going to be trial and error. I hope department heads and employees are going to be flexible,” Councilman Alex Fiore said before the vote.

The plan was required under the county’s Rule 210, which requires large employers to encourage workers to reduce car trips during the morning rush hour.

Thousand Oaks is the second city in Ventura County to use the shorter workweek as a way of reducing the number of employees who drive to work alone. Last year, Oxnard began closing its City Hall on Fridays.

Instead of working five eight-hour shifts, most of the about 450 Thousand Oaks employees will work four 10-hour days. City Hall will be staffed from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. to give residents more hours to visit.

The shorter workweek will begin Jan. 4 and continue on a trial basis for a year.

Thousand Oaks was threatened with fines by county air-pollution officials for failing to start the plan by May, 1992, public works director John Clement said.

Instead of paying fines, the city has agreed to promote car-pooling and other ride-sharing programs at a cost of $7,000, said Al Danzig, enforcement manager for the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District.

Meanwhile, officials of a union that represents managers and supervisors said most workers favor the shorter workweek.

But many, including those who have school-age children, have rejected the city’s request that they work until 7 p.m., said Jeff Knowles, president of the Thousand Oaks Management Assn.

In a recent survey the union took of 86 workers in the four largest departments at City Hall, 92% of the employees objected to the 7 p.m. quitting time, even when child care was not a problem, he said. They had favored quitting at 6 p.m.

The longer work day would also interfere with workers’ abilities to attend night classes, Knowles added.

“I had only eight people wanting to work till 7 p.m. That’s not enough to run the city,” Knowles said. “It’s the 6 o’clock to 7 p.m. time frame that really impacts the time with their children.”

City officials said workers who suffer extreme hardship would be exempt from working late.