BETS OFF: Here’s a sure thing: Wagering...

BETS OFF: Here’s a sure thing: Wagering at the Ventura Fairgrounds’ off-track facility will plummet when the fair starts Aug. 18. “A lot don’t come because of the congestion,” spokeswoman Teri Raley said. . . . Bettors also pay $2 more and watch the races from a tent during the fair. . . . Gambling accounts for nearly half of the fair board’s $5.9-million budget, so it hopes to open a new off-track building next year, Raley said. “We don’t want to make them mad.”

CIVIC SETBACK: When they doped out the financing for their $64-million Civic Arts Plaza, Thousand Oaks officials counted on selling a former city hall for $12.2 million. Now a citizens committee says the city will be lucky to get two-thirds that amount (B4). . . . The city was already scrambling to make up for a $2-million shortfall in the project’s budget. . . . Councilwoman Elois Zeanah, a longtime foe of the arts plaza, was quick with an I-told-you-so: “Everything on this project has gone wrong from the very beginning.”

TOAD RELIEF: Efforts to save one of Ventura County’s threatened species--the arroyo toad--have taken a big hop forward. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to put the tiny amphibian on the endangered species list. . . . Most of the remaining toads live in Los Padres National Forest but are threatened by campers and off-road vehicles. Saving the toad will preserve habitat for “a whole series of amphibians and reptiles close to extinction,” said UC Santa Barbara biologist Sam Sweet.

ROCK FIGHT: Ventura County is trying to reclaim Toland Park, which was leased for rock mining after a 1982 fire (B1). . . . Rocks from Toland Park have long provided a peaceful respite to students at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson, which picked up 30 boulders for a rock garden in 1977. . . . At the Gardena Library, patrons meditate upon a Japanese garden built with stones hauled in from Steckel Park. “It’s very relaxing,” librarian Shirley Moromisato said.