Caltrans Picks City Hall for Teleconference Site : Networking: The Thousand Oaks center will allow business people to be linked with associates anywhere in the world.

Testing new technology as a way to nudge commuters off the highway, Caltrans has chosen Thousand Oaks as the site of its first teleconferencing center so business people can network with colleagues worldwide without leaving the Conejo Valley.

The one-of-a-kind program, approved by the Thousand Oaks City Council late Tuesday, will set up a teleconferencing center in City Hall by spring. Funded entirely by federal and county transportation funds, the teleconferencing center will cost an estimated $100,000.

Instead of driving to Los Angeles or flying across the country for meetings, business people will pay an undetermined fee to hold teleconferences in City Hall.

They will be able to speak with and see live video of anyone who has the appropriate software, now available to all personal computer owners for a few thousand dollars. Through teleconferencing, colleagues will also be able to edit documents together on computer screens separated by miles--or continents.

In sponsoring the state-of-the-art center, the state Department of Transportation aims to encourage business people to ship data along “information superhighways” rather than hand-delivering it via the state’s clogged freeways.

Thousand Oaks will not pay a cent for the teleconferencing center, but will donate the space and some staff time, City Manager Grant Brimhall said.

Caltrans expects to run the nonprofit center for about 16 months. After that, Caltrans officials hope that entrepreneurs will take over and transform the teleconferencing concept into a for-profit business.

“The vision we have is that new technology will take the place of transportation,” Caltrans consultant Connie Frayer said.

Eventually, Frayer predicted, teleconferencing technology will allow residents to scan through library shelves from their living rooms, apply for city permits through their home computers, or consult face-to-face with doctors from a sickbed. A four-month feasibility study will investigate these possibilities before the teleconferencing center opens.

“It’s a wonderful project,” Councilwoman Judy Lazar said. “I think it’s fantastic that we can be on the cutting edge.”

Caltrans chose Thousand Oaks for its first teleconference project because so many city residents commute to Los Angeles, polluting the air and wasting hours each day as they sit in snarled traffic, Frayer said.

As Baxter International’s telecommunications manager, Leonard Greenlee can see the need for such a center. Greenlee has been driving weekly from his Glendale office to Baxter’s new facility in Thousand Oaks--a 45-minute commute, one way. Once the City Hall center is set up, Greenlee will be able to “meet” his colleagues by video without leaving Glendale.

He relishes the prospect. “That drive is getting old,” he said.

Baxter, the world’s largest hospital supplier, has already set up teleconferencing systems in several of its offices around the world, including Puerto Rico, Japan and England.

But instead of spending up to $60,000 to install one in Thousand Oaks, Baxter officials might encourage employees to use the Caltrans system at City Hall, Greenlee said.

Still, he predicted that video conferencing would never completely replace driving. “The travel thing is still going to happen,” Greenlee said. “You have to be able to touch a plan and shake a hand.”

At Blue Cross, which has offices in Thousand Oaks and around the nation, a spokesman welcomed the center but said their employees were not likely to use it often.

“We won’t be jumping up and down and saying this is the greatest thing ever,” Blue Cross spokesman Greg LaBrache said. “We obviously have a good networking system now--otherwise we would not be in business.”