Thousand Oaks Planners Scout Museum Sites

Proposals to build a native peoples’ museum in Thousand Oaks moved forward this week, as city staff began evaluating potential sites.

As they seek locations for a museum dedicated to indigenous people worldwide, city planners will also look for a site for a children’s museum.

By sharing a parcel, the museums could save on parking and landscaping costs, Councilman Frank Schillo said. But he promised that the two museums would not be lumped into a single building--reassuring mothers who pictured toddlers playing with paints in one room and smearing them on ancient masks in the next.

Separate citizen committees are working on each museum. A group of Chumash Indian descendants and others interested in a native peoples’ museum toured Thousand Oaks with Schillo in a chartered bus last week.

Beverly Folkes felt a special tug when she stood at one tour site at the southern tip of Moorpark Road.

“I felt a spiritual link,” Folkes said. “I could picture my ancestors walking in the mountains and see what it must have been like.”

Although neither museum proposal has yet advanced to the most critical stage--finding funds and drafting blueprints--Schillo said he was encouraged by the preliminary tour.

In addition to the Moorpark Road cul-de-sac, Schillo said potential locations include the northern campus of Cal Lutheran University, the Seventh-day Adventist Church property in Newbury Park and the former civic center on Hillcrest Drive.

Francisco Behr, the architect designing the Seventh-day Adventist commercial project, said a museum could be compatible with the mall but only if it were a large, well-financed tourist attraction. “It would have to be a really first-class regional museum to even merit being placed on such a valuable site,” he said.