Service Yard Due for Artful Sprucing Up : Thousand Oaks: Program adopted in 1985 calls for the city to set aside at least 1% of all public works expenditures for such projects.

As challenges go, this one should be a doozy.

Thousand Oaks officials are seeking a piece of art to grace the new city service yard on Rancho Conejo Boulevard.

The work must blend with off-beat decor--a mottled earth-tone building surrounded by extra traffic signals, spare buses and dusty machinery.

It should reflect the mission of workers who use the facility--to repair city vehicles, coordinate landscaping and run the water department.

And it’s got to be cheap--just $10,000.

In short, “it will require some creativity,” Councilwoman Jaime Zukowski said.

The city service yard, located in the far reaches of an industrial park on the brink of a remote canyon, might seem an unlikely site for a piece of art.

After all, most action in the 10-acre facility takes place after dusk or before dawn, when maintenance workers tinker with city vehicles and fuel up freshly washed buses.

“It’s not traditionally thought of as a people place,” Zukowski admitted.

But arts commissioners note that the municipal service yard attracts thousands of visitors each year. The city collects recyclable household waste at the yard, so residents routinely drop by lugging motor oil, water-based paints and antifreeze.

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As they drop off their junk, at least a few might spare a glance for artwork.

“It’s going to be a very visible, well-seen piece,” arts Commissioner Howard Leong predicted.

His colleague, Jeanette Baker, added optimistically: “I know we can come up with something.”

By law, they have to.

Adopted as an official ordinance in 1985, Thousand Oaks’ Percent for the Arts program calls for the city to set aside at least 1% of all public works expenditures for the arts.

Technically, every city project, including street repairs and installation of traffic lights, should funnel cash into a Municipal Arts Fund. But given tight budgets and a tough economy, council members have applied the 1% rule only to new construction.

The Senior Center, for example, generated a $40,000 Percent for the Arts fund, which went to purchase a bronze sculpture featuring a grandfather reading to children. Entitled “Generations,” the sculpture speaks to the family values that politicians often tout as a cornerstone of life in Thousand Oaks.

“The art will always be here, even when the rest of us are gone,” said Carol Williams, the city’s cultural liaison. “Not only do the pieces enhance the aesthetics of our buildings, but they give a sense of history as well.”

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After scouting the service yard site last week, arts commissioners agreed that the best bet might be some kind of fountain, which would represent the city’s water department and blend with the utilitarian surroundings.

They remain open to other suggestions, however, and will soon solicit proposals from artists nationwide.

The Percent for the Arts law does allow some flexibility for city officials. Instead of commissioning a fresh sculpture, they can spend the 1% fund in support of local theaters or museums.

The arts funds set aside for the Newbury Park Branch Library, for example, went to spiff up a nearby community gallery.

And just last year, the council voted to spend the Civic Arts Plaza’s Percent for the Arts on the building itself, counting the 400-seat community theater as a valid use of 1% funds.

Several arts commissioners protested that decision. Their disappointment is muted now, but some still wish that the city could devote the 1% to enhancing visual arts at a facility touted largely for its performance space.

“Those of us who wrote the ordinance and worked so hard to get it passed had envisioned some kind of sculpture garden (at the Civic Arts Plaza), perhaps representing the area’s heritage or the site’s former use as Jungleland,” said local architect Dan Witting, a former arts commissioner.

But overall, Witting said he was pleased that the $64-million Civic Arts Plaza does include some artistic architectural features--such as an outdoor curtain made from shimmering copper panels and a series of mini-windows cut to resemble Chumash pictographs.

And he’s looking forward to seeing a piece of free-standing art at the new municipal service yard.

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As Thousand Oaks arts backers move ahead with plans to adorn public spaces, officials in Oxnard are busy installing art on private property.

By asking developers for contributions to the city’s art fund, Oxnard has collected more than $1 million since 1985. The city has used the money to decorate some 30 commercial and industrial buildings, said Andrew Voth, cultural arts supervisor.

Following Oxnard’s lead, Moorpark officials hope to jump-start a similar program that’s been languishing, inactive, on the city books. And in Ojai, arts commissioners have proposed a law requiring developers to ante up 1% of a building’s construction budget for artwork.

But Thousand Oaks arts commissioners have no plans to expand their program to private commercial projects. Because developers already pay significant fees for parks, schools and other services, city officials have been reluctant to add an arts levy.

As is, Baker said, the Percent for the Arts program has proved worthwhile. “In time,” she added, “it will come to have a great deal of meaning to this community.”