BEACH DAY: Organizers are hoping that 1,500...

BEACH DAY: Organizers are hoping that 1,500 people will volunteer Saturday to clean Ventura County beaches and inland waterways. But so far, fewer than 200 have signed up. . . . “Probably a lot of people are going to just show up,” coordinator Richard Sweet said. “Most people make an event of it. They clean up the beach, have their barbecue and then enjoy the clean beach.”. . . Last year, 1,348 volunteers picked up 30,000 pounds of trash.

LAST CHANCE: Appeal now, or accept your 1994-95 property tax as is. That is the message from county Assessor Glenn Gray. About 4,600 home and business owners have requested lower taxable value. . . . “About three-quarters get reductions,” Gray said. “We realize it’s a down real estate market, and we can’t get out and review all of them.” . . . As today’s deadline approached, the county Assessment Appeals Board was flooded with mail. “I can’t tell you the stacks we have here,” clerk Connie Taft said.

ACT ONE: When the curtain rises on the first theater performance at the Civic Arts Plaza on Friday, it will culminate a dream hatched 30 years ago when Thousand Oaks was just an infant. (Ventura County Life, Page 8) . . . Larry Janss was a driving force in getting the center built. His father, Edwin, laid out the city itself on his Conejo Ranch. “My father was originally one of the greatest cynics when it came to founding the city. I felt kind of the same way about the Civic Arts Plaza in its early stages.” . . . Now Janss says of the center’s future: “Financially, it will be a great challenge; spiritually, it will be uplifting and unifying.”

NO GO: As American gunships churned toward Haiti, it was business as usual for the Seabees at Port Hueneme. “We’re not even on standby,” said base spokeswoman Doris Lance. . . . With an invasion, a naval construction battalion likely would land, but it would be from Gulfport, Miss.