City That Wants to Be Second to None Strives to Lower Crime Rate : Thousand Oaks: It’s the next-safest large U.S. city, but merchants and police aren’t satisfied. They’re implementing a slew of new programs.

Second safest is not safe enough for feed store owner Jeff Alexander--or for many other Thousand Oaks residents.

Alexander and a group of other merchants and volunteers are working with police and city officials to hammer together a suite of community-based crime-fighting programs that they hope will stop crime altogether and make their city the safest in the United States.

Police records show that the fast-growing business strip along Thousand Oaks Boulevard had 41 armed robberies between January and August this year, and a similar rate in 1993.

That is far too many, said Alexander, who runs T.O. Corral on the boulevard.

“As far as I’m concerned, there should be zero tolerance for crime in this community,” Alexander said. “What I want to do is eliminate the excuses and get rid of the crime.”

Alexander and others have been pushing for the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department to open a storefront police station on the boulevard.

Sheriff’s officials are studying crime patterns in the city’s business core along Thousand Oaks Boulevard to pick a likely site for such a station, and may accept Alexander’s offer of a rent-free office, said Lt. Mike Brown.

The storefront police station is but one of a slew of programs under development.

With grass-roots pressure and City Council support, the Sheriff’s Department has been working out these other community-based policing plans:

* A citizens patrol. With a core group of about 14 volunteers ready for training, the Volunteers in Policing program could be outfitted with city-funded walkie-talkies, uniforms and a couple of cars, and cruising the street by next month.

The patrol members also would staff the storefront to take complaints, hand out information and relay crime reports to the sheriff’s far-flung East Valley headquarters on the northern fringes of Thousand Oaks, Brown said.

* Bicycle patrols. Seeing the success of pedal-powered police in Simi Valley and other communities, deputies on the sheriff’s Special Enforcement Detail are refitting seven mountain bikes that were unclaimed stolen property, and ordering gear and training to start their own patrol. The patrol should be ready in a month or less, Brown said.

* Merchants’ mobile crime watch. About 25 Thousand Oaks business owners are already cruising Thousand Oaks, looking for trouble to report to police. Last week, they finished training with the Sheriff’s Department, slapped magnetic signs on their car doors and began carrying cellular phones so they can call in tips on suspicious activity.

Thousand Oaks had the second-lowest crime rate last year of any city in the United States with a population over 100,000, but it still could be safer, said Sgt. Bruce Hansen, the sheriff’s crime prevention officer for Thousand Oaks.

“We don’t want to drop into the top 10,” Hansen said Monday.

“We’d like to keep it as safe as we can, and really the way to do that--especially with shrinking public budgets--is to involve the community,” he said. “And the community seems to be responding very well. There’s people out there who don’t mind being involved with the Police Department and donating some of their time.”

Alexander is one.

Business owner Dennis Carlson is another.

“As the town grows, all kinds of opportunities grow, and (crime) is one we’d like to keep to a minimum,” said Carlson, owner of Carlson Building Materials on Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

Carlson also offered office space to the Sheriff’s Department for a storefront police station, which he said would help put a police presence closer to the center of town.

“It’s a different emphasis between a station that’s halfway to Simi and one that’s here in the downtown area,” he said. “This is where the people are, good and bad. There’s folks here, and that’s where you’ve got to have your Police Department and their representatives.”

Thousand Oaks is devoted to crime prevention, said Sgt. Hansen, pointing to the third sheriff’s Citizens Academy--a 12-week mini-course in police work--that starts Wednesday night.

The waiting list for the next 25-member class has nearly 100 names, Hansen said.