Arts Plaza Drains Funds for City Projects : Thousand Oaks: Downtown fix-up work takes a back seat. Doubts cloud a promised school theater and stadium.

Set up 15 years ago to beautify an eclectic jumble of small businesses, Thousand Oaks’ downtown Redevelopment Agency has poured so much money into the Civic Arts Plaza that virtually no funds remain for traditional spruce-up projects, such as planting trees, patching roofs or painting facades.

Bare coffers have forced Redevelopment Agency administrators to cancel two programs aimed at perking up faded storefronts and attracting new customers to Thousand Oaks Boulevard, assistant planner Haider Alawami said.

And now officials are hinting that the Redevelopment Agency may be hard pressed to fulfill its decade-old pledge to build a theater and stadium for local students.

“Something is wrong,” said Councilwoman Elois Zeanah, long a critic of the city’s Redevelopment Agency. “Someone should be held accountable.”

In a public hearing on Tuesday, council members are scheduled to debate how redevelopment funds can best be used to cure blighted pockets along the four-mile downtown strip of Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

Yet the entire discussion will be moot.

Squeezed by the stubborn recession and burdened by heavy debt, the Redevelopment Agency will have no money for projects this fiscal year, according to Paul Farr, the city’s redevelopment administrator. Predicting a continuing cash shortage, Farr recommends a total halt to boulevard revitalization projects for the next five years.

That means no more grants to build wheelchair ramps, no more money to pave parking lots, no more aid to update dowdy decor.

“You can’t spend what you don’t have,” Farr said.

Despite the cash crunch, council members, who also serve as redevelopment directors, have promised to come up with $3.3 million in redevelopment funds over the next 2 1/2 years for a stadium at Westlake High School and a theater at Thousand Oaks High School.

To meet that commitment, Farr and City Manager Grant Brimhall said they will seek to refinance Redevelopment Agency bonds next winter.

But even as he outlined that plan, Brimhall characterized the school projects as a “goal” and a “hope,” not a done deal. For his part, Farr described the refinancing scheme as a “possibility.”

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If national interest rates continue to rise, the city may have trouble refinancing the bonds--and trouble paying for the school facilities, officials said.

Just last week, a top federal official hinted that interest rates could jump again soon, a move that would seriously crimp Thousand Oaks’ plans for the school theater and stadium.

The rumblings of cash shortages alarm school board member Mildred Lynch, recently elected to a third term. Lynch has been listening to city officials promise help with the theater and stadium projects since the mid-1980s, and said she no longer trusts their ambitious talk.

“I don’t want to start a riot between the city and the school district, but my private feelings are, I’m skeptical,” Lynch said.

As early as 1988, Brimhall had assured school district officials that the Redevelopment Agency was “reserving funds to build a theater at Thousand Oaks High School,” according to minutes of a joint city and school board meeting. No separate account exists, however.

So now the city’s commitment can be fulfilled only through refinancing. Existing bonds carry an interest rate of just under 8%. To reap enough money for the school projects, the Redevelopment Agency would have to refinance at about 7.5% interest, Farr said.

“The commitment of the city (to the school district) stems from the refinancing ability of the Redevelopment Agency,” Brimhall said.

All redevelopment funds come from property taxes collected along Thousand Oaks Boulevard, along a four-mile stretch that extends from the Janss Mall to the Auto Mall.

Property taxes assessed elsewhere in the city are funneled directly to the county to pay for services such as fighting fires, prosecuting criminals and maintaining parks.

Within a redevelopment district, however, the county collects only a small sum from property taxes. The city reaps the rest. Even though Thousand Oaks leaders have agreed to share their redevelopment revenue with the county, the school district and the park district, the city still keeps millions for downtown improvement efforts.

At its peak two years ago, the Redevelopment Agency took in $9.6 million, and retained about half that sum for local projects. But as property values have declined, so has the agency’s annual revenue. For this fiscal year, the agency will collect only $9.1 million, Farr said.

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The sagging revenues have been a major blow to the Redevelopment Agency. In another crushing development, Sacramento legislators have several times raided the agency’s treasury to balance the state budget, grabbing more than $2 million in the past three years.

“If the state keeps taking money away from us, we won’t have any money left to do anything,” former Councilman Frank Schillo complained before leaving Thousand Oaks city government last week to serve on the Ventura County Board of Supervisors.

But the biggest drain on Redevelopment Agency dollars has been the elegant auditorium in the new, $86 million Civic Arts Plaza.

To pay for the land and the construction, the Redevelopment Agency has issued nearly $43 million in bonds, to be paid back over the next three decades with property-tax revenue gathered from along Thousand Oaks Boulevard. On top of the bond issue, the Redevelopment Agency borrowed $18.5 million from various city funds.

Such massive borrowing was made possible a year ago when council members voted to extend the Redevelopment Agency’s life and triple the amount of debt permissible under its charter.

During bitter public hearings last winter, the council majority of Judy Lazar, Alex Fiore and Schillo pushed for the new debt ceiling, on the grounds that expanding the Redevelopment Agency’s financial reach would guarantee funding for the school projects. Students, teachers and coaches crammed into one hearing to plead for help building the long-coveted theater and stadium.

Furious, Councilwoman Zeanah accused her colleagues of holding the school projects hostage to secure support for massive debt spending on the Civic Arts Plaza. And indeed, the performing arts complex has gobbled up most of the Redevelopment Agency’s new funds, leaving nothing for the schools.

“I said at the time that we should not use the school auditorium as a red herring,” Zeanah recalled. “But we went ahead and put the city in debt for how many more years, how many more millions?”

Before approving the new debt ceiling, council members had to appease county officials who resent the Redevelopment Agency for siphoning away property-tax dollars. After tough negotiations, council members agreed to gradually increase the amount of redevelopment money they send to the county each year.

The county now receives 20% of the Redevelopment Agency’s receipts. But that figure will jump, in stages, to a hefty 36% over the next three decades. Forced to divert more and more money to the county, the Redevelopment Agency will have less and less to spend on local projects.

Despite the uncertain financing, the Conejo Valley Unified School District has moved ahead with both the Westlake High stadium and the Thousand Oaks High theater.

The stadium should be ready for next fall’s football season--and the district fully expects to receive a $1-million payment for the athletic facility by the deadline of June 30, 1996, Assistant Supt. Sarah Hart said.

The Thousand Oaks High School theater, now in the design phase, will be built by the summer of 1997. The city has agreed to pay the $2.3-million cost in phases over the next few years, Hart said.

“They made the commitment, we have the guarantee,” Hart said. “How they handle their cash flow is up to them. I have faith they’ll be able to work it out.”

So does Councilwoman Lazar, who touted her role in securing funds for the stadium and theater during the recent election campaign.

“I believe in thinking positively,” she said. If the redevelopment funds fall through, she added, “I certainly think there are other ways to do it.” But she could not give specifics, saying: “I’m not the financial wizard. I’d ask city staff for suggestions.”

In justifying the Redevelopment Agency, city officials have long cited the school projects as top priority. But they have also identified pressing needs for Thousand Oaks Boulevard: better sidewalks, bike paths, more flowers, fresh paint.

All those projects must now be put on hold.

The delay actually pleases some boulevard business owners, who resist any changes to their quirky strip of mom-and-pop stores. But others resent the abrupt cut-off in redevelopment grants.

“Our parking lot is in dire need of an upgrade,” said Judie Cohen, the manager of the Maggie & Me antique store. “There are a lot of potholes, there’s loose gravel coming up. It probably hasn’t been resurfaced since the 1950s.”

In the past, the Redevelopment Agency might have fixed the Maggie & Me parking lot. It might have tackled other problems that business owners complain of as well, such as the cracked retaining wall outside Cinnamon Rolls, Etc. or the dingy corner near the D & K Liquor Store.

A Redevelopment Agency grant might also have helped clean up the tumble-down vacant lot next to Bob Brennan’s Carpet-Tyme store.

“They talk about prettying up the boulevard . . . yet they’ve allowed the mess to continue,” Brennan said. “It’s depressing, when you think about it.”