THOUSAND OAKS : Storefront Police Center Opens Doors

Joining the countywide trend toward grass-roots police work, Thousand Oaks on Thursday opened its own storefront police resource center in the heart of its business community.

It’s a small, 500-square-foot facility, but judging from the success of the county’s other storefront substations, its impact will be huge, Sheriff Larry Carpenter told a gathering of city leaders at the center’s opening.

“We’ve had success with these storefront resource centers in other parts of the county for the simple reason that they service needs that exist exactly where they are,” he said.

The first storefront police operation in the county was opened by the Oxnard Police Department in 1992 to clean up the neighborhood of La Colonia. Within a year of its opening, crime there had dropped 49%. Since then others have opened in Ventura, Moorpark, Piru and Fillmore. Some are staffed by officers and others by volunteers.

The centers operate on a simple and increasingly popular principle practiced nationwide. Known as community policing, the idea is to increase interaction with residents by placing officers in the communities they serve.

In keeping with that principle, the city plans to use money obtained from property seized in criminal activities to supply a motor home mobile unit that can be dispatched to problem areas.

For now, the center is at 241 Lombard St. where residents can report crimes and get help with problems ranging from lost wallets to unruly teens.

Fifty members of the city’s new Volunteers in Policing program have signed up to staff the center Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. for the next 2 1/2 weeks. After that, the center’s hours will be based on demand and the availability of volunteers. The volunteer program, known as VIP, puts specially trained, unarmed residents on patrol to free officers from minor offenses such as handicapped-parking violations.

The new center exists mainly through such volunteerism.

The building space was donated rent-free for at least six months by the Thousand Oaks Environmental Business Cluster. The nonprofit organization, which assists environmental businesses, received its space from GTE, which owns the building.

The center is filled with surplus furniture donated by the city. The office equipment was bought with money given by the city. A $15,000 security system was donated by Kurt Park, a Conejo Valley businessman.

Although Thousand Oak residents already enjoy low crime rates, officials said they see the center as a way of keeping it that way.

“These centers are usually put in high crime areas,” Thousand Oaks Sheriff’s Cmdr. Kathy Kemp said. “But we want to open one so people can come to us before crime becomes a major problem here.”