Cooperative Effort Aims at Moving, Improving National Park Entrance : Recreation: With expansion of two sites, increased use has drawn Newbury Park neighbors’ complaints of dust and noise on Potrero Road.

Along Potrero Road in Newbury Park, a cyclone fence encircles a grassy plain, and a cluster of water pipes marks the driveway to a bumpy dirt road.

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Welcome to the National Park Service’s Rancho Sierra Vista and Satwiwa Native American Cultural Center.

Even the small directional signs along the road are inauspicious, prompting visitors to wonder whether they are really entering national park lands.

“The place lacks identity,” said Scott Erickson, deputy superintendent of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, which includes Satwiwa and Rancho Sierra Vista. “It doesn’t say ‘National Park Service.’ ”

On Thursday, Erickson met with representatives of the city of Thousand Oaks, the Conejo parks district and developers of the nearby Dos Vientos housing project to begin working out a solution to the problem that would benefit all.

According to preliminary proposals, the National Park Service, the city and the park district would share the cost of moving the entrance from residential Potrero Road to nearby Lynn Road, which is designed for heavier traffic.

“It’s the kind of solution the park service needs to pursue in these tight budget times,” Erickson said. Another meeting is set next week.

The move would please Potrero Road residents, who have complained about increasing dust and noise from the dirt access road as the two National Park Service sites are improved and expanded.

The arrangement also would please the park service, because it would move the entrance to a more scenic location, where officials plan to erect an arching wood and brick entrance.

The new gateway would be built next to Broom Ranch, where grassy flatlands in the foreground lead to steep hills and the Santa Monica’s signature feature, Boney Ridge, in the background.

“This is a spectacular site,” Erickson said, pointing to the ridge and its most prominent feature, Sandstone Peak.

The Operating Engineers union, which owns the Dos Vientos property through its trust fund, may lend a hand as well, said its attorney, Wayne Jett. Members of the union, who drive the heavy earth-moving equipment needed for developments, learn their trade by working on public service projects.

In this case, Jett said, the trust probably can lend the equipment and people needed to put in the road that will connect the new entrance to the existing sites’ parking lot about three-quarters of a mile away.

“It appears that all parties seem to be in agreement on principle and most likely we will move forward quickly,” he said. Operating Engineers is interested because such a project will help its people learn a skill for which they train and study for years.

“It’s important for them to have the feeling of accomplishment and contributing to something rather than just practicing moving levers and dirt,” Jett said. “And it’s a way that the trust can perform a public service.”

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Philip Gatch, director of planning and community development for the city of Thousand Oaks, will seek permission from the City Council to spend staff time to pursue the project after next week’s meeting of the factions at which possible timelines and other details will be discussed.

“I think the council will support it,” he said. “It is moving ahead with the long-term process of solving the traffic problems in the area.”

The effort to move the park entry dates to 1984, when authorities at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area submitted a request for $900,000 for a new entrance.

“In the old days we would have been able to get on a priority list,” Erickson said. But tight budgets have dimmed hopes for construction funding more each year.

So the park service recently announced plans to build the new entrance at Potrero Road.

But with the Satwiwa site attracting more school field trips and public visitors as it is developed, residents objected to the permanent sign installed across the street from their houses.

The improvements would increase traffic along Potrero and dust from the dirt road, residents said.

“People who live right across from the site get a lot of dust and noise, and people just race up that road,” said Jack Short, a Potrero Drive neighborhood resident.

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Short, who had noticed the earth-moving going on just around the corner at Dos Vientos, proposed that the Operating Engineers union get involved. Erickson and Thousand Oaks City Councilwoman Judy Lazar liked the idea and began working together.

“The city makes out because they won’t hear from angry citizens,” said Short. “Operating Engineers get a chance to show that they’re willing to be good neighbors. And the National Park Service gets a road.”

Because the park service land where the road would be built may contain Chumash or other native American artifacts, Erickson said the park will have to do an environmental assessment.

But with all entities working together, he said, the project could be done in six months.

“We don’t think those are insurmountable problems,” he said. “We haven’t got everything worked out yet, but it’s reasonable to say that we will.”