For Simi Valley, a Year of Great Expectations Beckons : Growth: Officials see pending development projects and Vision 2020 getting off the ground.

The way some folks talk, it may sound as though slogans and cliches will rule this city in 1996.

Simi Valley officials brim with hope that developers will get their ducks in a row in the year ahead. They vow zero tolerance on gangs. And they yearn to beef up the economy and get people back to work.

But if ever there were a year when many of this city’s long-held dreams could come true, 1996 is it.

“I’m excited,” Mayor Greg Stratton said. “The stuff that’s bubbling around and ready to launch is going to be great, and I expect this summer to show some real economic boost.”

This will be the year of Vision 2020, Stratton’s ambitious, citizen-driven blueprint for the next 25 years of Simi Valley’s growth and development.

This winter, the City Council will name a committee of citizens, officials and community leaders to draft the Vision 2020 plan, which is meant to guide the council in shaping everything from schools and police protection to wild lands and trash hauling.

This is also the year that a host of proposed commercial developments--many of them shopping centers that promise to bring Simi Valley millions in tax revenue--seem almost ready to go. Among them:

* The Cochran Street extension. Officials hope 1996 will see the busy east-west artery extended from its dead end in the city’s western hills to Madera Road, and 40 acres of private land alongside transformed into a shopping center. The City Council has already agreed to pay $1.6 million in road-building costs for the extension project, and is expected to review the developer’s completed application some time after June, said Assistant City Manager Don Penman.

* The regional shopping mall. This is the year city officials hope developers will succeed in bringing Simi Valley a mall of its own. A Cleveland firm, Forest City Development, is busy courting department stores that could anchor such a mall, and council members have made it plain that they want to see it built as soon as possible at the north end of 1st Street.

* Revitalization of the Tapo Street business district. Merchants in the area--which has been blighted since the 1994 earthquake by a ruined shopping center--are anxiously awaiting a city plan for redevelopment that is due within two months.

* The new police headquarters. Ground is expected to be broken next fall for an $11-million police station, an airy, modern building that officials say will replace the leaky, quake-rattled wreck that the department now occupies and make police work easier on officers and the public.

* A shopping center near City Hall. A Westlake Village developer is collecting tenants for a pedestrian-oriented shopping center that would be built on 15 acres at the southwest corner of Tapo Canyon Road and Alamo Street.

* The Simi Valley Unified School District is exploring ways to develop a 36-acre cornfield it owns on the opposite corner.

Said Penman: “1996 is going to be a real busy year for us here in the development side [of city government]. . . . I’m sure it’s probably as busy as it’s ever been in the last few years because we are starting to see an uptick in the economy. There’s a lot more interest in the retail side, and we’re getting more inquiries from brokers and people representing companies searching for sites.”

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But the city is suffering growing pains, particularly in crowded Simi Valley Unified.

Parents are already warring with district officials over plans to open a magnet high school for performing arts and technology, then move the entire ninth grade from the junior high schools into the expanded high school system.

And some parents--angered by the brinkmanship that almost led to a teachers strike before a new three-year contract was approved--have warned that they may start a recall effort against some district officials in 1996.

Conflicts also are brewing in Simi Valley over sex and violence.

Opponents vow to quash plans for a nude dance club, while the club’s proprietor has vowed to fight in federal court for his right to exhibit unclothed, shimmying women.

On one side is Simi Valley Citizens R Against Pornography, a large affiliation of conservatives, church members and families who call stripping smut.

On the other is the club’s Phil Young, who calls it “a part of American culture.”

In the middle stands a vacant, 2,300-square-foot building on Los Angeles Avenue that city officials say can never legally house the Mirages Cabaret strip club because it sits too close to a bible study room and a karate studio frequented by youngsters.

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The Simi Valley Planning Commission is scheduled to review the matter in March.

And 1996 could swing a hammer down on gang violence in Simi Valley, as police, prosecutors, school officials and citizens convene a multi-agency Gang Task Force.

“The biggest problem is, we’re trying to decide whether things can and should be done besides the police response,” Stratton said. “How does one encourage gang members that either they should change their ways or find another place to live? We have to either change their attitudes or change their address.”

The year ahead also promises developments in the thematically opposed worlds of art and trash.

After the triumphant November opening of the long-awaited Cultural Arts Center, city officials plan to closely monitor how the theater performs financially in its first full season.

And, at the opposite end of the spectrum, officials are working to make the Simi Valley Landfill the designated dump for trash from all over Ventura County.

Simi Valley is seeking trash-dumping commitments from other cities that could lock the landfill into an exclusive agreement that keeps out trash from out-of-county haulers and guarantees the cities landfill space for another 20 years, Councilman Bill Davis said.

Finally, the new year brings another round of city elections, another chance for hopefuls to try to unseat council incumbents.

Davis, Stratton and Councilwoman Barbara Williamson are up for reelection, but so far only Williamson has said she plans to run.

Davis said Wednesday he would not run if his wife retires, which would force him to give up full-time council commitments.

And Stratton said: “I don’t have any reason not to run, but I haven’t made a decision.”