City Agrees to Pay $3.3 Million for School Projects

Finally fulfilling a decade-old promise, the City Council on Tuesday agreed to help pay for a stadium and theater for local high schools by contributing $3.3 million.

The money, obtained by refinancing the existing debt of the city’s Redevelopment Agency, will be used to pay for the new sports stadium at Westlake High School and to build a theater at Thousand Oaks High.

Council members voted 5 to 0 to authorize an initial payment of $1 million for the stadium, with the remaining $2.3 million for the theater to come later.

By refinancing the Redevelopment Agency’s $40-million debt to $51 million, the city obtained some excess cash that it could use for special projects.

Councilwoman Jaime Zukowski, who had previously asked the council to make the high school projects a top priority, said the money was long overdue.

The $64-million Civic Arts Plaza depleted the Redevelopment Agency’s bank account--disrupting important projects such as the stadium-theater proposal, she said.

“This whole financing plan for the Civic Arts Plaza caused a lot of problems,” she said before the meeting. “The hostage in all this creative financial management has been the schools.”

Mayor Andy Fox said the city has taken an incredible amount of unwarranted criticism for holding off on its $3.3-million pledge. The important thing, he said, is that the money is now forthcoming.

“The city has kept its word,” he said before the meeting. “Unfortunately, some members of the community have been less than gracious with us.”

Jerry C. Gross, superintendent of the Conejo Valley Unified School District, said he is excited to hear that the money is finally on its way so that plans for the 400-seat auditorium at Thousand Oaks High can proceed. The theater, still in the planning stage, is scheduled to be completed by 1997, school officials said.

“We’re delighted, and we’re pleased with our ability to work with the city, even though it’s taken a long time,” Gross said.

The school district has already spent its own money to build the 4,300-seat stadium and will use the $1 million to replenish internal funds, Gross said.

Mike Chopp, part of the original group of parents who lobbied for a stadium at Westlake High, said he is not bitter that the city took so long to pay its share. At least city officials came through in the end, he said.

“This is something that Westlake High School has needed for a long time,” Chopp said. “It really put our kids at a disadvantage not to have good athletic facilities. I think it’s generous of the city of Thousand Oaks to pay for a project of this type.”

In the mid-1980s, the City Council promised to help fund a stadium and theater. At the time, Thousand Oaks High School held its drama performances in a reconfigured wood shop classroom that seated only 100 people.

But in 1994, city officials began hinting that helping to finance the Civic Arts Plaza had left the Redevelopment Agency with almost no cash, and that the city would be pressed to meet commitments to the district.

Some school officials feared that they would never see the money. But Fox said he always believed that the city would be able to deliver on its promise.

“There was never a doubt in my mind that we could do it,” Fox said. “Now we’re taking the final step.”