Angry Foes Seeking to Bench Sports Complex Puzzle a Top Backer

Development proposals often raise eyebrows in this intensely scrupulous town, but rarely do residents get riled up as quickly--and as fanatically--as they have over Sport X.

A plan to build a private, for-profit sports complex in Thousand Oaks’ most popular public park, Sport X has already encountered fierce opposition, though substantive details on the project have yet to be disclosed.

Thousand Oaks businessman Dave Gulbranson, the leader of the partnership behind Sport X, said he is befuddled by the rancor. Why, he wonders, are people so mad?

This is, after all, a $35-million plan to build an outdoor track, an indoor Olympic-sized swimming pool, basketball and volleyball courts, gymnasium and other sports facilities--even if the idea is to make a buck.

“We’re building a place for children, not a toxic waste dump,” Gulbranson said.

But to Jeff Alexander and many others, Sport X--which would be built at the current site of the Conejo Valley Days Festival in Conejo Creek Park--is not about sports at all.

To them, it’s about smooth pavement replacing unfettered horse-riding fields. It’s about a rural lifestyle disappearing with every new strip mall. It’s about family based youth programs turning into cold-hearted business. It’s about a suburban community becoming urbanized much too rapidly.

“People come to Thousand Oaks because they’re wanting out of the city, out of the rat race,” said Alexander, former owner of the T.O. Corral horse feed store. “The fact that one-third of this city is undeveloped open space is what people like so much.

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“Conejo Valley Days is a celebration of the rural lifestyle of this community,” he added. “Sure, things have changed, but people still put on cowboy boots and yell ‘Yahoo.’ Would Sport X change that? You bet it would.”

Although many Thousand Oaks residents have just recently learned about Sport X, Gulbranson said he has been actively promoting the idea of a state-of-the-art sports complex since 1991.

Much of that time was spent looking at sites in other parts of Thousand Oaks and Camarillo, but for about a year he and his partners have been considering an 80-acre portion of Conejo Creek Park south of Janss Road beside the Moorpark Freeway. The park is well-used by everyone from residents walking dogs and flying kites to sports leagues such as the American Youth Soccer Organization and established equestrian groups.

Part of the land facing Janss Road is owned by the Conejo Valley Unified School District. The rest is owned by the Conejo Recreation and Park District. For Sport X to become a reality, both agencies would have to lease or sell their property, the city’s Planning Commission would have to sign off on the development plans, and the City Council would have to give final approval.

Sport X opponents, who have vowed to attend every government meeting in Thousand Oaks until the complex is derailed, plan to make themselves heard Tuesday at the council’s special meeting on open space.

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Former Planning Commissioner Mervyn Kopp, Gulbranson and other Sport X representatives have had more than 110 meetings with homeowners’ groups, sports leagues, equestrian organizations, school and park district officials, City Council members and City Manager Grant Brimhall to discuss the idea.

A veteran of Thousand Oaks politics, Kopp said he expected some opposition to a large development proposal such as Sport X. But the level of animosity--which he believes is fueled by misinformation and hysteria--has startled him, he said.

“Family entertainment has been turned into sports bars where young people are going to get drunk and cause trouble,” Kopp said.

In a lengthy interview Friday at his business, Oakstone Glass on Thousand Oaks Boulevard, Gulbranson said he has made some mistakes promoting Sport X. As he and Kopp spoke, Ventura County sheriff’s deputies inspected Gulbranson’s store for clues after vandals had smashed the front window about 1 a.m.

True, Gulbranson said, he used the term sports bar when informing a homeowners’ group that Sport X would sell alcoholic beverages. But he misspoke, he said. It would be a concessions-type operation only where alcohol is sold with food, he said Friday.

It’s also true that Sport X would contain some fast-food restaurants, Gulbranson said. But he said they would be small, express-type operations only. And speculation among residents that he wants to build a massive food court with 10 fast-food outlets is untrue, he added.

While it is accurate that Sport X would be a for-profit venture where individuals would have to pay to play, Gulbranson said residents would not be charged to walk dogs, ride horses, play soccer and do the things they were doing in the park before. But they would only be able to freely use the Sport X grounds when no one else was paying for them, he said.

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That’s just not good enough for people such as Dave Anderson, one of the leaders of Keep Parks Public, a fledgling nonprofit group created to thwart Sport X. Indeed, in Anderson’s opinion, the project is completely offensive and out of line.

Anderson doesn’t ride horses or play soccer, he said, but he considers a few of those blades of grass at Conejo Creek Park to be his own.

“There is a perception among all of us here in Thousand Oaks that you pay a high price to live and do business here, and that is because we get a lot of land--public open space--for our money,” said Anderson, longtime owner of Napa Auto Parts on Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

The reason Sport X has touched off such a furor, Anderson said, is that people are fed up with the way Thousand Oaks is changing.

“No one is interested in becoming the Anaheim of Ventura County,” he said. “That kind of breaks a covenant with our residents, and everywhere I go, people are against this. We simply will not accept public land--particularly that crown jewel of land--from being turned into a source of private profit.”

Kopp points out that Los Robles Greens, the city-owned golf course beside the Ventura Freeway, is run by a private, for-profit company. And he said the decision that allowed most of the growth in Thousand Oaks--approval of the city’s General Plan--was made decades ago.

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But he and Gulbranson said they do not want to enter into a public-private debate with Thousand Oaks residents. In the meantime, Sport X is moving forward. Gulbranson and the other dozen partners met last Thursday and decided to form a limited liability corporation and apply with the government to trademark the Sport X name. Architect Neil Scribner is working on final plans for the complex, which should be ready in about six months.

For now, Gulbranson said he will continue to argue the merits of Sport X and defend himself from the countless accusations he says he has had to endure.

Yet despite signs that opposition to his project is swelling to monumental proportions, Gulbranson continues to believe that some, if not many, residents are on his side.

He recently received a parcel from a Thousand Oaks man who said he was the father of eight children and supported Sport X. Inside was $80 worth of lottery tickets, and a note that read, “I thought I would provide you with a potential source of funding for Sport X.”

At this point in the game, Gulbranson said he’s still got a better chance than that.