Council Nails Down Some Planks in Plan to Rebuild Ventura Pier

As the City Council sits locked in debate about whether to rebuild its pier longer, thinner, wider or stronger, the weakened pier remains vulnerable to another beating by powerful western swells.

After flipping through pages of design charts, the council on Monday cobbled together the beginnings of a plan to replace the missing segment of pier and, like carpenters, laid down a series of steps to reach that goal.

But whatever plan emerges, it is already too late to reinforce the pier for the coming winter, Director of Public Works Ron Calkins told the council.

A fierce storm last December gobbled 423 feet off the newly restored wooden pier. Last month city engineers told the council that the $2 million in insurance funds would be insufficient to rebuild the pier to its original size.

Shortly before midnight Monday, the council members unanimously agreed to spend no more than the $2 million in insurance money on restoring the pier and to use at least $200,000 of that to strengthen the existing 1,500-foot structure.

They also agreed to rebuild the new section with stronger steel piles, rather than the traditional wooden logs, and to raise the wooden deck about 4 feet for better protection against waves.

The council members could not settle on a final length or width but named four priorities for rebuilding plan:

* Use the most cost-effective plan possible to restore the structural integrity of the existing pier.

* Make the seaward end of the pier at least 40 feet wide to accommodate fishing and recreational activities.

* Make the pier as long as possible after the first two conditions are satisfied.

* Look for as many non-city funding options as possible to supplement the insurance money, with an eye to eventually rebuilding the pier to its full length.

The council also asked its staff to look into the possibility of boat landings and other uses for the end of the pier.

Passionate pier supporters urged the city to look at other options--to invest extra city money if necessary--to restore the pier to its original length, which many said made it the longest wooden pier in the state.

“We just want our length back,” said Monty Clark, chairman of the Pier Into the Future Steering Committee, which raises money for the pier. “We don’t care if the underlying structure is wood, steel, or cement.”

In September, Don Mills, a local engineer, suggested that the city make the pier long and narrow, rather than shorter and fatter.

City engineers rushed back to their calculators, and came back Monday with four new options--three of which dabble with a skinnier, longer pier configuration.

“It boils down to length versus width,” said Calkins. “We can always make it longer and narrower.”

Calkins said city staff had originally toyed with the idea of a longer, narrower pier, but their familiarity with the old, wider pier hampered their imaginations. When Mills made his suggestion he re-stoked the planners’ creativity.

“He helped focus people’s attention,” said Calkins. “We who had lived with the pier were used to it being wider.”

But no sooner had Calkins presented the new, narrower options, than council members began to express nostalgia for the wider pier.

“I’d like to see it as wide as we can,” said Councilman Jim Monahan. “I don’t particularly like the narrow pier.”

And Councilman Steve Bennett said his primary concern is that the current pier remain standing.

“I think we should invest money to ensure that the current pier does not suffer in the future,” he said.

All the plans mean the city would lose its claim to the longest wooden pier in California.

But when asked if that matters, Clark said: “That’s not important. We just want our old pier back.”