Council Gives Boost to Discovery Center

Hoping to kick-start the group’s fund-raising campaign, the City Council has granted a $1 annual lease and an $80,000 loan to the backers of the Ventura County Discovery Center, a proposed children’s science museum.

Thousand Oaks council members voted 4 to 0 Tuesday to approve the lease and loan, a recommendation by City Manager Grant Brimhall. Councilwoman Linda Parks was absent.

The nonprofit group asked to take over the office space recently vacated by the Alliance for the Arts, the Civic Arts Plaza’s fund-raising arm, which recently moved to another location in the building. The Discovery Center group will pay its own telephone bills.

“It would be an ideal situation for us,” Gary S. Elliott, a scientist at Amgen Inc. who is one of the museum’s leading proponents, told the council.

Brimhall noted in a city report that Thousand Oaks lent the Alliance for the Arts $250,000 when it was starting up, and argued that the Discovery Center was worthy of similar assistance.

“The Alliance has done its job, and I believe very strongly . . . that the Ventura County Discovery Center will also be able to accomplish its objectives,” Brimhall said.

The City Council has decided to consider allowing the group to lease city-owned land next to the Civic Arts Plaza for the site of the museum, also for $1 a year. Even with that break, Discovery Center supporters still need to raise several million dollars to build the museum, put together its exhibits and start an endowment fund.

City leaders also plan to make sure that whoever develops the vacant land across from the City Hall and theater complex builds a parking garage to accommodate museum visitors.