Group Protests Plans for Dam, Flood Basin

About 15 angry Thousand Oaks residents turned up at the Ventura County supervisors meeting Tuesday to protest plans to uproot majestic oaks in their Lang Ranch neighborhood to make way for a dirt-and-concrete dam and flood basin.

Calling themselves “Save the Conejo 2000 Group,” the residents presented supervisors with 1,200 signatures from opponents of a plan to build a 70-foot-high, 700-foot-long dam amid an oak grove west of Westlake Boulevard.

Protesters say the project would destroy or harm as many as 160 ancient oaks.

“After this project, they’ll have to change the city’s name to Thousand Oak,” resident Jody Heyes fumed.

Residents also fear that the dam, about the size of two football fields, and a planned debris basin adjacent to it also threaten a sacred Chumash burial site. The environmental review of the project, approved by the Thousand Oaks City Council in 1995, was flawed, they say.

Critics want the county to step in and request that the city of Thousand Oaks conduct a new environmental study of the $3-million project. The dam would be paid for with Mello-Roos property tax money.

But some supervisors say the controversial project is a matter for the city.

“It’s their responsibility,” Supervisor Frank Schillo said of city officials. “I watched them approve this project. We can’t reverse the issue. It’s up to them.”

However, Schillo, whose district includes Thousand Oaks, asked County Counsel Jim McBride to look into the matter and report back at the board’s next meeting.