Westlake Village City Council says no to Boys, Girls Clubs

By Gregory Koteles Acorn Staff Writer

Westlake Village residents will have to wait for a community center and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Conejo Valley/Las Virgenes must wait for a new facility along the 101 Freeway corridor after the Westlake Village City Council turned down a proposed joint venture between the nonprofit organization and the city—at least for now.

A plan to share the cost of a 17,000 square-foot community center and gymnasium at the intersection of Agoura Road and Oak Court Drive, west of Lindero Canyon Road, was shelved by the council at its meeting last week and slated for further study and community feedback.

Citing a desire to be "fiscally conservative," the council unanimously agreed that it might be unwise for the city to sink nearly $2 million into the project without looking at alternative sites and methods of financing, even though the Boys and Girls club offered to pay $500,000 of the building’s cost.

"In my heart, I would like to help the Boys and Girls Club," said City Councilman Mark Rutherford, "but the reality is we’re not ready."

He echoed the sentiments of City Councilwoman Susan McSweeney, who said she regretted that the city’s "timing is not going to mesh with the Boys and Girls Clubs," and Mayor Betty De Santis, who questioned both the number of people who would actually use the facility vs. its cost, and whether the location would accommodate adequate parking.

"Obviously, the reality is that it won’t fit on that site," said De Santis.

City Councilman Robert Slavin, too, thought it would be "premature to decide anything today," but added a caveat that "too much analysis is paralysis." He also noted that the city "spent $10 million on a city hall for seven or eight city workers."

Despite the setback, Calvin Johnston, chairman of the Boys and Girls Club of Conejo and Las Virgenes, was hopeful that the council hadn’t closed the door entirely on the possibility of a future joint venture.

"I think the city is willing and planning to re-examine their priorities," said Johnston. Though he said there were "competing issues" regarding the proposed facility, he didn’t feel that parking was one of them.

"The kids that are the primary users of it don’t drive," he said. "The parking ratio needed for a commercial building is higher than for the Boys and Girls Club … it is not open to the public, it’s open to the kids."

Johnston pointed out that 80 percent of the club’s membership is 7- to 15-year-olds.

The city staff, he noted, also suggested that a shuttle could be set up between city hall, which has more than ample parking, and the proposed community center to alleviate any parking problems that might arise during special events or as a result of the facility’s joint use by the club and the rest of the community.

The call for Boys and Girls Clubs in the Conejo Valley isn’t a passing whim but a pressing need, according to Johnston. Both parents work in 56 percent of local households, leaving many of the area’s more than 30,000 children largely unsupervised, especially between the hours of 3 and 7 p.m.

Statistics for Thousand Oaks show that more than 60 percent of burglaries and thefts in the city are youth related. The Boys and Girls Club aims to give structure, supervision and guidance with specialized after-school programs.

"If they go in the wrong direction, it’s hard to get them back," said Johnston. "It costs about $50,000 a year to incarcerate a youth. Compare that to about $350 annually per child for the Boys and Girls Club.

"It’s a good investment for us as a society."

The push for a facility in Westlake is part of a larger program by the organization called "Campaign 3 p.m.," designed to raise $12 million to open a half dozen facilities in Conejo Valley, Las Virgenes and Oak Park unified school districts.

So far, Amgen has donated $3 million and the city of Thousand Oaks $1 million. Additionally, Conejo Valley Unified School District has entered into an agreement to open four Boys and Girls Club facilities on the campuses of existing schools.

However, Johnston said that since schools in Las Virgenes Unified School District are "substantially overcrowded," such an arrangement has so far been impossible in LVUSD.

Although discussions are underway about the possibility of facilities in Oak Park, Agoura Hills doesn’t "have any properties that fit," according to Johnston, which leaves the Westlake area as one of the few viable options in its region for the near future.

"These issues are not unusual in a deal like this," said Johnston. "It could be two years, it could be five years; it could be never at this site."