Civic Arts Plaza is a boondoggle

As this paper may be aware, I ran for City Council in Thousand Oaks twice just to get the Civic Arts Plaza on the ballot. In fact, the city wouldn't even tell us what they were planning to build on the Jungleland site.

It took five years in court to get the property away from its owner, and even though 11 other citizens and I gathered 10,000 signatures to put this project on the ballot, it never was. Our petition was thrown out because the city told us that this project was a redevelopment project and wasn't subject to voter approval, and the project was only going to cost $2 million anyway.

When I said I thought it was going to cost a lot more, certain people on the City Council said this guy is crazy, how could you vote for him?

The second time I ran for City Council, I predicted a cost of this project of $10 million, and again I was told I was crazy.

We were promised that there would be no entrances or exits on Thousand Oaks Boulevard to add to traffic congestion, also that it would be self-sufficient- never any taxpayer money involved. Of course it didn't help that we allowed all those stores to be built on the adjacent property rent free for who knows how long.

This project has been a lie to the people of this city since day one, and the city officials who pushed it through know that. What a sad legacy; we declared 22 acres were blighted land under a redevelopment agency program, then spent $1 million an acre after a long court battleIt makes no sense, does it?

Robert W. Hughes
Thousand Oaks