Conejo Creek Park North selected as site for permanent Borderline memorial

Conejo Creek Park North is Thousand Oaks’ premier, most visited park, sort of a smaller-scale equivalent of Central Park in New York City, local officials say.

That’s why it’s been selected as the site for the city of Thousand Oaks’ permanent memorial to the victims of the Nov. 7 deadly mass shooting at the Borderline Bar & Grill, said Thousand Oaks Mayor Rob McCoy and Jim Friedl, general manager of the Conejo Recreation and Park District.

“It is our premier park, kind of the Thousand Oaks version of Central Park,” Friedl said. “It’s in the center of town geographically. It’s not very far from where the Borderline is.

“And it has great parking, restrooms and a lot of other nice amenities,” he said.

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The park was picked as the memorial’s site by a committee consisting of McCoy, Friedl, Thousand Oaks Police Chief Tim Hagel and other officials.

“It was presented to us by Jim Friedl who kind of listed it as the Central Park of the city,” McCoy said. “And the committee immediately thought, ‘OK. It makes sense because this is where people go.’”

The memorial to the 12 victims killed in the shooting and the survivors will be built south of the park’s Lakeside Pavilion picnic and stage area and next to the park’s north pond.

While design details are still being worked out by the park district, the memorial will consist of a “healing garden” adjacent to the pond and a fountain in the pond such as the veterans’ memorial fountain in the park’s south pond, Friedl said.

The healing garden, he said, will be “a quiet, meditative place for people to reflect” on the events of Nov. 7.

“And certainly, there will be a specific nod to the victims and the survivors,” including plaques, he said. “That’s the main gist we’re trying to capture. The 12 victims and the 248 or so survivors. So there will be elements that use the number 12 or 248.

“The whole public will feel really, I hope, connected to it,” Friedl said.

The pavilion will provide “a nice juxtaposition to the memorial,” Friedl said.

“It has a stage for bands and music, which is what the Borderline was all about,” he said. “Music and fun and community and people being together and dancing and good times. That’s right there.”

Nearby is the site of the annual Thousand Oaks Chili Cook-Off, where the Borderline has in years past hosted a small music stage in a grassy area, he noted.

McCoy is adamant that the memorial be built and opened to the public by the one-year anniversary of the shooting.

He said that more than six years after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 26 people were killed, including 20 children, “they still don’t have a memorial.”

“We want to have a memorial for the one-year anniversary,” McCoy said. “This is going to be a city memorial for the victims.

“But the reality is it will be a place for the community at the one-year anniversary to be able to come and find solace in this location,” he said. “I think that’s what everybody needs.”

The memorial, the mayor said, “won’t accomplish everything that needs to happen in the memorial. I know that we’re going to miss some details. I know it’s not going to be perfect. But it will be there. And if we add to it, we can do that in time.”

The park district is allocating the land. The city will pay for the memorial, having approved $250,000 for the project in its 2019-20 budget, which the City Council green-lighted Tuesday night.

Friedl said he thinks the memorial can be completed by Nov. 7, noting the district’s board is scheduled to considers the project at its July 18 meeting.

“Assuming we get the green light before the summer break, then we will make it happen” by the one-year anniversary, he said. “We do need some lead time for construction.”

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The district will be the general contractor for the project, he said.

The committee is scheduled to brief the Thousand Oaks City Council on the memorial at the council’s July 9 meeting.

The shooting started about 11:20 p.m. when a 28-year-old former Marine opened fire with a .45-caliber handgun during the Borderline’s weekly Wednesday “college country night” of music, line-dancing and two-steppin’.

He cut down 11 people, most in their 20s.

A 12th person, Ventura County sheriff’s Sgt. Ron Helus, was wounded by the gunman, but unintentionally killed by “friendly fire,” a round from a California Highway Patrol officer’s rifle.

The gunman killed himself with a shot to the head. A motive for the mass shooting hasn’t been established.

A makeshift community memorial is outside the Borderline, which has been closed since the shooting.

Mike Harris covers the east county cities of Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks, as well as transportation countywide. You can contact him at mike.harris@vcstar.com or 805-437-0323.

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