PHONE POLL PICKS A WINNER; THOUSAND OAKS RESIDENTS SOUND OFF ON COPPER CURTAIN OAK TREE SILHOUETTES.

Byline: Sonia Giordani Daily News Staff Writer

Nearly 65 percent of the 1,300 residents who participated in a phone poll to decide the fate of the Copper Curtain said the silhouette of a vibrant oak branch should be mounted over the controversial sculpture.

The so-called first option - showing an oak branching from the bottom right of the design - received 804 votes. Option No. 3, in which the oak branches from the bottom left, received 432 votes, while only 89 callers supported Option No. 2, which shows the branches stretching nearly upright.

``In a way, the poll was the easy part. The hard part will be in executing this piece,'' said Francisco Behr, a Westlake Village architect who designed the three options.

Following a wave of public criticism that the Copper Curtain looked less like public art than a radiator grill attached to the side of the Civic Arts Plaza, a city-appointed committee decided to add a tree's silhouette to the existing creation. Residents considered Behr's three designs in a phone-in telephone poll held between April 28 and May 13.

The results will be discussed by the City Council, which already appropriated $100,000 in March to fund the construction of the silhouette.

Behr said the silhouette will probably not be designed in copper but of a lighter type of metal to make it easier to suspend in front of the curtain.

``The biggest issue now is how to attach the silhouette and to support it on the existing Copper Curtain structure,'' he said.

Behr noted that while the curtain is fastened to the side of the building, it actually moves about 30 degrees in two directions. That makes it impossible for the silhouette to be mounted directly onto the existing structure; instead, an additional support structure will have to be constructed to hold the silhouette in place about eight to ten inches away from the curtain itself, Behr said.

While some local residents are longing for the addendum to one of the most criticized pieces of public art in the region, Mayor Pro Tem Linda Parks said too much public money has been spent already on the work.

``I just believe any changes should have been made using private funds,'' she said, adding that she had no preference among the suggested designs.

Councilman Andy Fox said he would have preferred a more traditional-looking tree.

``The designs were kind of abstract for my taste. But art is really in the eye of the beholder,'' he said.

More significant, he said, was the increased participation in the city's second public opinion poll utilizing GTE's teleregistration system, called CAPS, or the Community Action Partnership System. The more than 1,300 calls placed on GTE's designated telephone lines relating to the curtain represent nearly twice as much participation than the first poll conducted by the city to gauge public opinion on use of the parcel just east of the Civic Arts Plaza.

``This is still a new system, but people are starting to get used to it and understand how it works,'' Fox said. ``And it shows that residents want to have input in the decision-making process.''

Besides the 1,325 calls made to three telephone lines to register preferences for one of three designs, an additional 276 calls were made to a fourth line that recorded citizen comments.

``The additional input line received comments varying from different design input to restore original Copper Curtain design to a dislike of any of the designs,'' according to a report released by the City Manager's Office.

Two recurring comments, the report added, included 82 calls in favor of a full oak tree design and 39 calls in favor of not spending any additional funds to change the existing curtain.

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PHOTO (Color) no caption (Oak Tree silhouette)