The City Council voted 4-1 to knock down The Lakes to build a skyscraper, with city hall offices relocating to the penthouse.

“A 21-story building is not a skyscraper. The sky is much higher than that,” said City Manager Winston Peabody.

The former Civic Arts Plaza will become a museum exhibiting the early years of Thousand Oaks, and the 2.3 acres next door, recently purchased for $3.25 million, will be used to rebuild Jungleland.

“Instead of lions, tigers, bears and chimpanzees, we will raise animals currently being used by the movie industry,” Councilmember Don Juan said.

When asked what those animals would be, Juan said, “Hexapodal direhorses, mountain banshees and great leonopteryxes, of course.”

“The new museum will be a great asset to schoolchildren; they’ll especially like the football field with solar-powered lighting that will be planted on the roof of the parking structure,” Councilmember Ethel Schwartz said.

Mayor Emma Bigshot said she’d like to see the Ventura County Fire District use the “$6 million the city overpays the county for fire service” to purchase fire trucks with ladders that reach 21 stories, “just in case.”

Councilmember Roberta Sponge voted against the plans, she said, “because the large building would block views of the mountains, it costs more than the city can afford and there are no such animals as hexapodal direhorses, mountain banshees and great leonopteryxes except on Pandora, a fictional planet created by James Cameron.”

Sponge said she prefers The Lakes retail shops be turned into low-income housing and the restaurants become soup kitchens for the homeless.

Councilmember Kingsley Dewright reminded the City Council he was a mediation expert and volunteered to convince Cameron to allow Pandora’s exotic animals to be cared for at the new Jungleland in Thousand Oaks.

Dewright also said there are too many city planners in the Community Development Department now that “the city is at build-out” and suggested those city employees be reassigned as animal trainers for the new venture.

Happy April Fools’ Day from the Thousand Oaks Acorn!