City on Shaky Ground in Leveling Rock Artwork

I just received a packet of letters for Stuart Finch from Mrs. Jennifer Fry’s fifth-grade class at the Meadows Elementary School in Thousand Oaks.

The kids had read a column I wrote awhile back about Finch, the homeless, illiterate jack-of-all-trades who erects enchanting stacks of stones at Ventura’s Surfers Point. The place is filled with rocks, driftwood, seaweed, chunks of concrete, so Finch has had plenty of raw materials in creating his elegant spires by the dozen.

“I’ve stacked rocks before but nothing compared to what you do!” wrote Chelsea Arrington. “Mr. Finch, I’m curious, have you ever considered taking a drawing book, some pencils and a black pen out to sketch nature? I know you like nature a lot so I was just suggesting that . . . “

The students had plenty of questions.

“How is it sleeping under the stars?” asked a girl named Alissa. “Do you always see star constellations? It must be cool! Do your towers always fall? How do you keep your towers up? It must be really hard!”

It was harder than Alissa could have known. Finch was jailed this week on charges involving $400 in unpaid bills. On top of that, many of his creations were bulldozed. City officials believed the artworks could have collapsed on children curious enough to see them up close, touch them, climb around on them, balance yet another rock on top--and, then, boom!

Maybe this was the correct decision. After all, nobody would want any of Mrs. Fry’s fifth-graders--or for that matter, Mrs. Fry herself--to be squashed under a heap of art.

While they’re at it, city workers should consider cutting down the palm trees at Surfers Point. Palm fronds flying in a stiff wind can cut a full-grown man in half, and who knows what they could do to a fifth-grader?

That sand on the beach might also have to go. Who hasn’t heard of a child blinded by blown sand?

So maybe it’s just as well for Mrs. Fry’s class and kids everywhere that Finch’s larger creations--a cross made of driftwood and cinder blocks, a stone Christmas tree festooned with lights and small gifts from passing strangers--fell to the dozer’s blade.

The real shame of the episode, though, is that the people in charge didn’t have the vision to make the most of Finch’s work.

A few years ago, the $80,000 “Wavespout” on the Ventura pier was supposed to moan with the winds and spray with the waves. Instead, it wheezed and gurgled, and was mercifully washed away in a winter storm.

In Thousand Oaks, the copper curtain--the huge, famously ugly grid fastened to the Civic Arts Plaza--has long upset residents and puzzled motorists on the 101. Calls for a design to hide it--an oak tree? an oak tree with children’s hands as the leaves?--issue regularly.

So finally, when a piece of public art sparks a thousand smiles a day, enhances its already beautiful outdoor setting, inspires hushed conversations between strangers, prompts residents to run home for their videocams, and costs the taxpayers absolutely nothing--what happens?

The bulldozers are set loose!

It’s not too late for city officials to redeem themselves, however.

Much as surfers seek the perfect wave, so does Ventura seek the perfect tourist attraction--and it doesn’t have to look past Surfers Point.

What about: The Stuart Finch Rock Festival?

The point can be cordoned off, and towers as tall as the palms can be built of rock, seaweed, driftwood, cinder block, and anything else found on the beach.

Art critics from around the U.S. can be flown in as judges.

Rock candy will be given to all entrants. Entertainment will be provided by, among others, the Rockettes.

Corporate teams can enter, as well as squads of homeless people, and city officials, and church groups, and civil engineers, and Mrs. Fry’s fifth-graders. Helmets will be issued; if a rock should fall, the city will be protected by the kind of liability policy it carries for its beach party--where oceans of beer are at least as dangerous as a stray rock.

The sculptures will stand for a while. Tourists and art students will admire them, and then the bulldozers will rock on.

* Steve Chawkins is a Times staff writer. He can be reached at 653-7561 or at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.