SDSU North Campus Backed : State Senators OK Funds for Study of the Project

Plans to build a full-scale satellite campus for San Diego State University in North County cleared their first legislative hurdle Wednesday when the Senate Education Committee approved a $250,000 feasibility study for the project.

The committee approved the study, requested in a bill authored by Sen. Bill Craven (R-Oceanside), on a unanimous vote after little discussion. The bill is now on its way to a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee, probably later this month. It could be on Gov. George Deukmejian’s desk and awaiting his signature by June.

Craven called the vote “a very encouraging sign” that legislators “recognize the need and local support for a North County campus” and will back the eventual construction of the school when he introduces legislation toward that goal in the future.

Craven added, however, that he was angered by a letter he received during the hearing Wednesday morning from the office of the governor’s education secretary, William Cunningham. The letter expressed opposition to the bill and “told us we were going about this the wrong way,” Craven said.

“It said that we were doing this thing in a ‘piecemeal’ fashion and that before we do anything we need to do some sort of statewide survey,” Craven said. “Well heck, that’ll take years and before we know it all the land in North County will be gobbled up and there won’t be any place left to put a campus.”

Attempts by The Times to reach the education secretary or his aide were unsuccessful. But Bob Taylor, a spokesman for the governor, said that, in addition to the education secretary, the Department of Finance has expressed opposition to the proposal “out of an obvious concern for the costs it would entail.”

Craven and SDSU officials say the new campus is needed to accommodate the growth occurring throughout North County and to alleviate overcrowding on the university’s central campus, on Montezuma Mesa east of Mission Valley.

SDSU President Thomas B. Day, who flew to Sacramento to testify at the hearing, said the university’s enrollment is about 1,000 students higher than what the school was designed to serve. He added that the crowded conditions may get worse because “we’re a popular campus and all predictions indicate that growth in San Diego and particularly North County will continue to soar.”

“SDSU’s service mission is a regional one and includes all of San Diego County and Imperial County,” Day said after Wednesday’s vote. “We have an obligation to serve the needs of all the people in our region but we simply can’t do it with our present facility. I think it’s a pretty straightforward issue.”

Proponents of the North County campus say that accessibility is another problem. Most North County students must journey a fair distance to the San Diego campus and, once there, they contribute to the school’s notorious traffic and parking woes. Attending another state college is not an option, as the closest campus, in Fullerton, is too distant for North County residents.

In addition, Craven argued that the “great and growing industrial and high-tech complex in North County is in need of a four-year educational institution that will train future employees and support research efforts.”

Numerous city councils--Escondido, Vista and Carlsbad among them--and North County business groups have lent their support to the proposal, which has received the blessing of the California State University Board of Trustees. The Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce also has endorsed the idea.

University officials said construction of the proposed campus, expected to require a 200- to 400-acre site, could cost as much as $40 million. Initially, the satellite campus would offer only upper-division classes--course work for juniors and seniors--but likely would evolve into a full-scale, four-year institution within a decade.

Officials predict that, if all goes as planned, the campus could open its doors by 1990 and enroll as many as 10,000 students by 2000.

Craven’s efforts to construct a North County campus date to 1968, when he first tried to muster support for the idea. That bid failed, but in 1978 the Legislature agreed to finance a small satellite to the main campus.

That facility, the North County Center, was established in rented quarters at Vista High School. Within a year it outgrew that home and moved to its current location in a small industrial park in San Marcos. The center currently offers about 45 courses in a limited range of disciplines to about 170 full-time students.