Hope High for CSUN Science Building : State Finance Department Pushes Initial Money in Next Budget

Administrators at California State University, Northridge, believe they are close to winning their nine-year battle to build a $17-million science building.

Administrators and science teachers have complained for years that the number of science students has increased 800% since the existing building was constructed 25 years ago, and that it lacks the electrical and temperature-control systems needed by modern laboratories.

They learned this week that the state Department of Finance has recommended that money to begin preparing for construction of the building be included in the next state budget.

“That means that now it’s virtually assured of being funded,” Dorena Knepper, the school’s director of governmental affairs, said Tuesday.

“There’s maybe a 1% chance that it wouldn’t be, on some fluke.”

The Department of Finance wrote to the budget committees of the state Senate and Assembly, requesting them to include $827,000 in the 1985-1986 budget to pay for plans and working drawings for the new building. After such preliminary funds are approved, the usual procedure is to appropriate construction money in the next year’s budget, Knepper said.

Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed the funds last year “because he wasn’t convinced the (university) trustees supported the project,” Knepper said.

She said Deukmejian was following a recommendation of the Department of Finance, which opposed the funding because it was requested in a budget measure introduced by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda) instead of in the budget proposal by the university trustees.

But Katz continued pushing the project this year, and the chancellor of the State University system, W. Ann Reynolds, wrote to state Finance Director Jesse Huff, urging approval, Knepper said.

Elation Over Letter

School administrators expect the Legislature to approve the request, because it has in the past, she said. But they now feel confident they have the backing of the governor as well.

“When the Department of Finance writes a letter to that effect, that’s as good as the governor saying he also supports it,” Knepper said.

School administrators want to build a 75,800-square-foot building for science laboratories and renovate the existing 21,700 square feet of science space for classrooms and offices for science instructors, university spokeswoman Judy Elias said.

The existing three-story building was opened in 1960, when the school had 350 full-time students in the sciences.

“Now we have 2,850,” Elias said.

The building does not have the heating and air-conditioning systems needed to keep many modern scientific instruments, such as electron microscopes and computers, from being impaired by heat or cold, she said. Until a recent roof-patching job, rain dripped through ceilings into sensitive laboratory equipment, she said.

The electrical supply is so insufficient, she said, that “most labs require that instructors unplug one piece of equipment before turning on another,” and the ducting system that draws off harmful fumes from chemical containers also is inadequate.

A new building would allow the school to have laboratories in several scientific disciplines that it now lacks, such as recombinant DNA research and oceanography, she said.

Knepper said the school “owes a great debt to Assemblyman Katz,” who she said showed “tenaciousness above and beyond the call” in pushing for the money.

“It’s hard to say we’re definitely on our way until the budget is signed by the governor,” she said. “But this is a project the university has been pursuing for nine years, so we’re delighted to see this building finally within our reach.”