UC Official Encourages Effort to Get Antelope Valley Campus

A top University of California official Tuesday encouraged Antelope Valley leaders to continue their efforts to land a UC campus for the fast-growing region, but warned that any such expansion hinges on passage of Proposition 111 on the state ballot in June.

During an hourlong presentation at Lancaster City Hall, UC Vice President William Baker said the Antelope Valley, along with other areas, is “certainly high on our list of priorities” as a location for a new Southern California campus that could open by 1999.

Antelope Valley leaders have been campaigning to get the new campus for the past year. But the communities of Diamond Bar and the Santa Clarita Valley in Los Angeles County, Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley in Riverside County and Chula Vista in San Diego County also want the campus. Baker said no community has an edge over any of the others.

Baker told about 30 civic leaders at a briefing Tuesday that the UC system could not afford the planned expansion unless state voters approve Proposition 111, a measure that would relax state constitutional spending limits and allow more tax money to be spent on transportation and higher education. If the measure does not pass, Baker said, the system would have to turn away prospective students and impose higher fees.

UC officials have proposed adding three new campuses--in the northern, central and southern regions of the state--to handle enrollment that is expected to grow by 56,000 students to 221,000 by 2005. The university system now has nine campuses.

The UC Board of Regents decided in February to proceed first with a new campus for the central region. The board is to decide in November whether the next campus to be built after that would be in the north or the south. A site for that campus could be selected by mid-1992, Baker said.

Baker said the Southern California campus would cost about $300 million, require between 1,200 and 2,000 acres and ultimately serve 15,000 to 25,000 students. The Antelope Valley, with a population of about 200,000 and growing, is projected to have sufficient population, housing, jobs and services to support such a campus, he said.

Baker’s stop in Lancaster was the first in a two-day series of meetings with leaders in some of the communities vying for the new UC campus. Baker was to meet later Tuesday with Palm Springs Mayor Sonny Bono and today with officials in Diamond Bar and the Coachella Valley.