CSU Support Eroding for Taylor Ranch : New campus: A trustee committee meeting is likely to place greater emphasis on other county locations.

California State University is backing away from its unyielding stance that the Taylor Ranch is its chosen site for a four-year university in Ventura County, a university official said Friday.

Joyce M. Kennedy, director of the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge, said the ad-hoc committee of Cal State trustees scheduled to meet Monday in Long Beach will now likely place a far greater emphasis on other sites in Ventura County besides Taylor Ranch.

“By law, the requirements say that the environmental impact report must include alternative sites,” Kennedy said. “But this will go well beyond the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act.”

Kennedy said sites that have not yet been formally proposed to the university, such as one near Rice Avenue and the Ventura Freeway in Oxnard, will also likely be considered. She stressed that she could not predict the outcome of the meeting of elected trustees on Monday.

But she said that there had been a “clear indication of an erosion of support for the Taylor Ranch site.”

Kennedy declined to be more specific, but said the threat of lawsuits may be a factor in the university’s re-evaluation of sites.

“If there is additional litigation from the owners of the Taylor Ranch or anyone else, I don’t know how long the university can persevere” at Taylor Ranch, she said. “We need to husband our state resources and we can only proceed so long in one direction without support.”

Russ Baggerly, an Ojai environmentalist and outspoken opponent of the site, called the latest revelations “welcome news.”

“I think a decision like that has to be based on a number of factors, and I’m sure we the environmentalists are one of those factors, but not the only factor,” he said.

He said all the community groups should now work together to support a Ventura County Cal State campus at a better location.

Ventura City Councilman Todd Collart, who has remained neutral on placing a campus at Taylor Ranch, said he hoped the hinted change in position would move the county closer to establishing a university.

James Salzer, who helped organize a group in support of the Taylor Ranch site, said Friday he was relieved that the university would now consider alternatives.

“Taylor Ranch is a great site,” he said. “But I was not so much in favor of Taylor Ranch as I was for a university in the county,” Salzer said. He said the university position stated last December, that it was Taylor Ranch for a university or nothing at all, made him eager to gain support for the ranch site.

“I sat in on enough meetings with the CSU people to know they weren’t kidding when they said Taylor Ranch or nothing,” Salzer said.

The state chose the 400-acre site on a hillside bluff just west of the city of Ventura after years of searching for a location that could accommodate a 12,000- to 15,000-student campus to be built up over 30 years.

The owners of the ranch refused to sell, presumably to gain a tax advantage from public condemnation of their land. But what state officials called a friendly condemnation later went sour and negotiations stalled. The owners have threatened to sue the university.

Meanwhile, the Taylor Ranch site raised cries of opposition from Ojai residents who feared the effects of air pollution. Opposition also came from Ventura city residents fearing traffic problems in downtown Ventura and from residents of other cities in the county who preferred a more central location.

The state decided in March to go forward with an environmental impact report, with a clear focus on the ranch site.

Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds, who issued the Taylor Ranch ultimatum, has since left the university system under pressure for reasons unrelated to Taylor Ranch. But University Vice Chancellor Jack Smart said Friday that the departure of Reynolds has little or nothing to do with the present university position.

“The committee will recommend what they do regardless of the chancellor,” Smart said. He also said he expected that Monday’s decision would have a “substantive impact on the university project.”