$250,000 Pledged to Children’s Shelter : Camarillo: The gift to Casa Pacifica is from former Times Publisher Otis Chandler and his family.

The family of Otis Chandler, former publisher of the Los Angeles Times and current chairman of the executive committee of Times Mirror Co., has pledged $250,000 to Casa Pacifica, a shelter under construction in Camarillo for abused and neglected children.

The gift is from Chandler, his wife, Bettina, and his mother, Mrs. Norman Chandler. When the shelter opens during the summer of 1993, the main reception area will be named for the Chandler family, according to Casa Pacifica officials.

“We think it will be a great and needed facility . . . for handling the problem of battered and abused children,” said Chandler, publisher of The Times from 1960-1980. “I have a personal interest in kids,” he said, noting his own five children and 12 grandchildren.

Bettina Chandler has been a member of Casa Pacifica’s board of directors since May, 1991, and she has helped with the fund-raising campaign.

“This is an expression of our belief in the future of children in Ventura County and an opportunity to recognize the importance of people from different sectors working together to solve one of our most pressing social problems,” she said.

Ground was broken March 21 for the first phase of the Casa Pacifica complex, a facility that will house 60 infants and children through age 17. It is designed to provide medical, educational and mental-health care for the children.

The shelter will cost $8 million to construct, and $4 million already has come from Ventura County government. About $3 million has been raised through private donations.

The Chandlers moved from Malibu to Camarillo two years ago. Last week they moved to a small horse ranch in Ojai. For the past four years, Otis Chandler has maintained an office in Oxnard where his private Vintage Museum of Transportation and Wildlife also is situated.

“We looked around for things we wanted to be involved in,” he said, explaining that they sought a charity that was a little out of the ordinary.

“I’ve always been interested in kids from broken homes,” he said. As a reporter for The Times, he wrote a series of stories about emotionally disturbed children who were warehoused with adult patients at Camarillo State Hospital, he said.