Foundation to Build a Home for CSUN President : Education: Trustees voted to borrow money to provide on-campus housing for Blenda J. Wilson. The outgoing president tried to keep the details secret.

The Cal State Northridge Foundation plans to borrow money to build a house on campus for the school’s new president, the chancellor of the state university system said Friday, divulging information the school’s current president had tried to keep secret.

In a controversial move, outgoing CSUN President James W. Cleary had ordered trustees of the school’s foundation to keep secret the results of a vote they took Thursday on a house for incoming president Blenda J. Wilson.

“They are planning to use university land to build a residence for the campus president,” Chancellor Barry Munitz, who is not bound by Cleary’s directives, told a Times reporter. “They will use some kind of long-term financing, with the foundation having the yearly debt obligations.”

Munitz said that because of the comparatively high cost of Los Angeles real estate, the promise of housing was a key element in luring Wilson from her post as chancellor of the University of Michigan at Dearborn, which provided her with a house. He said he did not know how much the foundation is planning to spend.

Wilson takes office Sept. 1, after Cleary’s retirement.

CSUN Foundation Executive Director Don Queen confirmed Friday that the trustees voted Thursday to help provide housing for Wilson. But he said he was forbidden to discuss details of the decision by Cleary’s secrecy admonition to the 17-member foundation board.

Attorney Terry Francke, an expert on the California law requiring that most actions by public agencies be taken openly, said when asked about the action that there is little legal basis for Cleary’s argument that the housing discussion and vote should be kept from the public.

Cleary called for a closed session of the board after citing provisions in the state education code relating to the discussion of personnel and investment matters. A majority of foundation trustees voted to support Cleary in closing the meeting.

“Public discussion could have a negative impact on the foundation,” Cleary said at the meeting. He added that no announcement would be made until the housing deal is completed, which Queen said Friday is expected within four weeks.

But Francke said state university auxiliary organizations--such as the CSUN Foundation--are governed by a version of the state’s open meeting law, known as the Brown Act, which requires public discussion of all but a handful of topics.

Cleary’s rationale for keeping the proceedings secret, Francke said, “seems tissue thin.”

Whether the foundation should approve buying, taking title or improving a property is clearly a public issue, Francke said, although a closed session could be called to discuss negotiating strategy, price and terms of purchase.

Under state law governing CSU organizations such as the foundation, “actual property must be identified and discussion of whether to buy it or not must be public,” said Francke, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit organization that provides information on public records and open meeting laws, as well as on First Amendment issues.

In addition, Francke said, closed-door talks over personnel issues pertain only to performance evaluations, “not the business discussion of a potential benefit.”

History professor and foundation trustee Ronald Schaffer made similar arguments before the meeting was closed but was voted down by the board majority.

“We’re dealing in matters involving hundreds of thousands of dollars, perquisites for a chief executive,” said Schaffer at the meeting. “We can be open and aboveboard, with the exception of specifics.”

Cleary’s order to foundation members not to discuss the closed session decision, described as a “gag order” by three trustees who attended, has no legal basis, Francke said.

“None of these people are judges and if somebody wants to talk and believes it is in the public interest, then it is up to them,” Francke said. “I can’t imagine how they expect to enforce this.”

CSU trustees last week approved a $134,800-a-year salary for Wilson, as well as a $2,200-a-month housing allowance until a house is available. The state will pay $1,000 of the housing allowance with the remainder coming from non-state funds, CSU officials said.

Six of the 20 CSU campuses provide houses for their presidents, CSU spokesman Stephen J. MacCarthy said. Three of those houses were donated and the rest are believed to have been part of the original campus properties, he said.

The CSUN Foundation--supported mostly by the profits of campus food and book stores--also administers all university research grants. Historically, the CSUN Foundation has paid for programs supported by the campus president but not funded by the state.

The foundation’s most controversial decision in recent years was its 1990 promise to give school athletic teams $500,000 a year for 10 years to support Cleary’s longstanding desire to move CSUN up from Division II to Division I athletic competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Many faculty members say the money should be spent on academic programs, especially now that state budget woes are forcing a host of campus cuts, including the prospect of many layoffs and class cancellations.

The foundation is now negotiating with CSU officials for a long-term lease on campus property on which the foundation wants to build several hundred condos and townhouses for faculty and staff.