CSUN President’s New Home Is Subject of Debate : Housing: Some faculty members say the timing of the recent $465,000 purchase for Blenda J. Wilson and the secrecy around it were inappropriate.

The purchase of a $465,000 house as a temporary home for the incoming president of Cal State Northridge was ill-timed and should not have been done in secrecy, some CSUN faculty leaders said Tuesday.

“It’s extraordinarily unfortunate timing,” said Jane Bayes, a past faculty president. “To have an expenditure of this sort at a time when students are being asked to pay 40% increases in fees, classes are being cut and faculty are being laid off seems a blatant affront.”

The single-story, four-bedroom house on Calvin Avenue in Northridge was bought by the CSUN Foundation to fulfill an agreement by the California State University system to provide housing for incoming CSUN President Blenda J. Wilson, now chancellor of the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Escrow on the 3,300-square-foot house closed Friday, said Donald R. Queen, foundation director. Under Wilson’s employment agreement, the university system is obligated to supply her a house or pay a housing allowance of $2,200 a month--$1,000 from the state and $1,200 from CSUN funds.

She has agreed to turn over the housing allowance to the CSUN Foundation while she lives in the house.

The foundation, a nonprofit organization that raises funds for CSUN expenses not paid by the state, agreed to pay the school’s share of the allowance at the request of the university’s outgoing president, James W. Cleary, university officials said.

CSU Chancellor Barry Munitz said last month that because of the high cost of Los Angeles real estate, compared to Dearborn, the promise of housing was a key element in luring Wilson to CSUN. Wilson, who will take office Sept. 1, will receive a salary of $134,800 a year, $10,780 more than Cleary.

Queen said the foundation also has agreed to build a house on 12 acres of campus-owned land for the university president within two or three years. Then, he said, the foundation will sell the newly purchased house.

“We believe it was a good investment in this soft real estate market,” Queen said. “We hope to sell at a profit. But even if we sold at a $10,000 loss, it would be better than paying out $25,000 a year for rent.”

Real estate broker Syd Leibovitch, president of Paramount Properties, who handled the sale, said the house, owned by dentist William Carlson and his wife, Marilynn, went on the market a year ago for about $700,000, but the asking price had since dropped to $499,000.

The foundation “got a good buy on the house,” Leibovitch said.

He said he and Queen “looked at about 50 houses” and that Wilson flew out and looked at “about 30 of the 50. She picked out the three she liked the most.” The house purchased, which has three bathrooms, two fireplaces and a pool, was one of the three, he said.

Queen said one of the reasons for providing Wilson with a house is that she will be expected to do fund raising for the university and that she needs a suitable residence to entertain prospective donors, particularly corporate officials.

Some faculty members, including Louise Lewis, the current faculty president, called the purchase of the house a smart move, but others were critical.

“It bothers me that it was a trustees’ decision,” said chemistry professor Henry Abrash, also a past faculty president. “I don’t think decisions about spending local money should be made in Long Beach. With the budget crisis we have right now, it’s seems a little strange to spend that much money.”

Abrash said he thinks Wilson should be supplied with a house, but the expense should be borne entirely by the state university system.

Bayes, a political science professor, said that the purchase may have been necessary, but criticized the way the decision to buy the house was reached--in closed session by the 17-member foundation board. Cleary and other members of the board declined to discuss the decision later.

“The most devastating thing is that the records of the CSUN Foundation are not open,” Bayes said. “I am angry about that. Perhaps the purchase was necessary. But this should have been explained in an open meeting.”

Until late Monday afternoon, foundation officials refused to disclose the price of Wilson’s house and required Leibovitch to sign a pledge not to reveal it, the broker said.

“They wanted to wait until all the foundation board members had been notified” that escrow had closed, said CSUN spokeswoman Kaine Thompson.