Gore Visits CSUN, Praises Recovery : Quake: Vice president says U.S. will ‘go all out’ to help heavily damaged campus. Appearance is latest White House gesture to reassure Southland of assistance.

Aiming to highlight the region’s recovery from the earthquake, Vice President Al Gore on Wednesday told a crowd of several thousand people at recently reopened Cal State Northridge that the federal government will “go all out” to assist in the heavily damaged campus’ restoration.

CSUN President Blenda J. Wilson said Gore’s 35-minute visit, coupled with a telephone call Monday from President Clinton, has convinced her that the federal government will do its share for the campus, which sustained an estimated $250 million to $350 million in damage.

“We want you to know that while no one can make everyone whole as a result of what happened here, we certainly can go all out to do everything humanly possible to do what can be done,” Gore said, although he made no specific commitments of federal aid.

Gore, at Clinton’s request, added the CSUN visit to his planned trip to Washington state. Aides said the visit to CSUN was arranged because the campus had suffered so much damage and had managed to reopen Monday for the spring semester only two weeks late.

“This college has been hit harder than any college ever in history. And yet you have bounced back faster and more completely than anyone,” Gore said, standing amid some of the hundreds of portable buildings that have become the campus’ classrooms since the Jan. 17 temblor.

Campus officials have said CSUN’s damage is the costliest ever for a U.S. university, with virtually every major classroom building on campus closed at least temporarily.

The visit was the latest in a series of gestures by Clinton Administration officials designed to convince Southern Californians, whether they were victims of the earthquake or of last year’s fires, that the federal government will fulfill disaster-response obligations. Because of its large population, the state is considered politically important to the Administration.

Campus officials are counting on the federal government to pay 90% of their recovery costs including, for example, the nearly $6 million in rental costs for the portable classrooms this semester.

Slow progress was reported Wednesday toward making all of the portable classrooms operational. Some classes had to be held outside with students sitting on folding chairs, and officials said they were rushing to beat the rain expected today.

Earlier in the day, Gore visited the Devonshire Mason Plaza shopping center in Chatsworth, where earthquake damage forced all major stores and some smaller ones to close. The vice president chatted with the owners of about half a dozen stores, posed for pictures and signed autographs.

Marc Magid, manager of the 118,000-square-foot complex owned by his parents, said he agreed to host the state and federal officials and news crews that accompanied Gore in the hope that some aid would be forthcoming.

“I want the government to service my tenants. Talk is cheap. We’ll see what happens in two weeks or a month from now,” he said.

Eric Rodriguez, owner of the Pacific Aquatics West tropical fish store that Gore visited, said his shop has been closed since the quake. He said he is awaiting word on a federal Small Business Administration loan. Without it, he will not be able to reopen, he said, because he has no earthquake insurance.