Planners Seek Input for Cal State Campus : Education: Officials hope that Thursday meeting elicits ideas from residents and the business community for a public- private partnership.

The planned Cal State University in Ventura County will be a college for the 21st Century, one that links the campus to the world with electronic images but offers down-to-earth programs such as agriculture and ecology as well.

University planners envision a public-private partnership at the campus. For instance, a large performing arts center to be used by students and community groups alike might be financed by both sectors.

Planners are working under a mandate to “think creatively,” envisioning everything from a privately financed monorail or federally subsidized electric cars to reduce traffic, to low-tech solutions such as community bike trails.

Architects have not revealed sketches of the exterior of the university, which will be built on a 260-acre lemon orchard west of Camarillo. But concepts under discussion range from Spanish style to modern, from high-rise structures with lots of open space to a more low-profile set of buildings, possibly incorporating the surrounding orchard into the landscape or even the curriculum.

No funding is available now for anything beyond land purchase and master planning. But residents are invited to a meeting Thursday to share ideas on the kind of university they want.

David Leveille, director of institutional relations for Cal State, said that even a monorail is possible, depending on the private sector’s involvement.

“We are not looking to the state to finance the whole campus,” Leveille said. “There may be opportunities for private investment as well. We need to think creatively.”

Despite a lack of funds, Chancellor Barry Munitz said Cal State is committed to developing a campus in Ventura County, the largest county in the state without a public four-year college. Planners hope to have students on campus soon after the year 2000.

“If we stop, it sends all the wrong signals--that we’ve given up or we don’t think it’s important,” he said. “My response is to keep the pressure on.”

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Munitz said voters who care about higher education must urge state legislators to provide for it in the budget. And Cal State must continue planning for its growing student body, he said.

“It’s not going to happen tomorrow,” he said of the Ventura County campus. “But if we don’t work on it tomorrow, it will never happen at all.”

The site was selected in 1991 after a seven-year battle to find a location in Ventura County that was suitable and politically acceptable to nearby residents and elected officials.

During that time, the state economy turned sour, and Cal State’s operating and maintenance budgets were cut, leaving little for such capital projects as new campuses.

But Munitz said Thursday’s community meeting, together with the system’s efforts to acquire the property through condemnation, show that the university is still committed to Ventura County.

The university has filed suit to take the property by eminent domain because owners of one parcel have refused to sell.

“We are at the mercy of the court,” Leveille said. “But we are optimistic that something can be culminated within the next few months.”

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Meanwhile, university planners are inviting area residents, government officials and business people to the community meeting Thursday.

“This is an opportunity for the whole community to offer input before the decisions are made,” said Joyce M. Kennedy, director of the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge. “We need to look at issues together in a spirit of cooperation rather than a spirit of confrontation.”

Kennedy said the campus will serve as a center for the community, offering not only academic curricula but cultural programs as well.

“This campus will give the community a chance to not only understand but to celebrate the cultural diversity of the region,” she said. “I expect the university to be a leader in this.”

Leveille said the campus would also treat the county’s largest economic sector as an important part of the curriculum.

“We want to consider how we can take advantage of the campus being in an agriculture environment,” he said. “We want to incorporate a lot of open space as well.”

Richard Wittenberg, county administrative officer, called the planned university a “wonderful asset to our county.”

He acknowledged the financial problems that Cal State as a whole is having, but said the county and the cities of Oxnard and Camarillo have already entered agreements to help the university wherever possible. The county is working with the U. S. Soil Conservation Service to ensure that a $12-million flood control project is built on the property.

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And the cities have asked the Ventura County Transportation Commission to spend county transportation dollars to develop roads leading to the site. They have also pledged staff time and services.

Wittenberg suggested that Cal State could start small in the county, as it did at Northridge 30 years ago.

“I remember when that campus was a couple of Quonset huts,” he said. “The main thing is we have to get started. We have to have a footprint.”

FYI

Cal State University plans the first in a series of public workshops to seek community input on the planning of a four-year public university in Ventura County. The meeting will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the Ventura County Government Center, Hall of Administration, 800 S. Victoria Ave., Ventura, in the Board of Supervisors meeting room. For information, call 656-3606.