Ventura County Trying to Jump-Start Drive for CSU Campus : Education: Chancellor says innovative ideas are needed to put the project back on track.

By KENNETH R. WEISS

Sept. 24, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

VENTURA —

The drive to build a Cal State University campus in Ventura County is threatened by competition around the state and state officials believe it will require a burst of local financial aid if the campus is to open within the next decade.

Although CSU planners have penciled in nearly $50 million to build the first phase over the next six years, it could easily take twice as long in light of the state’s cash crunch and competing needs of the 22 existing Cal State campuses.

For the Ventura County campus to get rolling, it may have to be jump-started with money from a local sales tax, local revenue bonds or business donations, state officials say.

Chancellor Barry Munitz assures that he and the CSU Board of Trustees remain committed to launching a 23rd campus on a recently purchased lemon orchard west of Camarillo. The money and the timing are less certain, though.

“Obviously, we are going to have to find creative ways to build the campus,” Munitz said.

It has been 32 years since the trustees designated Ventura County as a site of a future university because of anticipated population growth. And now it is the largest county in California without a public university.

Ventura County also has one-third fewer high school graduates who go on to a four-year college than the state average. Some studies attribute the drop-off to a lack of access to a public university.

All of this has fueled a growing consensus: Ventura County’s inability to open a public university has been one of the county’s greatest failures.

“A lot of people are waking up to what it means to them,” said Carolyn Leavens, co-chairwoman of a task force to advocate the new campus. “I think you could call it enlightened self-interest.”

Cal State Northridge’s satellite campus in Ventura has made tremendous strides in two decades. But it does not offer a full complement of courses. Nor does it have the stature or the draw of a full-fledged university.

“A lot of kids on the Oxnard Plain cannot go away to college and live in a nice little apartment that mom and dad set up for them,” Leavens said.

Four times since 1990, Cal State officials have sought money for new construction and renovations by getting a bond measure placed on the California ballot.

And four times, voters in Ventura County have rejected the statewide bond measures.

This year, the state Legislature failed to put a $975-million bond measure on the March ballot. If approved by the voters, the bonds could have supplied Cal State officials with the $2.7 million needed through 1997 to keep the Ventura campus on schedule for opening in 2000.

Although state Sen. Jack O’Connell (D-San Luis Obispo) was a chief sponsor of the legislation, Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) had a mixed voting record on the bill, joining opponents to defeat it at one point this year. Both senators represent portions of Ventura County.

CSU officials keep track of such matters, but no more so than Ventura County campus boosters who bombarded Wright with phone calls and letters this year to reverse her vote.

The past decade has been tortuous for those activists seeking a local university. As the search for a site in Ventura County was slowed by reluctant sellers, lawsuits and slow-growth advocates, two other campuses skipped ahead and are now holding classes.

The northern San Diego County town of San Marcos began its campaign for a CSU campus in 1985, the same year that Ventura County renewed its campaign for a university.

But the San Marcos campus opened in 1991, and so far has received about $74 million to buy land and construct buildings. A few weeks ago, Cal State Monterey Bay opened with $29 million from the Pentagon to help convert the closed Army base at Ft. Ord into a university.

After years of difficult negotiations, CSU officials finally had a breakthrough in Ventura County this year, acquiring the last piece of the 260-acre lemon orchard for a campus in April.

But now that the Ventura County campus is ready to stand in line for cash from the state, the pool of bond money has gone dry.

“Sometimes I wonder if we are star-crossed,” said Joyce M. Kennedy, director of Cal State Northridge’s Ventura campus and longtime champion of a full-fledged university. “Are we living under a malignant star?”

The California Postsecondary Education Commission recently concluded that state colleges and universities will need $600 million a year over the next decade to maintain and refurbish older campuses, said Bill Storey, the commission’s chief policy analyst.

“What does that mean for Ventura? Without other sources of funds, maybe they are corporate or private, there is not likely to be anything other than the Ventura satellite campus for quite a while,” he said.

The CSU Board of Trustees recently decided that growth projects such as a Ventura County campus have a lower priority than seismic upgrades of aging campuses and an enormous backlog of other overdue renovations.

Given Ventura County’s poor timing, Munitz has decided it is time to get creative.

So the chancellor sent one of his key lieutenants, David Leveille, to set up an outpost in the county late this summer and explore every funding possibility. Munitz compares Leveille to an advance scout.

“Part of David’s role is to talk to the Ventura County business community, the Board of Supervisors, the city councils and see if there is a possibility of local revenue bonds or other creative ways to get the fiscal side going.”

Working out of his Volvo station wagon like a traveling salesman, Leveille has spent the last few weeks dashing between meetings with educators, business executives and political leaders.

Leveille is stumping the county to sell a vision of a new high-tech university and stir up interest among those who can offer financial aid.

One of Leveille’s ambitions is to start a virtual university, using video-teleconferences and other high-tech ways to link teachers and students while awaiting the money for the bricks and mortar.

University supporters constantly remind Leveille that he only has a limited time to ignite public enthusiasm. The notion has languished for so many years that it feeds public cynicism over whether a Ventura County campus will ever be built.

Munitz said he hopes the community will rally behind a campus. “If there are tensions or mixed messages, it will slow the process down,” he said. “If an interwoven support holds together, there will be a campus there, sooner rather than later.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Finding a Home

For 21 years, Ventura County has nurtured a satellite campus in rented offices with dreams of building a full-fledged, independent university. While California State University campus in Ventura has languished, other campuses have obtained millions of dollars to build permanent facilities.

Ventura

Students: 1,500*

Acreage: 260

Buildings: 0

Land, and planning costs to date: $9 million

. . . And the support for satellite campuses of existing Cal State schools may even surpass funding earmarked for the Ventura County campus.

****

San Marcos

Students: 3,683

Acreage: 304

Buildings: 4

Land, construction costs to date: $74 million