Effort Underway to Keep Hospital as Is

Refusing to welcome any new security improvements or mentally ill felons at Camarillo State Hospital, the City Council has opted to lobby state officials to let the facility operate unchanged.

Short of that, council members will invite state university officials to visit the hospital in hopes that they can convert the grounds to a Cal State campus.

Gov. Pete Wilson has proposed closing the 60-year-old state hospital by July 1997 to save money as part of a statewide consolidation of mental health services.

A group of Ventura County officials, including Mental Health Director Randall Feltman and Supervisor John K. Flynn, is proposing to increase the number of mentally ill criminals at the hospital to keep it from shutting down.

Worried that the criminals might escape and harm Camarillo residents, however, the City Council opposes adding any new violent mentally ill patients to the facility.

“My wife grew up near Patton State Hospital in Riverside County, and it used to look like Camarillo State,” said Councilman Stanley J. Daily, referring to a maximum-security institution for mentally ill criminals.

“The same thing could happen at Camarillo State if we don’t watch out,” he said.

The lobbying effort against that plan will start with letters approved late Wednesday that will be sent to Wilson, Cal State officials and a handful of local legislators.

Council members hope that the university chancellor and a number of trustees accept an invitation to visit the area.