Some Look to Criminals to Save Camarillo State

Fearing the loss of more than 1,500 jobs, some local leaders have warmed to the idea of converting Camarillo State Hospital to an institution for criminals who are mentally ill.

City and county officials along with state lawmakers representing the county met Friday to work out a common approach to head off Gov. Pete Wilson’s plan to close the psychiatric hospital. They also reviewed the prospect of converting the facility to a state university if it is closed.

Before the meeting, Camarillo City Council members had said they wanted to preserve the status quo or convert the hospital into a university. They said they would prefer shuttering the facility entirely rather than keep it open as a hospital for criminals.

But in an apparent reversal Friday, Camarillo Mayor David M. Smith said he now supports maintaining the hospital as a treatment facility for mentally ill criminals before pursuing plans for a university there.

“We community leaders should deal with the first decision: What’s going to happen to the hospital?” said Smith, who plans to call a community meeting at City Hall within a few weeks.

Likewise, Oxnard Mayor Manuel M. Lopez said he would support treating court-ordered offenders at Camarillo if that is necessary to keep the hospital open and preserve its $80-million annual payroll.

“There’s too much money at stake,” Lopez said. “It would be disastrous to give up without a fight.”

Lopez, who plans to host a town hall meeting in Oxnard, said discussion of putting a college at the Lewis Road hospital should be put on hold while leaders work to preserve the facility in Sacramento.

“If we start taking a look at the university, that would take precedence, and [closing the hospital] would be a done deal,” he said. “The only way it can stay open is to attract patients from other hospitals.”

County Supervisor John K. Flynn also endorsed securing the hospital so it can treat criminals.

“It will have to take in more patients, and the only growing population” would be mentally ill criminals, he said. “We should be open to taking those patients. We should work for that.”

However, some of the 40 public officials and community leaders at the meeting remain strong boosters of turning the hospital into a four-year Cal State campus. The long-delayed Ventura County university could open sooner if the hospital’s 85 buildings are used as classrooms, they said.

“September 1997 seems like an ideal start date” for the university, said Camarillo businessman Wally Boeck, a leading backer of bringing college students to the hospital site.

Wilson has recommended closing the mental hospital by mid-1997.

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State Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley), who called the meeting, said she brought local officials together to gather facts so she can lobby on behalf of Camarillo State Hospital.

“It’s very difficult to sit on that Budget Committee because you get your shirt pulled in every direction,” she said. “I don’t have any support--facts and figures--not to [close] it. And I’m asking you for those reasons.”

Wright heard comments from the directors of the state departments of mental health and developmental services, the agencies that jointly operate Camarillo State Hospital. Both said the 866-patient facility costs too much to stay open as it now operates. Hundreds of mentally handicapped and retarded patients are already being moved to other facilities.

But state Mental Health Director Stephen Mayberg said Camarillo could be saved as a hospital if it were to serve only mentally ill patients. The current number of mentally ill patients, 372, could be augmented by bringing in hundreds of criminals ordered into mental facilities by California judges, he said.

Without the support of local communities, however, Mayberg said he will not bother to study the economics of such a conversion and will let the hospital close. “We wouldn’t even pencil it out if there’s a lot of resistance to this,” he said.

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Criminals treated at Camarillo could range from petty thieves to murderers, Mayberg said. About 20 mentally ill criminals are now being treated at the facility, he said.

Statewide, the number of such court-ordered patients is expected to increase 50% over the next five years, and Camarillo could accommodate much of that growth, he said.

But sexual predators are one of the fastest-growing groups of psychotic inmates needing placement, because a new state law allows them to be detained for treatment up to two years after completing their sentences.

Mayberg expects up to 400 referrals a year statewide due to the new law. He has refused to guarantee that such inmates would not be treated at Camarillo. Yet no one at Friday’s meeting embraced bringing psychotic rapists and child molesters to Ventura County.

“This is the ultimate NIMBY,” Mayberg said. “No one wants this population in their back yards.”

Yet local officials need to know that if the hospital closes in 1997, it would be closed for good, Mayberg said.

“We’re OK for 18 months,” he said. “But I need to have some kind of commitment prior to that, so I know where to invest my funds.”

Assemblyman Nao Takasugi (R-Oxnard) also warned that time is running short.

“We’re under the gun right now,” he said. “Assembly budget hearings begin in a couple of weeks. We need some kind of indication right now how the public wants to proceed.”