Cal State Campus Hinges on Bond Measure Passage

Hammering the point home one last time, political, educational and business leaders gathered Thursday at the site planned for a future Ventura County campus of Cal State University to urge voter approval for a statewide bond measure.

As produce trucks rumbled past the 260-acre lemon orchard west of Camarillo that could one day be the college campus, officials said Ventura County voters should support Proposition 203 as an investment in the next generation.

The $3-billion bond measure, which is on Tuesday’s primary ballot, contains nearly $1 million in planning for the new Cal State campus and about $4 million for the community college district, officials said.

But there was confusion at the state level about how much money the bond would actually raise for public schools--kindergarten through 12th grade--in the county.

One state Department of Education official Thursday put the figure at $18 million. Another in Sacramento estimated only about $8 million. Local school leaders say they do not know what projects will appear on the final list, which will not be drawn up by state officials until April.

The statewide measure requires a simple majority, but even that has proved elusive for two out of the past three measures. A $450-million school bond measure failed in 1990, a $900-million measure passed in 1992 and another $900-million bond failed in 1994.

Leaders on Thursday said there is wide support for this bond measure, however.

“The business and education communities are standing shoulder-to-shoulder in support of Prop. 203,” said state Sen. Jack O’Connell (D-Santa Barbara). “The business community recognizes a direct correlation between investing in education and a healthy economy.”

J. Handel Evans, acting president of Cal State’s proposed Ventura County campus, said CSU has no contingency plans in the works if the bond measure fails.

“We have to build one bridge at a time,” he said. “If we can’t pass this measure, we’ll build another bridge.”

Cal State Chancellor Barry Munitz had suggested earlier that the university system consider seeking support for a half-cent sales tax to help fund the institution. But Evans said Thursday there had been no work in that direction.

The leaders, who included representatives of elementary, secondary and higher education in the county, gathered to call attention to the bond measure.

If approved, the measure would provide $936,000 for sewer and other infrastructure planning for a Cal State campus.

Ventura County’s community colleges would receive $4.4 million to be used to remove old buildings and equip new math and science buildings on the Moorpark and Ventura campuses, said Barbara Buttner, director of governing board relations for the district. The projects would be delayed indefinitely if the bond fails, she said.

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Oxnard College would not receive funding through the measure, but has recently built a new gymnasium and a new letters and sciences building, she said.

Chancellor Philip Westin, who heads the district, called the bond measure a “a unique opportunity for us to invest in our future.”

Ventura County K-12 schools have requested funding from the state for $96 million in projects. About $18 million worth of those projects are on a $1.2-billion list that could be funded if the bond passes, said Henry Heydt, assistant director of the school facilities planning division of the State Department of Education in Sacramento.

Among the districts that could receive support are: Ventura Unified for $1.5 million, Conejo Valley Unified for $12.5 million and Moorpark Unified for $110,000. Another $3.6 million could go to Oxnard Union High School, and $538,000 for Pleasant Valley Elementary, Heydt said.

“But that is not an absolute funded list,” cautioned Lyle Smoot, assistant executive officer to the State Allocations Board in Sacramento. He said projects that receive highest priorities are those in which the local districts share funding and where the districts have year-round programs.

The decisions will be made by the end of the April, Smoot said.

Gary Mortimer, assistant superintendent of business services at the Conejo district, said he had received no confirmation from the state that his district would receive funds from the bond measure. But if so, he said, the funds would be used to upgrade pipes, sewers, flooring and windows; install technology wiring and make the campuses accessible to handicapped students.

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Phil Shearer, manager in the office of public school instruction with the State Department of Education in Sacramento, said the list of projects that are “ready to be funded” from Ventura County amounts to only $7.9 million.

“But that doesn’t guarantee the board will fund those projects,” he also cautioned.

Those projects include $220,000 for Hueneme Elementary, $5.7 million for Pleasant Valley Elementary, $141,000 for Rio Elementary and $1.8 million for Moorpark Unified.

Charles D. Weis, who oversees kindergarten through 12th-grade education as Ventura County superintendent of schools, said the bond measure is important to residents of all ages, regardless of the final amount of funding.

The K-12 system prepares the students for college. But despite higher-than-average scores in advanced placement courses, and Scholastic Aptitude Tests and a higher socioeconomic level than other areas, Ventura County students do not transfer at high rates to state universities.

Only 11% of Ventura County high school seniors transfer to the Cal State system, compared to a statewide average of 14%. The rates of transfer to private schools and the UC system are roughly equivalent to the state average, and the transfer rate to community colleges is slightly lower, Weis said.

“It is widely attributable to a lack of a four-year university,” said Joyce M. Kennedy, director of Cal State Northridge’s Ventura satellite campus. She said the county has long helped pay through its taxes for public universities elsewhere.

“It’s time to bring some of our tax dollars home to Ventura County,” she said.

It will still cost about $700 million to build a new Cal State campus, which would have to come from future bond measures, officials said.

But Carolyn Leavens, past president of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn. and a Ventura County grower, said this bond measure begins the process.

“It’s the future of Ventura County, and [the bond measure] represents the opportunity to open doors to the entire world,” she said.