Task Force on State Hospital Use Named

State officials Wednesday named a select group of mostly Republican elected officials and community leaders to a task force that will review potential uses for Camarillo State Hospital.

In addition to state Sen. Cathie Wright, R-Simi Valley, and Assemblyman Nao Takasugi, R-Oxnard, the panel includes Ventura County Supervisor Frank Schillo, union leader Brian Bowley, retired attorney Leo O’Hearn and Somis-area rancher Carolyn Leavens.

Educators, clergy, businessmen and social service advocates and representatives from a series of state agencies round out the panel, charged with submitting recommendations to Gov. Pete Wilson by Nov. 1.

“We wanted to make sure we had a group that was large enough to get the job done,” said Kevin C. Eckery, deputy secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency. “But in the meantime, it had to be compact enough to be able to meet and operate constructively.”

The panel will convene for the first time July 12 at Camarillo State Hospital. Eckery said he expects the task force to meet five or six times before it is able to forge its recommendations.

Each session will be open to the public, Eckery said.

Wright said the group will meet formally only a handful of times, with most of the work broken into subcommittees.

Task force members said Wednesday they are eager to reach a compromise on the eventual use of the hospital’s 750 acres and 85 California mission-style buildings.

“There’s such a sharp division in the community that we’re going to have to work toward some sort of compromise,” Leavens said. “But I have absolute faith that we will create a solution that is comfortable to everybody.”

Bowley, a chapter president of the largest union at the hospital, said he hopes to persuade members of the task force to back a mixed-use scenario for the center.

“Obviously, we’re all going to have our own point of view, but I think we’ll find some ways to reduce bed costs,” Bowley said.

O’Hearn, whose son is a patient at the hospital, also supports keeping the facility open by bringing in another agency to help pay the operational costs.

“I’d like to keep the facility operating in some manner or another, preferably as a mental hospital,” he said. “But I’m willing to consider joint usage. Continued operation is my top priority.”

Under a downsizing plan by Wilson, the 60-year-old state hospital will close by July 1997, the victim of a dwindling patient population and rising treatment costs.

But when Wilson last month reaffirmed his intention to close the hospital, he pledged to establish a committee of state and local stakeholders to consider potential uses for the property.

If the hospital shuts down completely, Ventura County would lose more than 1,500 jobs and an $80-million annual payroll.

Other members of the panel include health-care executive Bruce Andrews, 3M plant manager Chuck Byrne, Casa Pacifica board member Bettina Chandler, Camarillo businessman Randy Churchill and Southern California Gas Co. regional manager Marty de los Cobos.

Also named were Rev. Al Gorsline of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Oxnard, Bill Kearney of the Ventura County Taxpayers Assn., Jim Shorter, executive director of the Tri-Counties Regional Center, and Moorpark College President James W. Walker.

Administrators from the Cal State University system, considering the site for a Ventura County campus, will be among the groups that will provide assistance but will not sit on the panel.