Task Force to Begin Deliberation on Future of Camarillo State

They are a diverse collection of experts, handpicked by Gov. Pete Wilson to bring a variety of perspectives to a contentious debate.

They are business people, bureaucrats, educators and ranchers. There is even a minister. Nineteen in all, they make up the task force called on by Wilson to study recommendations for future uses of Camarillo State Hospital.

And with a Nov. 1 deadline looming to plot the course for the aging state institution, time is running out.

“While we are on a fast course,” said State and Consumer Services Secretary Joanne Kozberg, who will chair the meetings, “we believe there is appropriate time for thoughtful dialogue with ample public input.”

Assembled by Wilson after his May decision to close Camarillo State stirred intense political debate, the task force will convene its first meeting on the hospital grounds Friday.

At stake are more than 1,500 hospital jobs and an $80-million annual payroll, not to mention the possibility of using the campus to establish Ventura County’s first public university years ahead of schedule.

Wilson has said repeatedly that he will take the committee’s recommendation very seriously when determining the fate of the hospital. The state has already set aside more than $11 million to move the 850 or so patients and mothball the facility.

But several committee members, meanwhile, already have begun lobbying state officials to open the area’s first state college.

Even though 260 acres of lemon trees were bought by Cal State officials across the Ventura Freeway from Camarillo State, some task force members said the university could open much sooner if the hospital were converted to a college.

“Right off, the economics of having a university there would be marvelous,” said Jim Shorter, executive director of the Tri-Counties Regional Center, a placement and referral service for mentally retarded people.

“My question is, how committed are the CSU administrators to the land they already have purchased?”

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Most committee members polled by The Times said they will enter the discussions ready to consider any and all proposals for the sprawling campus and its 85 California mission-style buildings.

Even so, sentiments such as those expressed by Shorter abound among the task force members.

For example, Randy Churchill, a Camarillo real estate agent selected for the panel, went to a series of town-hall-style meetings earlier this year to call on the government to convert Camarillo State to a four-year university.

But in an interview last week, he was careful to say he supports converting the hospital to a college only if it can be shown that the status quo at Camarillo State is no longer economically feasible.

Converting the place to a state college “is certainly going to be one of the things I think would be an excellent alternative,” said Churchill.

“But I hope I go in with an open mind,” Churchill said. “Hopefully, we’ll be a broad enough group that we can look at all options.”

Another committee member in that corner is Marty de los Cobos, president of the business-minded Ventura County Economic Development Assn.

De los Cobos for years has served on a communitywide task force formed specifically to expedite converting the Cal State Northridge satellite campus in Ventura to a full-fledged college of its own.

But he too says he will bring no preconceptions to the bargaining table.

“I need to find and understand what we’re looking for, but I think the bottom line is how can we put that facility to the best possible use?” said de los Cobos, a Southern California Gas Co. executive.

Nonetheless, he said, “if [the college] makes sense, we ought to do it.”

“We have both existing and emerging industry sectors that would benefit a great deal from having a university here,” de los Cobos said. “We have a lot of high-tech businesses that would not only benefit from a university but also contribute to it.”

Rancher Carolyn Leavens told task force organizers last month that she would gladly serve on the committee. But she made it clear to them that a state university is her top priority.

“There are a few people who have strong advocacy in one direction or another,” she said. “But I have absolute faith in people of good will who are trying to create a solution that is comfortable to everybody.”

Moorpark College President James W. Walker also is among those who will help dictate the future of the hospital, and he said he is not leaning in any one direction.

“I’ve read all the pros and cons about the various proposals,” he said. “But I think it has to be looked upon from a broad countywide perspective.”

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Walker acknowledged, however, that opening a state college locally would be a great benefit.

“It’s extremely important that we get a public four-year university in Ventura County,” he said. “Not only does it encourage our own students to stay in the county, but it attracts students from other areas.”

Although the group mostly includes familiar names involved all year in the debate over the fate of Camarillo State, there is a handful of political unknowns on the panel.

For example, the Rev. Al Gorsline, pastor of an Oxnard congregation, is a task force member who says he wants to learn more about the issue before discussing his initial preferences for the hospital. But he said his foremost concern is taking care of those patients who have lived there for decades.

“My own feeling is coming down on the side of human need and seeing how we can continue to meet those needs,” said Gorsline, who counts among his parishioners state Assemblyman Nao Takasugi (R-Oxnard), who helped form the panel.

The panel is expected to meet five or six times over the next five months. Each of the meetings will be held in Ventura County, and they will be open to the public.

Included in the schedule will be one public hearing, at which anyone interested in the hospital’s fate will be invited to speak, Kozberg said.

But there is little hope that the task force members will reach a unanimous recommendation for the future use of the hospital and its rich resources.

Rather, Kozberg and other Sacramento officials hope that the committee will reach enough of a consensus so that each member will take away some sense of compromise.

“We do not have any preconceived ideas,” she said. “We are looking for positive thinkers who are open to new approaches, who are solution-oriented and who will work to try and build a consensus.”

By the second or third task force meeting, sometime in August or September, Kozberg plans to invite representatives of the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Land Institute to a task force meeting to present recommendations of their own.

Kozberg said she expects the institute, which specializes in land-use planning and conversion, to propose some hybrid or mixed-use scenarios for the property.

Retired attorney Leo O’Hearn sees the university/hospital mix as his best hope. Such a proposal could mean keeping his son, a longtime Camarillo State patient, in a familiar setting--at least past the proposed July 1997 closing.

O’Hearn, who is also on the advisory committee, hopes that state university officials will see the benefit of maintaining the hospital’s established research programs, which have received much recognition in recent years.

The future Ventura County Cal State campus could offer programs that incorporate treatment of mentally ill and developmentally disabled patients, he said.

“We have a pretty comprehensive research facility out there now that’s associated with UCLA, so it obviously ties to higher education,” said O’Hearn.

The Cal State system “is one of the few state agencies around that has the potential for using it.”

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Brian Bowley, the union leader who represents about 600 psychiatric technicians at Camarillo State, agreed that a mixed-use scenario would be the best outcome for his workers.

He said there already are several new options being discussed in which Camarillo State would remain a mental health facility, including a proposal from prison officials to use a portion of the hospital as a state-sponsored halfway house for parolees.

“That would be something like 600 beds right there,” Bowley said. “And that [proposal] comes straight from a study by the Department of Corrections. They’ve identified it themselves.”

Another potential way to keep the hospital operating as a health-care facility is to invite private-sector health-care providers to the table.

Bruce Andrews is president of a company that manages 215 private health-care facilities across 29 states, and he has been named to the task force.

Even though Nationwide Health Care Properties plans to expand by more than 3,000 beds a year in the near future, Andrews said it would be premature to consider Camarillo State a viable option for a public-private partnership.

“I’ve never even seen the facility,” said Andrews, who acknowledged that the partnering proposal may be discussed when the task force convenes. “But I have no idea what would be involved from that standpoint.”

Who They Are:

* Joanne Kozberg: secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency, who will chair the meetings.

* Sen. Cathie Wright: The Simi Valley Republican helped convene the task force by persuading legislators to delay spending the money needed to close Camarillo State until November.

* Assemblyman Nao Takasugi: the Oxnard representative who joined with Sen. Wright to slow down Wilson’s closure plans.

* Frank Schillo: chairman of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors.

* Bruce Andrews: president of Nationwide Health Care Properties Inc., a Newport Beach-based health-care firm.

* Brian Bowley: president of the Camarillo chapter of the California Assn. of Psychiatric Technicians, a labor union representing some 600 hospital workers.

* Chuck Byrne: a manager at the Imation manufacturing plant in Camarillo.

* Bettina Chandler: a member of the board of directors of Casa Pacifica, a children’s shelter just north of Camarillo State.

* Randy Churchill: a Camarillo real estate agent and past president of the Camarillo Chamber of Commerce.

* Marty de los Cobos: regional affairs manager for Southern California Gas Co., who also serves as president of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn.

* The Rev. Al Gorsline: pastor of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Oxnard.

* Bill Kearney: a Merrill Lynch executive and vice chairman of the Ventura County Taxpayers Assn.

* Carolyn Leavens: owner of the Leavens Ranches of Ventura County.

* Leo O’Hearn: a retired Oxnard attorney whose son is a longtime patient at Camarillo State.

* Jim Shorter: executive director of the Tri-Counties Regional Center, a placement and referral service for developmentally disabled people and their families.

* James W. Walker: Moorpark College president.

* Laurel Shockley: California Trade and Commerce Agency representative.

* Rob Schladale: California Health and Welfare Agency representative.

* Lee Grissom: California Office of Planning & Research representative.