Panel Weighs Possibilities for Camarillo State’s Future

As the task force studying future uses for Camarillo State Hospital met for the first time Friday, the possibilities for what the complex could become continued to swell.

A private company might want to put a resort at the picturesque, tile-roofed campus once the hospital closes next year. Or the 750 acres and 85 buildings could be turned into a state university, a youth prison or a veterans’ home.

But the most likely scenario for the hospital property is a combination of groups using various sections for separate programs--joint uses that would share operating expenses, said James Goodell, a Pasadena-based urban planner.

“The odds that there’s one user out there that wants this place just the way it is are nil,” he said. “It will probably end up being some sort of mixed-use scenario.

“That seems to be the case with these large institutions that become available,” he said. “Nobody needs all of it.”

More than 50 people attended the afternoon hearing, including representatives from the state veterans affairs office and the California Youth Authority.

Notification of the property’s availability has been sent to every state agency, with the Cal State University system and prison officials joining veterans affairs and youth authority administrators in expressing interest.

“If you have any interest in this, now is the time for proposals,” Goodell said.

The task force is charged with studying all of the proposals, including projects pitched by private investors, and forwarding a recommendation to Gov. Pete Wilson by Nov. 1.

Wilson wants to close the facility next July because the patient load has dwindled and per-bed costs have soared past $115,000 a year. He has pledged to implement the panel’s ultimate recommendation.

All of the committee members have said they plan to approach the task force discussions with no preconceptions about what should become of the hospital grounds.

During the four-hour meeting Friday, committee members not readily familiar with the hospital and its treatment programs and facilities began to realize the extent of their charge.

“It clearly does offer lots of different possibilities,” said task force member Bruce Andrews, president of a private health-care company based in Orange County.

Camarillo City Councilman Ken Gose, named to the panel earlier this week, said he favors maintaining a hospital and opening a state college on the property.

“I’d like to see it turn into some kind of medical university,” Gose said. “There’s a lot of room here, and I think it’s real fertile ground for training.”

But Leo O’Hearn, a task force member and retired Oxnard attorney whose son is in treatment at Camarillo State, is skeptical of turning the hospital into a university or a resort.

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He said other state institutions should close and move their patients to Camarillo State to make it more cost-effective.

“The facility in Norwalk should be consolidated up here,” O’Hearn said. “We should visit that facility because that’s where my son is going to go and it’s not fit for human habitation.”

Some of the other task force members, including state Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley), said they, too, worry what will become of the 800 or so patients now at the hospital if Camarillo State is closed next year.

“My concern still comes down on the side of those who are still here,” said Rev. Al Gorsline, a committee member and pastor of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Oxnard.

“But it appears that’s not the direction we’re going,” Gorsline said toward the end of the meeting.

Wright said she supports using the hospital property and resources to establish a center for mental health care and other services.

“I see this as a center that would be unique to the state of California that would be a real asset to the state of California,” she said.

Goodell and a team of planners from the Urban Land Institute will review all of the possibilities and prepare detailed reports about the prospects and feasibility of each alternative.

That material, along with testimony collected at a public hearing scheduled Aug. 2, will be presented to the task force during a four-day meeting scheduled for September.

State and Consumer Services Secretary Joanne Kozberg, who is serving as chairwoman of the task force, said all of that information will be reviewed by the committee before a recommendation is forwarded to Wilson.

“It will be up to the task force to know what the community needs,” she said.

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Robert Castro, a vice president of the union that represents about 600 Camarillo State employees, urged committee members to think about the impact of their decision on the 1,500 hospital workers.

“I deeply request that we consider the needs of the people who work here as seriously as we do those we treat,” he said.

Gwendolyn Johnson, who has worked as a clinical records clerk at Camarillo State for almost 14 years, said she believes the task force meetings were called strictly for political purposes.

“I think the decision has already been made,” she said, taking a break outside the staff conference room where the hearing was underway. “I think the task force is here just to appease us.

“They are going to close it,” Johnson said. “I just wish they would tell us when.”