Consultants Back Campus Option for Hospital

The drive to turn Camarillo State Hospital into a new four-year university received a major boost Thursday, when a team of land-use consultants recommended transforming the complex into a college campus for the 21st century.

To do that, Cal State University officials should annex all 750 acres of the sprawling mental hospital and parcel out smaller sections to other agencies as a way to reduce overall operating costs, the consultants told a select task force studying options for the aging facility.

The conclusion announced Thursday is key to the future of the hospital, which Gov. Pete Wilson ordered closed due to a dwindling patient population and spiraling operating costs.

Members of the task force, many of whom already support the idea of bringing a university to the site, are expected to give serious consideration to the consultants’ analysis before forwarding a formal recommendation to the governor’s office by Nov. 1.

Wilson has said all along that he would seriously weigh the task force’s conclusion in deciding what to do with the facility--a collection of 85 buildings and 1.5 million square feet of homes, offices and classrooms that is scheduled to close in July 1997.

The option of keeping the hospital open was not on the table, even though it has been advocated by hospital staff and relatives of longtime patients.

The analysts concluded that university administrators should share the complex with the community colleges, county schools and local business leaders, creating a vibrant “economic engine” that would position Ventura County to capitalize on emerging technology and commerce.

“We think you have an opportunity to do something truly extraordinary,” said land-use consultant James Goodell, who coordinated the analysis of the hospital property. “But doing it is going to be extremely complex.”

In lining up behind the Cal State proposal, consultants did not discount a California Youth Authority plan to convert the hospital property to a juvenile prison.

Rather, if the ambitious university project does not get the necessary funding, the youth authority plan could be implemented as a backup scenario, consultants said.

The task force took no formal action on the recommendations. But several members of Wilson’s hand-picked panel embraced the advisory group’s suggestion, congratulating the panel for its analysis and predicting great things from the university.

“I feel an excitement for a university in this area that could be a model the way you have described it,” said Bettina Chandler, who represents the nearby Casa Pacifica group home on the governor’s task force.

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Yet not all task force members shared that feeling. Several panelists said they worried what would become of the 800 patients and 1,500 employees, who spend their $80-million annual payroll across the county.

State Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley), for example, questioned whether the state should be closing mental hospitals in the first place. “Why we think we have less and less mental patients in this state, I don’t know,” she said.

And many of the parents, whose children have lived at the state hospital for years, said they were disappointed that analysts never considered alternate plans to keep the hospital open by bringing in more patients.

What’s more, nearly three-fourths of the task force left the meeting before members of the public, many of whom had waited for hours, were given a chance to ask questions.

“This department and these agencies have not demonstrated a whole lot of sensitivity,” said John Chase, whose developmentally disabled daughter lives at Camarillo State.

Endorsing the university proposal, the consultants said that four state mental hospitals across the country have been converted to universities.

After reviewing the Camarillo property, studying local demographics and interviewing business owners and elected officials, the consultants said the hospital could be turned into a state university like no other in the Cal State system.

Within a few years, Cal State Channel Islands, as the embryonic campus would be called, could host a business incubator program for small companies, employ technology to beam classes virtually anywhere and promote a “seamless transition” between community colleges and the university.

Meanwhile, the 1,400 students at the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge could move into new quarters at the renovated hospital relatively quickly, providing a ready-made population for the new university.

Even a nationally recognized behavioral laboratory at Camarillo State could be maintained in the Cal State conversion, consultants said.

UCLA researchers would treat students in special-education classes offered through the Ventura County superintendent of schools office instead of the schizophrenic adults they have studied for 20 years, consultants said.

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“Cal State University must be the lead organization,” said Margaret B. Sowell, a real estate specialist who served as an advisor to the task force. “It’s the magnet that’s bringing all of this to the table.”

J. Handel Evans, president of the as yet unbuilt Cal State Channel Islands campus, was encouraged by the endorsement Thursday, but said it would be premature to start celebrating.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” he said. “We’ve still got to do that due diligence thing. We’ve got to refine those numbers.”

University officials said earlier this week that they could not allow the proposed conversion to divert money from the 22 other Cal State campuses. Vice Chancellor Richard P. West said he would need up to $40 million upfront and another $20 million a year extra to make the proposal work.

Thursday, Evans said he had received no indication from Gov. Wilson that the extra money would be made available. “We’ll have to go through the regular hearings like anyone else,” he said.

A Wilson spokeswoman said the governor has not yet seen the proposal and that it would be premature to discuss potential funding sources for the university.

Sen. Wright also questioned whether California could afford the pricey conversion to a university. “If we get too grandiose . . . I don’t know that [the conversion] can be accomplished,” she said.

The 20-member task force is scheduled to meet twice next month before forwarding a final recommendation to Wilson.

Hospital administrators are planning to relocate the facility’s patients to group homes and alternate state institutions next spring.

Outside the staff conference room, where the morning-long meeting was held, one hospital employee muttered about the decision to dismantle a state hospital that has successfully treated thousands of patients.

“I guess I’ll get my resume polished up,” he said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

NEXT STEP

The task force studying alternative uses for the Camarillo State Hospital property will meet early next month to review the consultants’ recommendation announced Thursday. A formal task force recommendation will be sent to Gov. Pete Wilson by Nov. 1.