Cal State Panel OKs Plan to Take Over Camarillo Site

Setting the stage to convert Camarillo State Hospital into a college campus, a Cal State University panel on Monday agreed to ask the full Board of Trustees to take over the hospital property and turn it into the new home for the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge.

Cal State trustees, who served on a campus development panel, stopped short of tagging the now-shuttered mental hospital as the site of the university system’s 23rd campus.

Instead, they proposed proceeding more cautiously by moving CSUN’s off-campus center in Ventura to the Camarillo site by January 1999. Later, they said, the site could be expanded into an independent four-year public university, to be called Cal State Channel Islands.

“This is a watershed decision,” said Handel Evans, president of the yet-to-be-launched Channel Islands campus. “What we got today was a commitment . . . for a campus in Ventura County. It’s a very, very important step in the right direction.”

The committee’s recommendation, which is contingent on several factors--including the state’s willingness to contribute $6.5 million for annual operating expenses--is scheduled to go before trustees in mid-September.

According to Cal State officials, the full Board of Trustees almost always upholds the recommendations of its committees.

Still, officials said they have a lot of work to do between now and the September meeting to persuade trustees to include the conversion proposal in their 1998-99 budget. For example, officials must lay the groundwork for a special authority to oversee proposed development ventures at the site.

“Looking at how this campus will be administered, we’re going to look at this as an off-campus center for now,” said Trustee Jim Considine, chairman of the campus development committee. “We’re still looking down the road to a four-year university. And this brings us one step closer to that goal.”

Monday’s decision culminates months of planning aimed at transforming the sprawling state hospital property into a college campus.

A local state university has been planned by Cal State officials for more than three decades, but a series of setbacks has delayed those plans.

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Yet when Gov. Pete Wilson last year announced closure of the state mental hospital at Camarillo, he appointed a task force of state and local leaders to study the best possible uses for the facility.

The task force settled on it being transformed into a university, and Cal State officials have since been developing a conversion plan, analyzing costs and reviewing academic programs for the proposed campus.

On Monday, Cal State planners presented their most detailed view yet of what it would take to launch the Ventura County campus.

By scaling back renovations at the hospital, planners said they had been able to shave millions off the original $40-million to $45-million price tag of converting the 60-year old psychiatric facility into a university.

And by focusing only on moving the off-campus center to the property--rather than establishing a full service, independent, four-year university--planners were able to save another $10 million a year in salaries and administrative costs.

For a start-up cost of $25 million to $30 million, and an annual subsidy of $6.5 million, planners said Monday they would be able to open a satellite campus that would accommodate about 6,000 full- and part-time students and that could blossom into a full-fledged university, perhaps by the year 2005.

“Look at how this campus wil be administered, we’re going to look at his as an off-campus center for now,” said trustee Jim Considine, chairman of the campus development committee. “We’re still looking down the road to a four-year university. And this brings us one step closer to that goal”.

State Sen. Jack O’Connell (D-San Luis Obispo), who has introduced a bill to make the transfer of the property official, said he was pleased with the committee’s action.

“This is a significant achievement toward conversion of the hospital to becoming a four-year public university,” he said of the committee’s recommendation. “This just reaffirms what I’ve been saying for a very long time: The former hospital is a prime spot for the 23rd CSU campus.”

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* STAYING PUT

CSUN president is passed over for job at Wayne State University. B9