Green Lights for CSUCI

The school colors will be blue and silver but for now all the cheers at Cal State University Channel Islands are for assorted shades of green:

* For the green of state funding, steered through yet another treacherous stretch of rapids last week as the state Legislature concluded its budget wrangle.

* For the green of environmental sensitivity, which university planners hope to build into every aspect of the new institution--from nature preserves to fuel-efficient mass-transit access.

* And for the green of public-private partnerships, as CSUCI organizers lost one potential tenant for surplus space on campus but quickly landed another.

The state funding peril marked the latest bump between state Sen. Jack O’Connell, the Democrat who represents Ventura, Ojai and Santa Paula, and state Sen. Cathie Wright, the Republican who represents the rest of the county. O’Connell has been the university’s most effective cheerleader in Sacramento; Wright, in whose district the proposed campus stands, has been reluctantly neutral at best.

When the joint legislative budget conference committee reviewed CSU’s allocations earlier this month, Wright produced a legal opinion that persuaded the panel to redirect $11.3 million in surplus bond proceeds from other Cal State campuses in a way that could have jeopardized the university--funds long ago approved by Gov. Pete Wilson for use to renovate the former Camarillo State Hospital grounds into the beginnings of a CSUCI campus.

O’Connell quickly weighed in with a contradictory legal opinion and explained that withholding the money could derail the university. The committee voted to give it back.

Wright is a vigorous champion for mental health care and fought mightily against Gov. Wilson’s plan to close Camarillo State Hospital, ending its long and proud tradition. But that particular battle is over now. Setting pitfalls for the university at this point does not help the hospital’s former patients and certainly doesn’t help Ventura County.

We encourage Sen. Wright to join her constituents in working to help Cal State University Channel Islands begin a long, proud tradition of its own.

Its financial challenges are huge. Never before has a state university been forced to pay its own way to such an extent.

The first long-term tenant to lease space on the Camarillo campus is CALSTART, a Burbank-based transportation technology consortium dedicated to developing cleaner, greener ways of getting around. That expertise will come in handy as CSUCI officials work to develop a plan that resolves some concerns raised in the environmental impact report that will guide the transformation of the campus.

CSUCI officials are scheduled to go before the CSU governing board in September to ask system trustees to formally accept the property. At the same time, they are seeking approval of the environmental report, which lists traffic as a key issue. To address it, CALSTART has proposed using electric vehicles, shuttle buses and a bicycle lending program.

We’re glad CSUCI has an appropriate partner to work on that part of the puzzle and we welcome other parts of the “green campus” put forth by university planners. For additional expertise in retrofitting its 1930s buildings for maximum energy efficiency, we suggest university planners consult with Patagonia Inc., which used a wide range of innovative materials and techniques to turn a historic building of similar vintage into an environmental showplace at its corporate headquarters in downtown Ventura.

It must be emphasized that the primary business of a university is education. But when innovative companies can bring their expertise to bear on real-world problems such as clean and efficient heating, cooling and transportation, inviting them to use the CSUCI campus as a living laboratory sounds like a winning strategy for all concerned.

In the areas of state funding, environmental sensitivity and public-private partnerships, the fledgling university has made an innovative start to the process of creating a new campus.