Price for CSUCI Is Too High

Your article on the latest plan for the development of the Camarillo State Hospital grounds into CSUCI leaves a question or two unanswered.

Since the new plan would deprive the county of property tax from new houses and businesses built in the area, will the rest of Ventura County be asked to pay the additional taxes to support the additional police, firefighters, emergency medical personnel and schools needed to support the additional residents of the area, whose tax money will be going to the state university?

Will sales taxes be raised in the county to compensate the county for the lost revenues that will be going to the state university?

Given the $16.7 million proposed by the governor, and the $20 million volunteered by the trustees of the Ventura County Community College District, how much money is enough?

The president of the proposed university is quoted as saying, “This is one way of ensuring that we get a university, and that’s the bottom line.” But this isn’t the state of Ventura; this is Ventura County. The university is Cal State University--let the state pay for it. It will be open to the entire state and beyond.

There is no reason to deprive our students of educational services and facilities or to tax our residents even more just because we don’t yet have a campus of the state university in our county. Thirty years of increased taxes and decreases in services is a high cost to pay for other people’s dreams.

This plan still needs more “critical thinking.”

STEPHEN DOYLE

Moorpark