Senate Panel Backs Funds for Camarillo Cal State Site

Rejecting a recommendation to delay funding for the transformation of Camarillo State Hospital into a college campus, a key legislative panel Wednesday earmarked $16.5 million to operate the university and turn a number of the hospital’s Spanish-style buildings into classrooms and administrative offices.

Two of the three members of an influential state Senate subcommittee agreed to set aside money for the conversion project as part of a larger spending package for higher education.

The lawmakers spurned arguments by state budget analysts that funding for the Ventura County campus should be delayed pending further study, including a closer look at whether it would be more cost-effective to build the university from scratch.

The vote propels the spending plan to the Senate’s full Budget Committee and then on to the full Senate, both of which rarely overturn subcommittee recommendations.

“I’m very pleased with the result. It’s one more significant step forward to a four-year university becoming a reality in Ventura County,” said state Sen. Jack O’Connell (D-San Luis Obispo), who along with Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) voted to earmark the money for the campus.

“This was huge,” O’Connell added. “Quite frankly, most of the heavy lifting on these budget matters is done in these small subcommittees.”

The third subcommittee member, Simi Valley Republican Cathie Wright, abstained from the vote, saying that although she favored the project, there were too many unanswered questions to move forward at this time.

“I want to ensure that this isn’t going to be something that people in the future are going to wish they never saw,” Wright told university boosters during Wednesday’s hearing in Sacramento. “I’m not going to take your money away, so don’t get all excited about that. But I would rather see the money . . . set aside and held for you until all the questions are answered.”

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A parallel budget bill is winding its way through the state Assembly.

If both houses earmark money for the local campus, the funding would be incorporated into the final budget and forwarded to Gov. Pete Wilson for his signature.

That is expected to happen this summer, a move that will allow Cal State officials to immediately begin renovating the shuttered hospital complex and have it open for business by January.

Because Wednesday’s budget hearing was a crucial step toward that goal, university boosters were out in force.

Ventura County Supervisor Kathy Long was there. So were representatives of the state’s faculty association and the Cal State University system.

While budget analysts talked dollars and cents, supporters of the campus talked about educational needs that have long gone unmet.

“I’m assuming that what we are trying to do here is solve an educational problem that we’ve been trying to solve for 30 years,” said Handel Evans, president of the developing Cal State Channel Islands. “And now we’re at the point where we have the opportunity to solve that problem.”

Indeed, Ventura County is the most populous county in the state without a public four-year university.

Despite its relative affluence and top-caliber schools, it lags well behind counties of comparable size and wealth when it comes to sending students to college.

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Ending a 30-year wait, the 24-member Cal State governing board agreed in September to take control of the shuttered mental hospital and convert it into the new home for the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge.

Under that plan, the satellite campus will remain an extension of the Northridge campus until it attracts enough students and funding to support itself and become the university system’s 23rd campus, to be called Cal State Channel Islands.

The proposal received its biggest boost earlier this year when Wilson unveiled a spending package for fiscal year 1998-99 that included $16.5 million for the conversion.

That budget item included $11.3 million for renovation and capital construction, and $5.2 million for technology, maintenance and other support services.

But just as university boosters were figuring out how to spend that money, budget analysts came out with a recommendation of their own, arguing that the funding should be delayed pending further study.

Specifically, analysts were concerned about the increased costs of operating the CSUN off-campus center at the old hospital site, noting that the Cal State system would have to pick up the tab for maintaining the entire facility while only needing to use a portion of it.

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Moreover, the analysts said they wanted to revisit an earlier proposal to build the university on a 260-acre lemon orchard near Camarillo that is owned by the Cal State University system.

“All we’re suggesting is that the CSU needs to take a more comprehensive look at these costs,” Paul Guyer, a fiscal and policy analyst with the legislative analyst’s office, said during the hearing. “It may well be that Camarillo [State Hospital] is the best choice, but maybe it’s not this year.”

But others Wednesday argued that now is the time for Ventura County to have a university to call its own.

“The questions that are being raised are very good questions,” Long told the panel. “But there is strong support for this university. There is no question that the troops have risen up, that they are committed to the university and they are committed to getting the doors open.”