Panel Backs CSU Campus Funding Authority

A state Senate panel Wednesday unanimously endorsed a bill aimed at generating the cash needed to transform Camarillo State Hospital into a Cal State University campus.

After less than five minutes of consideration, the Senate’s Revenue and Taxation Committee endorsed the legislation, aimed at creating a special authority to manage all financial aspects of the former hospital site.

The authority, which would be governed by CSU trustees and local officials, would be responsible for raising revenues from property and sales taxes, selling bonds and providing tax incentives to lure private and public ventures to the property.

“This legislation would provide financial and business incentives to turn this splendid opportunity into a reality,” Ventura County Supervisor Frank Schillo told committee members. “It will provide an opportunity for the new state university campus to be created more quickly and more economically than could ever happen otherwise.”

The bill, written by state Sen. Jack O’Connell (D-San Luis Obispo), moves to the Appropriations Committee before going to the full Senate by the end of the month.

The authority is not needed to launch the inaugural phase of the campus, as lawmakers already have earmarked $16.5 million to convert the shuttered mental hospital into the new home of the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge.

Instead, it will be used to generate the $25 million to $50 million needed to expand the Northridge center into a full-fledged university, a 23rd campus in the CSU system to be called Cal State Channel Islands.