Right Call on Stadium

In a quarrel as heated as the one over where to build a new Cal State Northridge football stadium, it’s hard, if not outright impossible, to come up with a solution that pleases all sides. So not surprisingly, neighboring homeowners who opposed an on-campus stadium are furious at President Blenda Wilson’s decision to build one. This doesn’t mean Wilson made the wrong call.

It also doesn’t mean she ignored neighbors’ concerns about traffic and crowds. Homeowners already had influenced a decision to scale the stadium down from 15,000 to 8,500 seats. And Wilson’s announcement that the stadium will be built on CSUN’s North Campus included a promise to mound earthen berms around the structure to cut down on noise.

Homeowners also had a place on the stadium siting committee, which, in the end, declined to make a recommendation between the North Campus site and an alternative site at Pierce College. But the committee did recommend that a new stadium be built, even if it couldn’t agree on where to build one.

If CSUN is going to build a new stadium, it makes sense to build it on campus rather than miles away at Pierce, a two-year community college.

And after the committee declined to choose between the two sites, it made sense for Wilson to finish the process she started even though she’s leaving in June to take a job back East. Leaving the stadium question unresolved while a new president is selected would just drag out the dispute.

Of course, some stadium opponents argue that a new stadium itself doesn’t make sense, on campus or off, for a sports program that attracts as few fans as CSUN’s does. They are skeptical of a university-sponsored survey that showed 68% of Valley residents supported a new stadium only after stadium backers explained the proposal, boosting earlier survey results.

University leaders, in turn, are optimistic that if they build their stadium of dreams, fans will come. But if that movie slogan doesn’t reassure skeptics, maybe this one will: Show us the money. Because the university has vowed to build the stadium using private funds, proof of support will have to come before the stadium is built. It will be up to the new CSUN president to not only mend relations with neighbors but to build the support--and raise the money--for the new stadium.