Plan for CSU Campus May Hinge on Vote : Education: Already burdened by state’s economic woes, officials may abandon project in Ventura County if Proposition 153 fails.

After an eight-year quest to locate a public university in Ventura County, California State University officials said for the first time that the state’s financial crisis may force them to abandon the project.

In a major shift in policy, Cal State officials are delaying their decision to condemn land west of Camarillo for the new campus until after Tuesday’s election, an official told The Times. The ballot includes a $900-million higher-education bond measure that would provide crucial dollars needed for planning the Ventura County campus.

Cal State officials may be forced to drop plans for Ventura County if the ballot measure fails or local governments do not follow through with verbal promises to help with building roads or other needed improvements, said David Leveille, director of institutional relations for the 362,000-student system. Cal State officials are expecting a close vote on Proposition 153.

“We’re at the point where one makes a decision: Do we give up, do we condemn or is there intermediate ground?” Leveille said. He said Oxnard, Camarillo and Ventura County officials have indicated their willingness to help pay for the costly improvements to roads, sewers and other infrastructure. But he said the time has come for written commitments.

Cal State entered negotiations with two owners of 320 acres of citrus groves and farmland west of Camarillo after the Board of Trustees selected the site in September. One owner, Sakioka Farms, is willing to sell. But the second owner, Mohseni Ranches, has so far refused to sell. Cal State will probably have to invoke eminent domain to acquire the land.

The decision over whether Cal State moves forward with the purchase and condemnation--an issue trustees will decide in July--is complicated by the state’s deepening financial problems, Leveille said.

Regardless of the bond measure’s fate in Tuesday’s primary, legislators still have to grapple with a projected $11-billion state deficit. With Cal State dependent on the state for 94% of its budget, the expected cuts to the higher-education budget could be deep and devastating.

Cal State Chancellor Barry Munitz said the system now faces budget cuts that may range from 14% to 32%. This could cripple the system, closing classes, halting programs and triggering massive staff and faculty layoffs, he said.

Existing Cal State campuses are already crowded, Munitz said. The university system projects that the student population will swell by 160,000 people by the end of the century.

That leaves no spare cash to plan or develop the Ventura County campus if Proposition 153 is rejected by the voters, Munitz said. The measure contains $300 million for new construction and renovations for the Cal State system. Of that, $350,000 is earmarked to help plan the new Ventura County campus.

“If 153 fails and we get this level of operating cuts, we can’t go ahead with Ventura,” he said. “There is no money for planning, and we can’t look at the enrollment coming because there would be no faculty to teach them.”

To university officials, the ballot proposition carries far more significance than simply allocating money for construction and renovation, Munitz said. “It’s more than a bond measure; it’s a referendum on higher education.”

In 1985, the Legislature set aside $7 million to buy land for a Cal State campus in Ventura County. The money was generated from a bill sponsored by state Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara), who also represents portions of Ventura County.

“I will do all I can to protect the money already set aside for acquisition,” Hart said. “Right now, our budget situation is so precarious that all special funds are being raided to try to balance the budget to find onetime money to get us through this very difficult time.”

Leveille said that even if money to buy land is protected, it may be years before any more cash is available to begin building the campus.

“It’s a very difficult balance,” Leveille said. “Do you fund something that potentially has no future, or do you fund something where there are already students?”

If a condemnation were not involved, Cal State might be able to buy the land and bank it for 10, 20 or 30 years until the system returns to financial health, Leveille said.

But California courts have not supported public agencies that condemn land and hold it for long-term future use with no means to develop it in the foreseeable future, Leveille said.

Cal State officials have long recognized the need for a four-year public university in Ventura County. Even if they are forced to relinquish the land now, they suggest that they would try again in a decade or two.

“Right now we’re faced with significant cutbacks, and it’s hard to put on another hat and talk about expansion,” Anthony M. Viti, chairman of the Board of Trustees. He reiterated that the board is committed to building a Ventura County campus if at all possible. “We are going to do everything we can to move this along.”

Cal State officials may have a better opportunity building their 21st campus in Monterey County, where the massive U.S. Army base at Ft. Ord is scaling back and may have 2,000 acres of land available to donate to the state. Leveille said the federal government will decide this summer whether to deed the property over to the state for a new university.

Leveille said that feasibility studies on the area, which were approved in October, are now under way. In contrast to the rancor and division the university encountered from communities in Ventura County, Monterey County communities have welcomed the campus openly, he said.

If the land is donated to the state, saving taxpayers millions of dollars, the university may be able to take $1 million in leftover school bond money from measures approved in the late 1980s to begin planning and developing the campus, he said.

The current search for a Ventura County campus dates back to 1984. (In the 1960s, Cal State administrators bought land east of Camarillo in the Somis area but the state sold the land in the 1970s over the objections of the Board of Trustees.)

The system first chose property offered by the Lusk Co. near the Ventura Harbor as its preferred site. But homeowners in the Ventura Keys protested the expected increase in traffic. Furthermore, the landowners were asking for guarantees that they would be permitted to develop land adjoining the proposed campus.

In 1987, the city of Ventura led Cal State to the Taylor Ranch site on a hillside bluff west of Ventura. The City Council endorsed it as the future home of a two-year upper-division center that would develop over several years into a full four-year campus. The council amended the city’s general plan to accommodate a university.

But environmentalists, backed by Patagonia Inc. owners Yvon and Melinda Chouinard, mounted an opposition campaign. They opposed any development west of the Ventura River and objected to the additional air pollution students’ cars would bring to the Ojai Valley.

In addition, the owners of Taylor Ranch, who had once been willing to negotiate, said in 1988 that they would oppose the sale of their land for a public university.

After the university prepared an environmental impact report based on the plan for a two-year campus, the Environmental Defense Center won a lawsuit in 1989 against the university, forcing the preparation of a report based on the impact of a four-year campus.

In November, 1989, the face of the Ventura City Council changed when three slow-growth candidates were swept into office on a slate supported by Patagonia.

Cal State Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds asked for a new show of support for the Taylor Ranch campus. She warned the city and the county that it would probably not get another chance for a university in the county after the long and troublesome process of choosing the site.

But the Ventura City Council and others in the community viewed her remarks as an ultimatum and were unable to muster a majority to endorse the site. City staff also questioned whether the city would have a sufficient water supply to accommodate a new campus.

The county Board of Supervisors, including Supervisor Susan K. Lacey, who represents that area of the county, also refused Reynolds’ request and took the middle ground of supporting the concept of a university somewhere in the county.

With the owners of Taylor Ranch refusing to sell and community support eroding, the university system reopened the search for an appropriate site in 1990. Finally, officials chose the site west of Camarillo after it was revealed to have the fewest environmental problems.

But the working farmland is prone to flooding and is located in a greenbelt that separates Camarillo and Oxnard. In addition, developing open farmland does nothing to restore flagging economies in any of the county’s downtown areas, as the Taylor Ranch plan promised, said former Ventura Mayor Richard Francis.

“I firmly believe that it was the wrong place, and to some extent I hope it doesn’t go there,” said Francis, who fought for Taylor Ranch as a means to revitalize downtown Ventura. “It would be a disaster for the greenbelt, and it doesn’t provide any support for the cities.”

But, he added, “having said that, it’s a disaster to lose the university.”

At the same time that Cal State began looking for a new Ventura County campus, it started a similar process in northern San Diego County. The community of San Marcos embraced the university, officials said, helping to bring the necessary water, sewer services and roads to the campus.

San Marcos opened in 1990 as a two-year upper-division campus and now has 1,200 students. About 2,400 are expected in the fall. It has four new buildings and is promised $27 million in Proposition 153 to furnish and equip them.

The campus had been mentioned for possible closure if Proposition 153 fails, but Chancellor Munitz said it is more likely that the campus will simply not grow as planned.

The same fate could befall the offshoot of Cal State Northridge that holds classes in rented rooms in a Ventura office building. The 1,200-student Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge, which began offering classes 18 years ago, had also been mentioned for closure as a budget-cutting measure.

But officials said recently that they would not abandon the campus, which is composed of 74% women, most of them re-entry students.

Oxnard, Camarillo and county officials said they will do what they can to help a new permanent campus be built in Ventura County. But so far, nothing has been put in writing.

“Because of the financial crunch we are in it is difficult to say what the city of Oxnard can do,” said Oxnard Mayor Nao Takasugi. “But we are very hopeful that we will be able to provide services or infrastructure.”

Camarillo Councilman David Smith said the city has consistently supported bringing a university to the county. But he said the city needs specific requests from Cal State before it could commit financial assistance.

County Supervisor John K. Flynn said the county should do everything it can to bring the university to the county.

“It’s very important because it offers such a great stimulus for learning and provides a tremendous economic impact for the county,” he said. Flynn said he plans to resurrect a motion defeated last fall that would have set aside $250,000 as a show of good faith to the university.

“I think we need to get all the cities together and ask them what their priorities are,” he said.

Joyce M. Kennedy, director of the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge, called the long search for a campus in the county an “embarrassment” to the community.

“In my heart of hearts, I really believe that we lost the most glorious opportunity for the county with the loss of the Taylor Ranch,” she said. “But now that we have a new site, we must do everything we can to bring it to fruition.”