Earthquake: The Long Road Back : Gore Vows Government Will Help Rebuild CSUN : Education: The vice president makes no specific commitment. He praises campus’ quick rebound.
NORTHRIDGE — Aiming to highlight the region’s recovery from the earthquake, Vice President Al Gore on Wednesday told a crowd of several thousand people at recently reopened Cal State Northridge that the federal government will “go all out†to assist in restoring the heavily damaged campus.
CSUN President Blenda J. Wilson said Gore’s 35-minute visit, coupled with a telephone call Monday from President Clinton, has convinced her that the federal government will do its share for the campus, which sustained an estimated $250 million to $350 million in damage.
“We want you to know that while no one can make everyone whole as a result of what happened here, we certainly can go all out to do everything humanly possible to do what can be done,†the vice president said. Gore, however, made no specific commitments of federal aid.
Aides said Gore added the CSUN visit to his previously planned trip to Washington state at Clinton’s request. They said he picked CSUN because of the magnitude of its damage and because the campus managed to reopen Monday for the spring semester only two weeks late.
“This college has been hit harder than any college ever in history. And yet you have bounced back faster and more completely than anyone,†Gore said, standing amid some of the hundreds of portable buildings that have become the classrooms since the Jan. 17 earthquake.
CSUN’s damage has been called the costliest ever for a U.S. university, with virtually every major classroom building on the campus at least temporarily put out of use.
The visit was the latest in a series of gestures by Clinton Administration officials designed to convince Southern Californians--whether victims of the earthquake or last year’s fires--that the federal government will fulfill its disaster response obligations. The state, because of its large population, is politically important to the Administration.
CSUN officials are counting on the federal government to pay 90% of their recovery costs, including, for example, the nearly $6 million in rental costs for the portable classrooms this semester.
The campus on Wednesday continued its slow progress toward getting all of the several hundred portable classrooms up and running, although some classes still were held outside with students sitting under the sun on folding chairs. Officials said they were rushing to beat the heavy rain expected to hit the region today.
Earlier in the day, Gore visited the Devonshire Mason Plaza shopping center in Chatsworth, where all the major stores and some of the smaller ones were forced to close because of earthquake damage. The vice president chatted with the owners of about a half-dozen stores, posed for pictures with them and signed autographs.
Marc Magid, manager of the 118,000-square-foot complex owned by his parents, said he agreed to host the crowds of state and federal officials and news crews that accompanied Gore out of hope the visit would produce some aid. “I want the government to service my tenants. Talk is cheap. We’ll see what happens in two weeks or a month from now,†he said.
Eric Rodriguez, owner of the Pacific Aquatics West tropical fish store that Gore visited first, said his shop has been closed since the earthquake while he awaits word on a requested federal Small Business Administration loan. Without it, Rodriguez, who had no earthquake insurance, said he won’t be able to reopen.
Thus far, he said, nothing tangible has happened.
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