County Deserves 4-Year University

Political sophistry has prevailed for more than 30 years on the need for a four-year college in Ventura County. Housing developers predicted the population increase and built accordingly, but California State University officials were looking elsewhere. Land was then cheap. Over time all they did was provide a couple of Band-Aids in two junior colleges, when the dire need was a four-year university.

I had four children who had to scramble, drive long distances--at great cost in time and money and at serious risk to their lives--to UCLA and Santa Barbara to get their college education.

And where were the officials, when Camarillo State Hospital had excess acreage? There was more than 1,500 acres when I was first employed there in 1963. Now reference is made to about 850 acres. What happened to the other 700 acres?

Closure of CSH is a fact, predetermined. Slowed, but not stopped. But even now, university plans are stymied and complicated by demands that to make a four-year school available, the campus must be surrounded by a range of business enterprises to financially support it! There is a huge state income surplus and more coming. Can’t state officials give some fair considerations to a county that has been so summarily dismissed or ignored for years? It can, but will it?

I wish to raise one other very important issue: Why apply the name “Cal State Channel Islands�? This is incredible! The islands are miles away, out in the ocean, with no connection nor relevance to CSH.

I strongly recommend the name “Cal State University Camarillo Campus.� This at least will pay homage to Don Adolfo Camarillo, to the city of Camarillo and to the history of CSH and its dedicated employees.

ARMAND F. MAZZUCA

Newbury Park