A week after the Ventura County Grand Jury released a scathing report on fire safety at California State University, Channel Islands, university and county officials met to begin addressing the concerns raised in the report.

The meeting also helped smooth out communication problems between the county and school officials who had been meeting to determine how best to provide fire service to the fledgling campus.

"It was a good meeting," said county Supervisor Kathy Long. "Lots of concerns were raised about who dropped the ball in communicating. We came away from it saying that the end result is we want a seamless system (of fire service), so the public doesn't need to worry."

In its report, the Grand Jury says the university's lack of on-campus fire service and its remote location 5 miles from the nearest fire station leaves people and facilities at risk in an emergency. The report also criticizes the university for not meeting industry standards for fire safety.

University officials disputed many of the findings, including allegations the university does not meet industry code or standards. But school officials also said they are committed to providing a safe campus environment and will do whatever is needed to ensure that.

"We have all agreed we want to work together to make sure the campus and the entire environs are safe for everybody," University President Richard Rush said. "We believe we already are, but we'll continue to work with the county and we'll continue to work with the Fire Department to address the concerns."

County Fire Chief Bob Roper and University Police Chief Jeff Young will now serve as the points of contact between the county and university, and will spend the next few weeks going over the needs of the university and possible options, such as relying on county fire service or developing a volunteer fire station department on campus.

"I'm going to be working with the police chief to relook at all the options for (fire) service," Roper said. "I would like to see by the first of July what we have mapped out and how it will work."

Long said she hopes to have a recommendation from Roper and Young in time for the next meeting of the CSUCI Site Authority, which is scheduled for July. The site authority board is a special redevelopment agency composed of representatives of local governments and CSU. Long is the chairwoman.

The agency, created through special legislation, manages the campus property and oversees development of campus facilities and University Glen, a faculty and staff housing development being built on the campus.

Long and school officials also hope to have better information on other critical issues raised by the report, particularly issues of whether the county is legally responsible for providing fire service and whether the university should be paying for that service.

Only one other CSU campus pays a fee for fire service. But the fire service issue is more complicated at CSUCI, in part because of the Site Authority and the housing development on the campus.

"It's just now becoming a piece of the puzzle because we just now have residential (housing)," Long said.

"We must get the answer to those questions."