The governor's support for the University of California at Merced provides no guarantee the valley campus will get the state funding to open in fall 2005.

One reason is that there are a number of powerful people who don't see the need for it -- or don't much care about the valley.

Naysayers to the Merced campus include some sore losers just down the road in Fresno who still insist the campus belonged in their city.

Such animosities can hang on for years. When I came to the valley in 1973, some residents were still griping that California State University, Stanislaus, was built in Turlock, not in Modesto. Fortunately, that whining has nearly disappeared; presumably Fresnans will get over this, as well.

Other opponents to UC Merced aren't so specific, but within their arguments it's easy to spot some outdated notions. They see the valley as remote and relatively unpopulated -- failing to recognize it's the fastest growing part of the state and that what was once the small town of Modesto has grown to a population of 200,000-plus. Some go so far as to say that what the valley needs is bigger community colleges and state universities -- as if we aren't sophisticated enough for UC.

The UC Merced opponents are as powerful as the president of the Senate, John Burton, D-San Francisco, and as prolific as Dan Walters, The Sacramento Bee political columnist whose work often appears in The Modesto Bee.

The column that appears [below] ran in The Sacramento Bee on Tuesday, the same day Gov. Schwarzenegger announced support of the Merced campus in his State of the State address.

Walters has been beating the anti-Merced drum since 1998 when he pushed hard for a Fresno location. Now he refers to the Merced campus as a boondoggle. What is not clear is whether it would have been a boondoggle had it been located in Fresno or simply is a boondoggle because it isn't.

Walters has repeatedly suggested the money would be better spent on freeway work. Like most of California, the valley needs major road improvements -- but not in place of higher education opportunities. It's hard to imagine someone suggesting that money earmarked for UC Berkeley or UCLA would be better spent on interstates.

Walters has also claimed the campus was pushed through by Democratic insiders. That traces to the news report from a couple of years ago that the Lyons family of Modesto owns nearby property that will rise in value as the campus is built. The Lyons family owns the land; it has had investments in Merced County for decades. But the family bought the property a year before Gray Davis was elected governor and long before Bill Lyons Jr. became secretary of agriculture. Lyons says that while in state office, he was aware of the potential conflict and deliberately avoided any involvement in UC Merced.

Besides, the Lyonses' Mape's Ranch had been one of the early contenders for a valley campus. Bill Lyons could have chosen the sore-loser response, but he didn't.

It's undeniable that development of UC Merced will raise real estate values. That's not a bad thing.

One of the most powerful arguments for the campus is that Merced in particular and the valley in general are poorer than most parts of California. Our unemployment rate is higher; our college attendance rate is lower. There's a connection there. It is in the best interest of the whole state to improve the economy in the valley.

But UC Merced won't serve just the valley. Just as Modesto students attend UC campuses in Southern California, we can expect that students from Los Angeles and the Bay Area will be interested in the rural setting and the specialties planned at Merced.

Further, several UC campuses are so painfully crowded that they turn away qualified students by the thousands. UCLA and Berkeley rejects could fill several campuses.

Those who think that UC Merced is a pet project of the Democrats aren't aware of how hard Republican legislators from the valley are pushing for the campus. State Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, is just as strong an advocate as Assemblywoman Barbara Matthews, D-Tracy. Before them, Sen. Dick Monteith, R-Modesto, worked hand-in-hand with Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced.

Local representatives will carry the torch for UC Merced over the next several months, as the Legislature hashes out a budget. Modestans, Turlockers and other valley residents need to support this cause.

The 10th UC is not a boondoggle. UC has to expand to serve California's swelling population. Merced was chosen and construction is under way. This campus will be a boost to the valley and the whole state, and will open at a time we need to be looking forward, not back.

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Why build a university in Merced when Highway 99 needs work?

Dan Walters, Sac. Bee

The Fresno Bee published an article last week about an ambitious, long-range plan by the state Department of Transportation to upgrade congested and antiquated Highway 99 -- some parts of which haven't been improved for a half-century -- into a modern multilane freeway.

Without upgrading, high rates of population growth and traffic -- the latter projected to double in the next 20 years -- will render Highway 99 almost unusable, planners warned. The major question, however, is where the money will be found for this far-seeing plan -- especially since the state's highway fund is virtually broke, thanks in part to diversions to keep the state's deficit-plagued general fund afloat.

"It will depend, of course, on what the funding availability is, the environmental constraints, and right-of-way issues," The Bee quoted Randy Treeze, Caltrans' chief planner in Fresno.

A few days later, The Modesto Bee published an article questioning whether the University of California can open the doors of its nascent Merced campus in 2005, as now planned. Opening had been scheduled for 2004 -- former Gov. Davis made it a high priority -- but with the state's budget leaking red ink, legislators pushed the date back a year, and there are strong indications that with the state facing a $14 billion deficit in 2004-05, higher education funds will take a big hit.

"You can see that, at least in the governor's eyes, they're in for another cut," state Sen. Jack Scott, chairman of the Senate higher education budget subcommittee, told The Bee. "Sometimes budget priorities are not determining between the good and the bad, but between the good and the best."

If, indeed, Gov. Schwarzenegger plans another delay in opening UC Merced, it would be a victory for common sense. Given what's happening with the budget, including higher education, it makes absolutely no sense for the state to spend many millions of dollars to open a new UC campus. The project has been a boondoggle from the onset, pushed by local land developers and their political pals, devoid of true educational purpose. Last year, Senate President Pro Tem John Burton said publicly what many in the Capitol believe privately, that he would "sell off UC Merced in a minute -- biggest boondoggle ever."

It's a great example of the edifice complex in politics.

Politicians like to build new facilities because they can preside at groundbreaking and ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Putting money into maintaining or upgrading existing facilities doesn't have nearly as much political sex appeal.

Privately many high-ranking UC officials concur with Burton, saying the Merced campus is a waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere, but the politically appointed Board of Regents has overruled them.

As it happens, some of the most dilapidated and outdated sections of Highway 99 are in the immediate Merced area, just miles from the proposed new UC campus, which is already hiring faculty and has a smattering of construction under way. Because of UC Merced's relatively remote location, some 60 miles from the Fresno population center, many students would be forced to commute over a highway that still has extremely dangerous grade-level crossings and is clogged with heavy truck traffic.

Here's a thought: Let's put the opening of UC Merced on indefinite hold -- perhaps it would vanish altogether -- and divert whatever money the state might spend on it into a massive, much-needed Highway 99 upgrade.

While the public benefits of the new UC Merced campus would be few (not counting the profits that nearby land developers hope to reap), the benefits of upgrading Highway 99 would be immense. The San Joaquin Valley, while experiencing a surge of population growth, is plagued with chronically high levels of unemployment; bringing its transportation network up to snuff, and concentrating college funds on the much more efficient community college system, would pay great dividends.

How can we entertain building a new UC campus in the middle of nowhere, relatively speaking, while basic infrastructure systems such as highways and community colleges are begging for funds? It just doesn't make any sense -- except to publicity-seeking politicians and their developer friends.