> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://ivn.us/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Chula Vista Has Waited 34 Years for a University. How Much Longer Does California Need? - URL: https://ivn.us/chula-vista-has-waited-34-years-for-a-university-how-much-longer-does-california-need/ - Published: 2026-09-15T20:28:30.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-15T20:33:17.000Z - Description: After more than three decades of waiting, Chula Vista’s long-promised public university needs both perspectives of business leadership and public service to cut delay, reduce uncertainty, and finally get it built. - Author: David Malcolm - Tags: Commentary, California Some people consider business and public service as conflicting activities – one focused on financial leadership and the other on servant leadership. In my experience and to my great satisfaction I have found them to be complementary. Being successful in business has made me a better public servant and being active in public service made me better in business. Today, I am able to bring both perspectives to an effort that has been more than three decades in the making — creating a four-year, public university in Chula Vista. Thanks to my appointment by California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, I am one of 14 members of the South County Higher Education Task Force whose charter is to develop and present to the Legislature a detailed plan to make this happen with a deadline of July 1, 2027. And that led me to make a proposal to the Task Force on August 28 that was a result of my two “careers” in real estate and in public service — to exempt the South Bay University project from CEQA to get it done faster. ## A Bit of History I earned my real estate license before graduating high school and have enjoyed a successful career in the real estate business since 1972\. Two years after starting out, I earned my real estate brokers license and four years after that, started my first company, which exists to this day. Over the course of five decades, I have handled real estate sales, acquisitions and loan negotiations totaling more than $4 billion. My other career, in public service, began when I served on the Chula Vista City Council from 1982 to 1992\. During that time, the Council identified and set aside land for a university. To say it has been a long time coming is an understatement, but I will come back to that. That second career has included 12 years as a California Coastal Commissioner, the longest tenure in the Commission’s history. I was the first appointee to the California Judicial Performance Commission created by a state ballot in 1994 and a South Bay Commissioner on the Port of San Diego Board for seven years. Along those lines, my community service included 31 years on the Board of St. Vincent de Paul, the real estate arm of Father Joe’s Villages, including four years as chair, and numerous other for-profit and nonprofit boards. Here is what I learned. ## One Hand Washes the Other Building a business — generally succeeding in business — teaches you very important skills in financial management, human resources, sales and marketing, leadership and more. Those skills are greatly valued in public and community service. As an established, proven, successful business leader, you can bring a level of expertise to the table that the public sector or the nonprofit sector can rarely afford. Successful public service teaches you very different but no less important skills. These include focus on mission, serving the greater good, and the inestimable value of collaboration, inclusiveness, and transparency. And patience because not much happens fast in the public sector. Trust me, those skills pay off big time in business and counterbalance the focus on financial gain exemplified by the quarterly report. They help you take a longer view, focus on mission and values, and regard employees and partners as essential to a business’ success. ## Why a CEQA Exemption? What is now the Chula Vista University and Innovation District has already been through the environmental review wringer, with the City of Chula Vista certifying the final environmental impact report (EIR) in 2018\. In 2024, the city further determined that the site did not require any further review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). But we all know that big development projects can be held up for years by litigation supposedly justified under CEQA. Developers prize certainty and litigation risk puts certainty at risk. A CEQA exemption for this project would significantly reduce risk of delay. I have watched public projects get bogged down by sometimes good intentions and sometimes selfish intentions driving lawsuits under CEQA, so I am acutely aware of the risks. Having developed a lot of real estate, I know that time is literally money. Delays increase costs of materials, labor, related infrastructure, any required mitigation and more. When I suggested the Task Force ask California State Assemblymember David Alvarez to pursue a CEQA exemption for the project, I did so with both perspectives in mind — the business perspective and the public service perspective. Because it was not on the agenda, the Task Force will need to revisit it at a future meeting. If they concur and we succeed, I may actually get to see this vitally important project come to fruition, providing the South Bay region with economic, educational, workforce innovation and regional competitiveness benefits, 34 years after I helped get it started. --- **David Malcolm* is President of Cal West Apartment Inc.*