Pierce Petition Asks Governor to Restore Colleges’ Funds

Thousands of Pierce College students, administrators and faculty members signed an oversized petition Wednesday protesting the $8.2 million slashed from the Los Angeles Community College District budget last month.

However, instead of directing their objections to the district, as other community colleges have done, protesters at the Woodland Hills campus addressed their concerns over the budget cuts to Gov. George Deukmejian.

“At the present time, we believe you are the only person we can turn to. . . . ,” a letter preceding the petition said. The letter called on the governor to restore, by the spring semester, state funds earmarked for community colleges that were cut by the Legislature

Julee Debus, a student, who organized the daylong petition-signing event called Community College Survival Day, said she plans to deliver the petition to the governor on Wednesday or Thursday of next week. Meanwhile, Debus said, she and a committee from Pierce will encourage student leaders from the eight other colleges in the district to circulate similar petitions to present to the governor at the same time Pierce sends its letter.

Faculty Backs Effort

Pierce President David Wolf and Richard Moyer, assistant dean of student services, said the college administration and community college district officials support the student effort. Sid Elman, president of the 600-member Pierce College Faculty Guild, said faculty members also are backing the effort.

At Pierce, the scroll-like petition was unrolled on the central mall of the campus, where signatures were to be gathered during day and evening classes. Student body President Elizabeth Ziemba, Wolf, Moyer, Elman and even the campus cheerleaders were on hand for the start of the petition-gathering campaign at 11 a.m. By 5 p.m., Debus estimated, 7,000 people had signed the document, which then stretched about 350 feet across the mall.

“We hope to get all 16,000 students to sign,” she said.

The letter to the governor stood several feet above the petition. It was handwritten in script, a project that Debus said took her six hours to complete.

Debus, a business major who wants to become an attorney, said she learned how the budget cuts would affect Pierce during an open house held by Wolf before the fall semester started last month.

“I began to worry,” she said. “I started to gather statistics. The more statistics I gathered, the more concerned I became. I decided something needed to be done. So, I got the idea of organizing this.”

Specifically, Debus said, Pierce administrators told her that the number of student workers hired by the college has been cut by 25% She said she was also told that the number of cafeteria workers has been reduced from 44 to 17 and that the janitorial staff has been cut from 22 to nine, which administrators said will cause a two-thirds reduction in the campus maintenance program.

She said she and other students fear that, if the state continues to reduce funding to community colleges, they soon will not exist.

“Is Pierce College the future site of a shopping center?” asked one poster displayed near the petition.

“It really scares me,” Debus said.