Mission College Campus Hopes Get a Setback

Supporters of Mission College did not get what they wanted Thursday in their campaign to win state funds for a permanent campus for the northeast San Fernando Valley school.

They had hoped that a committee of the board of governors of the California Community Colleges would recommend that the state Department of Finance allocate $13.9 million for construction of two buildings near El Cariso Regional Park in Sylmar.

But the committee declined to give its full backing to the project, voting instead to approve funding only if two conditions are met.

One of the conditions is that the California Postsecondary Education Commission support use of state funds to build a campus for Mission, which is part of the Los Angeles Community College District.

Justification for Project

But the commission has not voted on the issue and its staff has not included Mission on a list for capital outlays for 1986. Bill Perkins, a commission staff member, said the project is not on the list because “we have never had enrollment numbers this weak or this marginal” to justify construction of a permanent college campus.

A July report by the Department of Finance said Mission’s enrollment projections did not justify construction of a campus.

The committee’s second condition is that the Los Angeles Community College District contribute the $12.5 million it is getting from the sale of 80 acres of land in Northridge.

The vote was “a disappointment, a setback and unfortunate,” said Cedric A. Sampson, assistant to the college district chancellor.

Sampson said that, with the entire board scheduled to vote on the committee’s recommendation today, he and other Mission supporters would lobby board members Thursday evening to reject the recommendation.

“There is already legislation that specifies that money raised from the sale of the Northridge property must go to construction of Mission. That should not be an impediment to getting the backing of the board,” Sampson said.

Since it was founded in 1975, Mission College has held classes in storefronts, on high school campuses and in hospital auditoriums. Originally, a campus was to be built in Northridge, but a district study showed a greater need for a community college in the northeastern Valley.

Property Sold

Last month, the Northridge property was sold to ALS Financial, a subsidiary of Northridge-based Advanced Savings & Loan Assn., for $12.5 million.

Normally, the postsecondary commission approves college construction plans and then forwards its recommendation to the board of governors. In this case, however, supporters of the Valley school hoped to get the board’s approval first and use it as leverage with the other agencies.

Board member Mario Camara complained that the district is trying to put the board in the “middle of a political situation.” He said it was the first time the board had been asked to approve college construction funds before the postsecondary commission did so.

Commission staffer Perkins said one problem his agency has with construction of a northeast Valley campus is that space is available at Valley College in Van Nuys and Pierce College in Woodland Hills. Those schools are also part of the Los Angeles Community College District.

Other College Space

For establishment of a new campus, “our guidelines state that there must not be available space at easily accessible, nearby campuses,” Perkins told the committee Thursday. “Frankly, with enrollment down at Valley and Pierce, it is hard to say that there is not any space available.”

But Guadalupe Ramirez, a 70-year-old great-grandmother from Sylmar, told the committee that it does not understand the geography, the lack of public transportation and the culture of the predominantly Latino community that Mission serves.

“Many of Mission students are women who go to school at night,” Ramirez said. “If they leave class at Valley College at 10 p.m., the last bus gets to Sylmar just a little before midnight.

“We were promised a campus 17 years ago,” Ramirez said. “Seventeen years later, we still don’t have our community college. I don’t understand why we may have to wait another 17 years.”