COUNTYWIDE : Policy Urged on Leasing College Land

Leasing college land to private developers to raise money for the Coast Community College District is an issue that needs to be resolved once and for all, say candidates campaigning for two seats on the district board of trustees in the Nov. 7 election.

Faced with declining state money because of dwindling enrollment, trustees last year approved a developer’s proposal to build 480 apartments on land at the district’s Costa Mesa headquarters. The plan, projected to net the district about $5 million in the first 10 years of the 66-year lease, was withdrawn after strong objections from the community and the Costa Mesa City Council.

But the issue is far from settled, according to trustee Sherry L. Baum, who is seeking her second four-year term on the board: “It’s not a dead issue. . . . It’s been lurking in the background.”

Baum, 58, of Seal Beach favors the selection of a committee of community residents and college officials to study such lease arrangements and draw up a district master plan.

“We have been doing piecemeal planning,” she said. “We need to formulate and implement a master plan for the district’s future growth and development.”

But Deborah Sperberg, who is running for the board for the first time, said she opposes leasing district lands for up to 66 years, especially for high-density apartments.

“We need to be able to respond much more quickly to changing enrollment needs, said Sperberg, 50, of Corona del Mar.

Board President Walter G. Howald, who is seeking reelection, opposes building apartments and commercial facilities on college land.

But Howald, 50, of Newport Beach added that trustees should be open to the future needs of the students and the community, and questioned whether the board can bar future trustees from considering such proposals.

Candidate George E. Brown of Seal Beach, who withdrew from the race too late for his name to be removed from the ballot, has endorsed Baum in a letter to the district.

The Coast Community College District includes Orange Coast Community College in Costa Mesa, Golden West College in Huntington Beach and Coastline Community College, with headquarters in Fountain Valley. More than 320,000 residents of Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Midway City, Newport Beach, Seal Beach, Stanton, Sunset Beach, Westminster and part of Garden Grove are registered to vote in the election.

The district’s teachers’ union is supporting Baum and Sperberg in the race, said Judith Ackley, a spokeswoman for the Coast Federation of Employees, American Federation of Teachers, Local 1911.

Ackley said the union decided not to endorse Howald for a second term because of his record in office and because he declared the land-use issue to be strictly a matter for the board to decide.

“We think the land-use idea needs to be decided in an open forum by the community, staff and students,” she said.

Ackley said union members also consider Sperberg “a superior candidate. . . . We believe she would be a good board member.”

She said the district will benefit from Sperberg’s background in business and computers in resolving registration problems. The district bought a new computer and hired a consultant to establish new registration procedures this fall, but Ackley said that “registration is getting worse, not better.” At Orange Coast and Golden West colleges, she said, “we’ve had the worst registration we’ve ever had.”

Howald, who was endorsed by the teacher group four years ago, said he does not believe that the candidate slate represents the choice of the majority of teachers.

“We’ve taken a district with fiscal difficulties and transformed it into a district of fiscal responsibility,” Howald said of the board’s successes during his term.

“We’ve gone from decreasing enrollment to increasing enrollment. We’ve gone from hiring no new teachers to hiring more than 40 new teachers this year. Teachers have gone from no raise to a 2% raise to a 10% raise” in the last four years, he said.