Trustees Will Pare Down the Wish List for Colleges

Chastened by the hostile public reaction to its previous tax proposal, Los Angeles Community College District trustees will meet Tuesday to begin whittling down a $390-million wish list that the district will present to voters for approval this fall.

Projects that are likely to be deleted from the final proposed spending plan include a $6.9-million equestrian complex at Pierce College in Woodland Hills and a $2-million proposal to install state-of-the-art scoreboards at Southwest College in South Los Angeles, according to a district source.

Tuesday’s session will be the first meeting since trustees voted last Friday to suspend a controversial tax on all district homeowners. Instead, voters will decide the issue in a November election.

The trustees must now choose which proposals they will ask voters to support under the new ballot measure, which would fund landscaping, lighting and recreational improvements. Last week, the nine campuses cut their original wish list to $390 million, according to the source who saw the list. But the ballot measure would raise just $205 million, requiring further cutting.

Saturday, the trustees received copies of the revised lists from each campus.

The top priority at Los Angeles Mission College under the revised list is a $5.3-million proposal for a new recreational and physical education facility. At Los Angeles City College, which submitted a $97-million revised wish list, administrators propose spending nearly $1 million installing landscaping, according to the source.

Whittling down the choices is the latest step in a quest to find funds for the district’s largely dilapidated campuses.

Last month, the board voted 4 to 3 to begin taxing virtually every property in the 882-square-mile college district by invoking an obscure state law that does not require public approval. The tax, which was scheduled to take effect in November, would have imposed a $12 annual fee on each homeowner.

The plan triggered fierce opposition from residents, about 30,000 of whom filed written protests.

The trustees responded Friday during a special meeting by voting 5 to 0 to scrap the tax. As a result, the 1.86 million registered voters in the district will decide Nov. 5 whether to tax themselves.

Trustee Lindsay Conner, a member of the board minority who had demanded an election from the outset, said he will reserve his decision on whether to support the ballot measure until he knows how the money will be used for capital projects and maintenance.

“Until the board comes up with a pared-down list of projects that will be funded, it’s not possible for me to make an overall judgment,” Conner said.

The top priority at Pierce College is $1.9 million in lighting for the campus, while the lowest priority is a $23-million proposal to increase seating at Shepard Stadium to 15,000. While landscaping leads the list for Los Angeles City College, a $54-million proposal for a new park is the lowest priority.