Measure to Aid Community Colleges Gets Little Attention

With a host of made-for-media statewide initiatives on Tuesday’s ballot, little has been made of local Proposition AA, which seeks $205 million to improve landscaping and lighting at the nine campuses of the Los Angeles Community College District--and has fueled debate over raising taxes.

Proponents say Proposition AA is a frugal and fair use of property tax assessments.

But anti-tax groups say the measure is an example of how property owners unfairly are made to subsidize community services. Indeed, opponents have made the measure the centerpiece of their campaign for a statewide initiative that would guarantee the public’s right to vote on such levies.

Trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District board were threatened with recall after approving a property tax increase earlier this year. They subsequently agreed to put the tax to a vote.

Proposition AA would cost homeowners throughout the 882-square-mile college district about $1 a month. The owners of other types of property would be charged varying fees, from $9.36 per unit for apartments and condominiums to $123.12 per acre for mobile home parks.

Officials of the nation’s largest community college district say they need the revenue because they have been spending their shrinking budgets on academic and student services, with little left to maintain school properties.

Among the planned improvements are a host of safety-related changes, including new campus lighting for several poorly lit parking structures and walkways.

“Over 50% of our students are female. Many of them come at night. And many of them express fear,” said Gloria Romero, a college board trustee. “The safety issue is one that’s really important.”

Responding to criticisms of the way tax money is distributed, Proposition AA supporters say property owners would see an immediate return on their investment. The $12 that a Woodland Hills homeowner would pay, for example, would benefit nearby Pierce College, not a campus across town.

But opponents--led by the Los Angeles-based Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.--say it is a classic example of government trying to skirt Jarvis’ landmark property tax initiative, Proposition 13.

The association’s executive director, Kris Vosburgh, mocked the arguments of Proposition AA backers: “Oh, this isn’t a tax, this is an assessment. Oh, this isn’t an assessment, this is a fee.”

Under the 1972 Landscaping and Lighting Act, the college district did not need voter approval for the assessment. But when the trustees voted 4 to 3 in June to initiate the levy, anti-tax activists cried foul.

Then they rejoiced--using the board vote to support Proposition 218, which would automatically require voter approval for such assessments.

After being threatened with recall, members of the district board agreed to put the issue on the ballot. They also trimmed the list of proposed projects, including a $6.9-million equestrian complex that critics called frivolous.

Such concessions came too late for anti-tax voters such as Opal Young of the Baldwin Hills Homeowners Coalition.

If the board had asked first, “I’d have considered it. Maybe,” Young said.