College Trustees Urged to Give Mission a Break

Lorenza Rodriguez is not an expert on budgets. But the San Fernando grandmother and Mission College student--so nervous that she had to be helped to the podium--had something to say to the keepers of the money when she addressed the Board of Trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District, the largest community college system in the nation.

“I . . . need . . . to learn English,” she said haltingly.

The Community College District board decided earlier this month to forbid Mission College to go into debt to make up for a budget shortfall, a move that means a reduction of about $2 million in annual expenditures. That, the college has said, will mean the elimination of its Citizenship Center, where Rodriguez studies English, as well as many regular classes.

“I really can’t believe we’re doing this again,” said former Assemblyman Richard Katz, one of several hundred Mission College supporters--including several elected officials--who packed the board’s regular meeting in Los Angeles on Wednesday. Katz, a state Senate candidate who previously represented the Sylmar area where the college is located, repeatedly fought for funding to maintain and expand the college during his tenure in the Assembly.

On Wednesday, he waved a stack of letters from the chancellor and the board in 1990 that promised continued funding for the 7,000-student college, which serves the working-class northeast San Fernando Valley.

“We should be holding this campus out as an example of the thirst for higher education in the San Fernando Valley,” said City Councilman Richard Alarcon, who represents the area.

Back in the audience, Rodriguez clasped an American flag and fought back a case of nerves. “It’s important to me” to learn English, she said in Spanish. “For my grandchildren--to answer their questions. To communicate with my neighbors.”

Erick Oceguera, 18, couldn’t come up with any words when it was his turn to address the board. Instead, wearing Walkman-type earphones and a black bandanna on his head, black sunglasses and black clothes, he dumped a box full of letters from students on the desk in front of Community College District Chancellor Bill Segura.

Oceguera came to the meeting with his cousin Angel to stand up for Mission College, where he studies computers, graphic arts and mathematics for a high school equivalency diploma.

“They got me out of trouble,” he said. “I don’t hang out with the homeboys. I ain’t getting into trouble on the street.”

The board, however, responded rather coolly to the entreaties.

“I do not want to be in a position to cut classes in South-Central Los Angeles in order to shore up the San Fernando Valley,” said Trustee Gloria Romero.

Trustee Althea Baker asked board staff to research the possibility of easing Mission’s burden, perhaps by extending the length of time the college has to pay back its previous debts to the college system, but the board took no formal action.

Segura said he thought Mission College could tighten its belt by increasing class size and other measures. Mission’s budget, he said, was actually increasing next year. The campus has financial problems, he insisted, solely because it’s no longer allowed to run in the red.

That’s true, said Mission College President William Norlund. Last year’s budget was $9.8 million, and next year’s will be $10.2 million. But last year, the campus was allowed to borrow an additional $2 million, bringing the total spent to $11.8 million.

Without that extra money, he said, dramatic cuts cannot be avoided.

Still, he said, the show of political firepower at Wednesday’s meeting, which included Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar) and a spokesman for Rep. Howard Berman (D-Mission Hills), might mean that some of the money will be restored.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to save some of the classes,” Norlund told a busload of supporters after the meeting. “Maybe not all of them, but some of them.”