Pierce Farm Supporters Plead With Trustees

Two dozen impassioned supporters of the Pierce College agricultural farm urged its preservation Wednesday night at a community college trustees meeting held on campus to discuss developing a master plan for the college.

The backers of the farm fear it is in jeopardy because of proposals to lease out some of its 435 acres for commercial development to recoup the college’s expected $4.8 million budget shortfall this year.

One proposal currently under consideration, for example, would lease out land for a golf driving range.

“We are going to draw a line in this soil that this land will not be sold out--over our dead body,’ said Glenn Bailey, a board member of the Resource Conservation Group.

Others, including preservationist Marla Scripter, consider any change of use of the land unacceptable.

“The land here is not here to be sold, leased, developed,” said Marla Scripter, a leader of the farm preservation movement.

About 150 audience members--students, local homeowners and environmentalists among them--loudly applauded such sentiments.

Before the community members spoke, Pierce President E. Bing Inocencio laid out his dilemma to the board, saying that the school’s mission is educating students in financially self-sustaining majors.

But the farm has become a symbol of open space for some and of a bygone era for others. Both groups view any talk of raising money for the school as a threat, Inocencio said.

“Just the idea of discussing it upset a number of people,’ he said.

Inocencio said he had just appointed a 15-member task force to work on the master plan, a process expected to take 16 months.

Inocencio would not release the names of the members, who meet for the first time this morning. The session will be closed to the public, as will they all, Inocencio said, if he has his way.

“When we have something to share, we will share it,’ he said.

But he emphasized that the power to lease or sell the land to developers rested with the board of trustees, not with him.