Officials Dedicate Mission College Site

Politicians and educators dedicated the site of a planned 20,000-square-foot classroom building Wednesday that will ease overcrowding at Mission College, the Los Angeles Community College District’s smallest campus.

Standing near a rendering of the proposed $4.7-million structure were district Chancellor Mark Drummond, state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar), Mission’s interim president, Thomas Oliver, and Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar), who many credit with securing the funds.

Construction is due to begin next summer.

The state building funds were secured in June, after administrators at the college missed three different spending deadlines. Mission’s president at the time, William Norlund, chose to retire following the funding fiasco. Cardenas and Alarcon fought hard to retrieve the money after it reverted back to state coffers.

The building will house classrooms, laboratories and offices.

While Cardenas has often groused about Mission’s initial mishandling of the money, he said he is happy the project has finally gotten off the ground.

“I think this is the first building that has been a result of my work,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of things with getting funding and changing laws, but this is the first time my work is going to result in something that you can touch and feel. That’s pretty exciting.”