Community College Bond Measures on Ballot

Four community college districts are promoting bond issues on the March 5 ballot to repair some of Los Angeles County’s aging community college campuses.

The districts would refurbish or replace antiquated buildings with the bond packages, ranging from $98 million in Glendale to $176 million in Long Beach.

Since Proposition 39, passed in November 2000, reduced the percentage of votes necessary to approve school bonds from 67% to 55%, many districts have considered bonds.

The success of the Los Angeles Community College District’s $1.245-billion bond issue last April has prompted every other two-year district in Los Angeles County, except Compton College’s, to propose a bond, said Don Girard, Santa Monica College’s marketing director.

“It made every neighbor of [the] Los Angeles Community College [District] aware of its responsibilities,” Girard said.

Gene Farrell, the Long Beach district’s interim vice president of administrative services, agreed.

“You need to get on the front end of this wave,” he said.

Long Beach and other districts hope to take advantage of a new system for disbursing state money for education construction projects.

Under the system, districts can more readily receive state funding if they secure local support through bond issues.

Passing a bond issue, then, is “not a mandatory requirement, but it’s a practical one” to get a state funding application approved, Girard said.

Proposition 39 also more closely regulates how bond money is spent, requiring citizen oversight committees and specific lists of projects.

For Santa Monica College, the list includes building underground parking structures and finding a permanent home for Emeritus College, a program for senior citizens that during its 27 years has moved around Santa Monica 13 times.

The top priority, however, is replacing a building that has defied repair since 1994.

The Liberal Arts Building has been repaired twice since it was hit by the Letters & Science Building during the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will pay $3 million for the new building, but that will not cover the total cost, Girard said.

“Although it’s usable, nobody believes it’s appropriate,” he said.

Homeowners, Renters Would Be Assessed

The average cost to property owners over the life of Measure U, a $160-million bond issue, would be $19.21 per $100,000 of assessed valuation, Girard said.

Renters would be charged an average of $1.12 a month and homeowners $6.42 a month over the life of the bond. The district serves Santa Monica, Malibu and some unincorporated parts of Los Angeles County.

Santa Monica has successfully passed bond packages before. Voters approved a $23-million bond issue 10 years ago to build the science building and the library.

The last time a community college bond passed in Glendale, however, was 67 years ago. And it shows, Glendale Community College officials said.

Parking is limited for the 17,000 students attending the main campus on North Verdugo Road. Traffic is another problem. Plumbing is old and electrical systems are antiquated for modern technology. Buildings need to be repaired or retrofitted for seismic safety.

Measure G, a $98-million bond issue, would help address those concerns, as well as other problems, said Armine Hacopian, a member of the college’s board of trustees and co-chairman of the measure. “It would be a tremendous benefit to Glendale,” she said.

For residents and business owners in Glendale, Montrose, La Crescenta and a part of La Canada Flintridge, the measure would cost an annual $23.70 per $100,000 of a property’s assessed valuation.

Bond money also would go toward carving out classroom space for the 3,500 people on a waiting list to take classes at the college’s Adult Community Training Center, which offers English and basic computer skills.

Similarly, space for music and arts programs at Pasadena City College is not sufficient to meet demand, said campaign consultant Fred Register.

The college “was first built as a high school campus,” he said. “The main buildings are still in use.”

The district is asking voters to approve Measure P, a $150-million bond agreement, paid for through an average annual property tax of $13 to $14 per $100,000 of assessed valuation.

The bond would create up to 100,000 square feet of additional classroom space. “It’s the equivalent of building a new classroom building,” Register said. In addition, the college’s industrial technology programs would be housed in a new building, he said.

District’s First Bond in More Than 50 Years

This is the first time in more than 50 years that a bond has been proposed in the Pasadena district, Register said. If it passes, the average homeowner in the district, which includes Arcadia, La Canada Flintridge, Pasadena, Rosemead, San Marino, Sierra Madre, South Pasadena, Temple City and a portion of El Monte, will be charged less than $30 a year.

The Long Beach Community College District also expects to outgrow its facilities, because its student population is increasing by about 3% a year, Farrell said.

Most buildings on the district’s two campuses were built in the 1950s and don’t meet current earthquake safety standards, he said. “They’re getting to that age where they desperately need infrastructure repair,” Farrell said.

The $176-million bond issue would have an average annual cost of $14.78 per $100,000 of assessed valuation.

The district, which includes Long Beach, Lakewood, Signal Hill and Avalon, has never put a bond issue on its ballot since it was founded in 1978. It did receive bond funds in the 1940s and 1970s while part of the Long Beach Unified School District, said Karen Kane, the district’s director of community relations and marketing.

In addition, the North Orange County Community College District is seeking passage of a $239-million bond issue. Voters in a small, unincorporated area of Los Angeles County near La Habra Heights are in that district and will help decide the measure’s fate.

Most of the money would be used to modernize the campuses of Fullerton and Cypress colleges, said Donna Hatchett, the district’s director of public affairs.

“If this bond were approved, Fullerton College would be transformed,” Hatchett said.

The cost of the bond would be $18.50 per $100,000 of assessed valuation. Based on the average cost of a home in the district, officials estimate that it would cost homeowners a little less than $3 a month, Hatchett said.

The bond measures have generated little formal opposition.

A group called Anaheim Home Owners Maintaining Their Environment opposes the Orange County measure, arguing that construction money should be taken from administrative salaries.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., which routinely opposes tax increases, filed ballot arguments in Pasadena and Long Beach protesting the funding mechanisms created under Proposition 39.