PVCC Puma Press: March 2004

The MCCCD Governing Board is expected to call for $951 million bond to be put on the ballot for the general election in November, despite threats of opposition by Latino groups, and the funding challenges such a campaign can incur, says MCCCD Governing Board President Linda Rosenthal.

Rosenthal says that the bond is needed "desperately" to renovate old buildings, purchase new land and build new buildings. "Without a vote to pass this bond," Rosenthal says, "There will be no additional facilities on PVCC's campus after the [new] performing arts facility." Rosenthal says that the threatened opposition to the bond by Latino groups because of their displeasure with the process by which MCCCD Chancellor Dr. Rufus Glasper was hired , will be a competing factor to the bond issue. Rosenthal says this, however, is a "small" group of people within the Latino community who will be better served by the improvements brought about by the bond because of the huge Latino population within the district.

This group, Rosenthal says , believed that because the chancellor search was not extended into external forums, the search lacked equal employment opportunity to qualified candidates outside of the district.

Rosenthal says,"We took a good hard look at the situation, and the timing was not right for an exterior search." Rosenthal says that the board "did what we had to do."

Rosenthal does say, with or without Latino opposition, this will be a "tough election." She says that there will be many competing issues, citing the transportation tax amongst other issues, state and local.

Dr. Scott Massey, President of the PVCC Faculty Senate says that the bond is necessary because it will provide new buildings and more class space. "Chemistry and Biology are shoved over in one building, the H- building," Massey says. "The H- building will probably be refurbished and turned into all chemistry. Then we'll have a separate biology lab as well."

Massey also acknowledges the challenges the bond issue faces. Massey says, although they are a small part of the Latino community, opposition groups could provide a bigger challenge than some might think. He says, even small groups are a threat if they have conviction and/or good funding.

Another challenge is funding the Bond campaign, says Massey: "Each college needs to raise a certain amount of money to put on a P.R. campaign to convince voters that this is good idea, but not do it in a way that doesn't use college resources." Massey says it also takes a lot of effort and man hours to mount a successful bond campaign.

Still, Massey says, even if the money is raised, and the effort is made, there is the chance the bond still may not pass; thus all funds raised and efforts put forth are lost. "When you put it up for the voters they don't come back and say, ‘Well, we can't do a billion dollars, but how about five hundred million?' It's an all or nothing thing… so if the district decides they want to go after the bond, they need to go after it in a big way."

Massey says although it will take such an effort by the district, not much can be done at the college level because of the inability to use college resources.

"I don't envision us [PVCC Faculty Senate] involved in this," he says. "The individual members of the faculty senate, like any other employees, want to be involved with the bond, but it has to be done outside of the community college system."

The reason the faculty will have such limited involvement, Massey says, is because taking a strong stand on the issue would infringe on the rights of any faculty, employees or students who believe that the nearly $1 billion could be better spent somewhere else.

The MCCCD Governing Board will probably call for the bond during their meeting on March 23, Rosenthal says.