Voters to decide on $410 million SRJC bond

Voters this November will have a chance to weigh in on the largest bond measure in the county’s history, Santa Rosa Junior College’s $410 million Measure H.

While the size of the bond has concerned a county taxpayers group, SRJC officials say funds are needed to keep the nearly 100-year-old college’s aging facilities up to date and provide students the best education possible.

“When you think about the amount the community has used the campus (over the past century), it’s rather mind-boggling,” college President Frank Chong said. “This bond is about preparing our community and students for the second 100 years.”

Chong added, “I find the current state of some of our facilities, particularly our classrooms and labs, unacceptable. They’re worn, tired, pretty much untouched for the last 50 years.”

As an example, he pointed to the math and science buildings in the northwest corner of the main Santa Rosa campus. The buildings, mostly built in the 1950s, are too small to accommodate demand and lack the features needed for modern science labs, he said.

Chaiya Miranda and Tanya Pulido, both science majors, sat between the chemistry and biology buildings on a recent afternoon and spoke of the difficulty getting into classes because of small classrooms with inadequate seating.

“The classes are really good, the teachers are awesome, but there’s only so many seats,” Miranda said, adding that a friend of hers was not able to get into a class she needed to take this year. “It’s really stressful signing up for classes.”

Nearby, CJ Chapple, who is studying natural resource management, bemoaned the lack of air conditioning, bathrooms and lab space in Bech Hall, the chemistry building. And there simply aren’t enough science labs, he said.

“My chemistry class had to turn away a bunch of kids this year,” he said. “It’s hard; it’s a prerequisite class for a lot of people.”

To address that need, the college plans to build a large, state-of-the-art math and science building to replace the existing facilities if the bond passes.

Other projects at the top of the list include expansion of in-demand machine and auto shops in Santa Rosa and the public safety training facility in Windsor; creating new science labs and a student gathering space on the Petaluma campus; and installing new technology, repairing roofs and updating electrical equipment throughout the district’s five locations.

If the measure gets the 55 percent or more of votes needed to pass, the cost to property owners will be less than $25 per assessed $100,000, or $67 per year for the average household, said Doug Roberts, the college’s vice president of business services.

An independent oversight committee would ensure the funds are spent only on items listed in the bond.

It’s just the second bond that SRJC has asked taxpayers to approve in its nearly 100-year history. The first, the $251 million Measure A, passed in 2002. It paid for construction of new facilities including a multilevel parking garage, the Doyle Library, the Bertolini Student Center, and the expansion of the Petaluma campus, among other things.

Roberts said he expects the $174 million of debt remaining from Measure A to be paid off by 2029. Property owners are paying $18.80 per assessed $100,000 after the college refinanced the bond last spring, saving millions, he said.

Chong said that bond mainly funded changes to the front part of the campus, along Mendocino Avenue; Measure H would focus on the other half of campus.

The Sonoma County Taxpayers Association is opposing the measure, taking issue with the large sum of money being requested atop existing bond debt. The taxpayers association also says SRJC officials overstated what the 2002 bond would accomplish.

“We’re very troubled with over-promising done with Measure A,” said Dan Drummond, executive director of the taxpayers association. “They said the bond, if passed, would meet the needs of the district for the 21st century, implying to voters it was a long-term resolution and they wouldn’t be coming back any time soon asking for more money. (With Measure H), they’re saying, ‘Hey, this is going to fix plumbing, heating, roofs’ - much the same as they said 12 years ago. You have to wonder, how long until the next bond?”

Chong disputed the contention that the district had not met its previous commitment to voters.

Legally, he said, schools can use bond money only to fund projects they’ve identified in the bond measure. For that reason, they must list any project they think they might want to finance with the bond money, though they might not be able to complete them all.

The large sum the college is asking for is related to the size and age of the campus as well as the rapidly changing times, he said. The college determined that “to bring everything up to snuff” would cost $700 million, he said.

Tony Ichsan, dean of facilities and operations, said the need for greater Internet bandwidth and wireless capacity has grown dramatically.

“Even in the last five years, let alone the last decade, things have changed,” he said. “You could try and predict as much as you want, but the technology has grown in leaps and bounds.”

Biology instructor Abigail Zoger said the tools and facilities needed to teach science in the digital age have changed as well.

Science and math disciplines are no longer taught in isolation from each other, she said, so it makes sense to combine the disciplines into one large building rather than sequestering them.

Labs and equipment need to be updated so students will know how to use the most current technology when they go off to four-year schools, internships or jobs, she said.

“I don’t want my students playing catch-up,” Zoger said. “They deserve better.”

College officials also said the bond measure is one of the only means they have to raise money for large capital projects. They cannot raise the cost of student tuition, currently set at $46 per unit; that decision is made at the state level.

The college saw a roughly 10 percent dip in its general fund revenue during the recession, Roberts said, and while the state is slowly restoring that funding, it’s still not back to prerecession levels.

SRJC Trustee Kathleen Doyle acknowledged taxpayers’ worries, saying she’d gotten calls from some people concerned about a property tax increase.

“I think there’s always a concern about property taxes, period,” she said. “People don’t want to pay more taxes, and I don’t blame ’em.”

But, she said, “We need the money, and there’s really no other opportunity to get it.”

Don Edgar, vice president of the SRJC board and an alumnus of the school, said he feels an obligation to “keep the good going” at the college.

“To do that, I have to do what people before me did: make sure the college has all the equipment it needs to keep going,” he said.

“Facilities take a long time to develop and build,” Edgar added. “You can’t wait for a building to fall down or for a building to be inadequate before putting up another. It takes vision, foresight and time; that’s what I see with this bond.”

If the bond passes, the college will begin work in early 2015 on a new facilities master plan that will prioritize the most time-sensitive projects and lay the groundwork for when and how they’ll happen, Ichsan said.

Dorothy Battenfeld, a high school educator who is running for election to the board of trustees this November and whose children attended SRJC, said she hopes the public will have adequate opportunities to weigh in on that process, especially since the project list provided for the bond is only a general one.

“I’m a big supporter. I have my Measure H button,” she said. “But there’s a lot that hasn’t been decided yet, and the big issue to me is going to be, once the bond is passed, making sure there’s a lot of transparency, public input and accountability around how the money is spent.”

Ichsan said college officials will meet with teacher and student groups to gather input as they create the master plan and that the public will have a chance to weigh in through a public comment period.

Staff Writer Jamie Hansen blogs about education at extracredit.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach her at 521-5205 or jamie.hansen@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jamiehansen.