Our good friends at Santa Monica College are at it again.
Their latest attempt to pick your pocket is a $175 million bond issue which, in part, corrects some “deficiencies” in Measure U, the $160 million SMC bond issue approved by voters less than two years ago.
It’s not only the college that’s behind this “stinker.” The cities of Santa Monica and Malibu are in on it. And, there’s even some crumbs for the Santa Monica/Malibu Unified School District. But don’t worry about our schools being shortchanged. Rumors abound that school supporters are contemplating their own $100 million school improvement bond on the 2006 ballot.
The SMC proposal is a “cooperative venture,” or partnerships that would pay for recreational, cultural and health related projects that could be shared by the college, school district and communities. It also increases SMC’s educational offerings such as a new marine studies program. If approved by the college board of trustee’s next month, it will be on the November ballot.
Among the projects identified are improvements to physical education and arts facilities on the main campus, as well as a fitness, natural history and marine biology complex at 415 Pacific Coast Highway. The proposal even suggests funding SMC’s response to reducing obesity and improving physical fitness in our school children.
A 3.6-acre botanical gardens in the downtown Civic Center — no doubt sandwiched in between low-income apartment projects — is included. Also on the list are improvements to the pier aquarium, a new career opportunity center, a children’s fitness outdoor park on the main campus, a literacy center at 14th Street and Pico Boulevard, and an early childhood development lab and childcare facility. In other words, a lot of expensive icing on the cake.
The bond would now pay for the college’s much touted Madison Theater proposal — a $15 million community theater that was supposed to be completely funded by private donations from actors like Dustin Hoffman. Now, the college says Madison should be funded by bond money. That way it could be shared as a community resource.
Wasn’t Madison promoted as a community wide resource for dance, music, theater, drama and lectures all along? The only thing that’s apparently changed is now we might pay for it.
The college is calling this an “educational and health benefit” bond which, according to state law, only requires a 55 percent voter approval as opposed to the two-thirds approval required for other tax and bond measures. According to SMC’s staff report, available online at www.smc.edu/comm_ed_facil_2004/, the college is marketing itself as the ideal conduit for getting recreation, education and health related bonds approved because it requires less votes.
The cities of Santa Monica and Malibu have a short cut to getting ballot proposals approved, which is why there’s so many municipal park, recreation and health/welfare projects benefiting the municipalities on the proposed list. But aren’t many of these, including replacing the college’s tennis courts, for example, something the city, college and/or school district should have been paying for in the first place?
In Santa Monica, both Santa Monica For Renters Rights (the powerful political organization that controls the City Council) and the Santa Monica city manager say the No. 1 priority is “affordable housing.” While City Hall squanders millions of dollars on affordable housing and its social service agenda, we’re forced to ante up for what most communities — that don’t fund millions of dollars in social programs — provide as basic services to residents.
Because the vast bulk of bond money is earmarked for Santa Monica, this proposal won’t sit well with Malibu residents who’ll get little more for their tax bite than a couple of rehabilitated playing fields and maybe another satellite campus with a waste water treatment center.
Between these two bonds, the total amount requested by the state-supported SMC is over one third of a billion dollars — an amount that brings a gleam to the eye of the pencil-pushing, big spenders in the college’s financial planning office. And a huge pain in the pocketbook for the rest of us just trying to make ends meet. (Bill Bauer is a longtime Santa Monica resident and a freelance writer).
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 11, 2004. Read the original PDF.