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# More ‘tax and spend’ on this year’s ballot
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/more-tax-and-spend-on-this-years-ballot/
- Published: 2008-09-22T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T01:02:27.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Malibu, #archive-import

*By Bill*

THE SANTA MONICA COMMUNITY COLLEGE District (which includes Malibu) is floating Measure AA, a $295-million safety and modernization” bond proposition. If approved by 55% of voters this November, it would fund capital projects designed to improve the teaching of science, nursing, math, technology, media, and emerging high tech fields.

While proponents want you to think “it’s all about education,” AA is really about more growth, student market share and ongoing empire building. SMC’s own statistics point out a whopping 83.91 percent of SMC’s students don’t even live or pay taxes in the district.

AA boosters state that its average cost will be $25 per $100,000 of assessed evaluation or “$1.12 a month for renters ($2.10 in my 7-unit building) and $7.34 a month for the average home or condominium owner in Santa Monica and Malibu.” AA’s bond interest could be as high as 12 percent and cost tens, hundreds of millions of dollars for as long as 40 years. It’ll virtually double the tax bite of previous bonds.

There have been three previous, successful SMC bond measures.

In 2004, voters approved Measure S, which raised $135 million for campus improvements such as “replace or repair deteriorating buildings; construct and equip laboratories, meet emerging technologies; improve or acquire real property and complete earthquake repairs ….”AA advocates said S would cost renters an average of $13 per year and the average homeowner/ condominium owner $77 a year — costs that were understated for many renters and owners.

In 2002, voters also “OK’d” Measure U, which raised $160-million. Funds were to finance even more projects including “replacing deteriorating buildings: equipping classrooms, labs and related facilities; improve campus safety and acquire new property” among others. U’s average cost: $19.21 per $100,000 of assessed valuation. They also said renters would be charged an average of $1.12 a month and homeowners $6.42 a month over the life of the bond. However, in many cases, these costs were also higher.

In 1992, SMC’s Measure T, raised $23-million to build a news science building and a library.

AA promoters boast that “SMC serves 8,000 residents, annually.” January, 2008 class enrollment figures provided by SMC state that only 4,828 students out of 30,000 were Santa Monica/Malibu residents or 16.09 percent! This percentage includes many hundreds of foreign students temporarily residing around the campus, thus lowering the real local numbers even more.

Two West L.A. zip codes (90066 and 90034) produced 3,467 students, 4,787 commuted in from Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks/Encino, 3,132 students are from Brentwood/West LA/ Westwood, 940 came from Culver City, 881 from Beverly Hills, 1,994 from Venice/Marina del Rey, 559 from Hollywood/N. Hollywood, and so on.

Most of SMC’s students can attend dozens of excellent community colleges, most much closer to their homes than here. In this “sustainable” era, wouldn’t it be “greener” for them to attend neighboring institutions rather than commute to Santa Monica?

SMC poaches the best students from all over Southern California. Granted, it has a fine reputation for preparing students for four-year colleges, but the real reason for so many non-local students is aggressive marketing. SMC’s advertises region-wide and far out-markets most other community colleges. This year, SMC will spend $1,351,500 to promote itself as a “destination college du jour” including $960,000 for radio, regional newspapers, Internet and other media.

SMC’s marketing has been wildly effective. Although the community has a quality educational resource, we also pay a high price. SMC’s success has brought dramatically increased traffic, parking problems, noise, and litter to the community. The Friends of Sunset Park neighborhood organization voted to oppose “AA” — a good call where one of the unintended side effects of SMC’s recent embrace of mass transit has resulted in a dramatic rise in noisy busses rolling down formerly quiet residential streets.

Development’s a big issue. If AA passes, SMC will have raised $590 million since 2002 for a slew of new construction and remodeling. Their “needs” lists for bond measures over six years seems to contain many projects that keep re-occurring. At a time when the public is fed up with traffic, over-development and unbridled growth, this may be the worst time to promote new or gussied-up facilities to attract even more out-of-towners to what is supposed to be a local community college.

When Measure R, the school parcel tax renewal, wins by 70 percent voter approval in February, college administrators, trustees and their highly paid consultants were sure voters would tax themselves even more. It appears that greed and opportunism are why they’re foisting AA on us so soon after their previous bonds, which, by the way, are only partially spent.

But, times are different. Rapidly rising living costs and numerous tax proposals on the fall ballot may result in sticker shock. I think they all have delusions of grandeur. We’ll see if voters are in a spending mood come November.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 22, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/092208.pdf?ref=smdp.com)