Measure would pay for upgrading Gilroy campus and buy land for
future sites in MH, Hollister
Gavilan College plans to use a $138 million bond to accommodate more students by improving and expanding facilities at all three Gavilan sites.
Gavilan President Steve Kinsella said he is looking to put the bond before the board of trustees in November.
The college will hold three public forums between tonight and Oct. 14 to share the tentative bond proposal with the public and further develop its list of projects that would be funded by the bond.
“(The public forums will) provide information to the public and allow the public to respond to the list,” Kinsella said, “and we will answer any questions they may have.”
The list of projects to be funded by the bond is taking shape based on feedback from a community advisory group. The group of about 20 community leaders was created to provide recommendations for specific projects and facility improvements needed at the college.
Based on the group’s feedback, the proposed bond will focus on two areas of facilities improvement, Kinsella said.
First, the college will update and improve its existing facilities in order to accommodate more students. Enrollment at the college continues to increase and is already close to capacity. The college would be able to both increase capacity and upgrade aging facilities using $68,404,000 of the bond.The community advisory group said that utilizing all space on the Gavilan campus should be a first priority.
“The recommendation was made to do as much as we can with the assets we already possess,” Kinsella said.
The college has grown from serving 1,200 students 40 years ago to now serving 6,000 students each semester. As the population in the area grows and enrollment at all community colleges increases, growth at the three Gavilan sites is expected to continue. This makes increased capacity a priority, but more so in Gilroy because there is little room for expansion, Kinsella said.
“We want to take full advantage of the square footage we have right now,” he said.
Gavilan is unable to use many classrooms in the afternoon because they do not have air conditioning, he said. One of the proposed bond issues is providing energy-efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning at all facilities. Classrooms also would be remodeled to provide better lighting or room configuration and accommodate computer and phone lines.
More classrooms would be created by converting several large lecture halls on campus that hold 90 to 150 students into smaller rooms for 30 to 40 students.
The second part of the bond would help Gavilan deal with continued growth by expanding its facilities in the Morgan Hill and Hollister areas. About $70 million would be used to purchase land and begin developing sites that would serve about 3,000 full-time students in both areas.
The college is considering a 50,000-square-foot facility in the Morgan Hill area or further north. A 50,000 to 75,000 square-foot facility would be built in Hollister.
“From our perspective where we sit in Gilroy, there are some expansion opportunities here but not enough to serve those areas,” Kinsella said.
Before Gavilan moved into the Morgan Hill community center facility, receiving nine months free rent from the city, it signed a contract with the city to lease the facility from Dec. 15, 2002, to June 30, 2008, with an automatic renewal for another five years if the school has an enrollment of not less than 400 full-time students as of Nov. 1, 2007. At present, most students at the Morgan Hill campus are part time.
The City of Morgan Hill counts on rents and maintenance help from the college to operate the community center. Mayor Dennis Kennedy said he was concerned when he heard Gavilan might move out of the city facility but changed his mind after talking to Kinsella.
“They are really looking at future growth, especially up in Coyote Valley,” said Kennedy. He said Kinsella told him the board was pleased with the Morgan Hill campus at the community center and had no plans for a change.
“They do want to plan ahead,” Kennedy said. “They’ve got to address those 80,000 residents expected in Coyote Valley.”
The City of San Jose predicts settling the valley, especially if the Cisco campus is built, will develop into a new community larger that the present populations of Morgan Hill and Gilroy combined. The area is covered by both the Morgan Hill School District and the Gavilan District.
City Attorney Helene Leichter said the contract only extended for five years and it was unlikely that anything new would be needed or built before the contract was up.
The Cisco campus is on hold because of the poor economy of the last three years.
The bond money will help Gavilan accommodate additional students within the next three to five years, Kinsella said, but the development of Gavilan satellites will continue through the next seven to 10 years. The bond money will help the college acquire the land, but more money may have to come from the state in order to build the sites.
“If we don’t do something quickly in terms of land, it will be developed to the point where we can’t touch it,” Kinsella said.
Kinsella said he is unsure whether the bond will be put on the ballot next March or November 2004. That recommendation will come from the Lew Edwards Group, Gavilan’s campaign adviser.
“There is no perfect time to go,” said Catherine Lew, Gavilan’s bond consultant. “If the community has a good consensus and the bond plan has been defined well, there may not be a reason to wait until November.”
Trustees are expected to approve putting the bond before voters.
“We’ll definitely support it, and we hope the public supports it,” Trustee James De La Cruz said. “If we don’t have quality facilities, then how can we provide quality education to our students?”
Jesse Sandow, the Associated Student Body representative to the board, said students would fully support the potential bond. During last week’s ASB meeting, members voted to assist the campaign not only vocally but financially as well – with $30,000 from reserves.
Gavilan’s media contact, Jan Bernstein-Chargin, said the financial support from ASB for the campaign would be legal since ASB is its own organization and not part of the college.
“It’s absolutely needed,” Sandow said. “Gavilan was built in the early ’60s and obviously, the … technology wasn’t available then, so we don’t have the capability … to utilize (that) on this campus.”
Community support for the measure is strong, according to a poll of voters conducted in June that showed 63 percent of registered voters in Morgan Hill, Gilroy and San Benito County would support a $155 million bond. The bond would require 55 percent voter approval. With the impact on property tax factored in, however, only 50 percent of voters supported the $155 million bond. For a $138 million bond, annual property taxes would increase $23 per $100,000 of assessed property value.
Kinsella is hopeful the public would support the bond. If Gavilan does not have the capacity to support growth, it will be unable to serve the needs of the community and would lose potential funding from the state, he said.
“The need in my mind is very clear,” he said. “In my mind, it’s convincing and it’s very compelling.”
The first forum will be from 7-9 tonight in the Student Center at the Gavilan campus. The second will be on Oct. 7 from 7-9 p.m. in Hollister City Council Chambers. The third will be Oct. 14, from 7-9 p.m. during the public comments portion of the regular board meeting, which will be held at the Morgan Hill School District Offices, 15600 Concord Circle, off Vineyard Avenue.
