Candidate for
Governing Board Member; Pasadena Area Community College District; Trustee Area 3

In order to assure student access and success the college has programs with the high schools in the PCC district, committee such as the Afro-American and Latino Committees made up of community people and organization that do outreach to encourage enrollment and success at the college level. We have the Cohort program under Title V that brings the family into the process of success for at-risk students. There are a number of grants and loan programs for those that need finical help. These are the Federal Pell Grant, Federal Supplemental Opportunity Grant,Federal Work Study, Federal Perkins Loan, Nursing Student Loan, Americorp, Federal Family Educational Loan programs, Board of Governors Grant, Cal Grants, State Work-Study and the Extended Opportunities and Services' programs. There is counseling, both academic and physiological.

We Have on-line courses and are developing more every semester also evening and week-end courses for the working student.

We encourage instructors and staff to attend conferences and seminars in order that they can upgrade their skills and knowledge for their particular field.

We must maintain a balanced budget. That must be done with the knowledge that the State of California requires a 5% reserve. We should not use one-time moneys for salaries that can run us into a deficit the following year. 85% of our budget goes for salaries and benefits. It is incumbent upon us to insure that our funds are used in the best way to insure the success of our students. We want to maintain a no-layoff policy when funding is below operational needs. Only a balanced budget can hope to do achiever that goal.

It is important that the physical environment is conducive to learning and teaching. We have already in approved the Master Plan 2010 that will replace or remodel many of our older facilities. The top priority is a new parking structure and practice field.

Since I have been on the board some of the changes I have been able to bring to the College is to have on-line courses. Another is that we were involved in the last phase of construction of the Master Plane 2000. I asked the we use local contractors and local vendors. We did this by hiring the contractors ourselves. In the case of minority contractors were they meet all the criteria, including lowest bidder, but lacked the capital to put the required bond, we put up the bond through an escrow account. This way we were able to hire a local minority contractor. We also were able to hire our own student as traffic control (the people you see with the STOP signs) at $12 dollars an hour as opposed to a contractor who wanted $65 dollars an hour.