Candidate for
Governing Board Member; Mount San Antonio Community College District

A. MTSAC's board serves same function as water district board upon which Bill has served for 14 years. MTSAC's board failed to garner adequate Sacramento support. Bill's experience; complete independence from all special interest pressure groups that impact community colleges helps. Promises to represent tax- payers and total community interest.

B. Current board members say 67 of 78 campus buildings are "deteriorated facilities" (See sample ballot), thus admitting they are not maintaining or repairing the campus. Incompetence reigns.

C. Balance budget, bridge impasse in faculty salary negotiations by helping faculty achieve financial security goals. We need Forward-looking career retraining programs. Assure and maintain academic excellence.

D. Explore all alternatives to local bonding.

Short local history includes: 3 bond issues proposals in 4 years-- $128 million '97 bond measure, $98 million '99 election (both failed), $248 million this election is called Measure "R".

Measure "R" could pass with 55 % vote due to Prop. 39 legal changes. New law now enables a 55 percent majority to pass local bonds, instead of 2/3 super-majority formerly.

E. Students need good teachers and textbooks most. Whether the classroom is old or new is almost irrelevant. Instead of asking the local property taxpayers to raise their property tax bill to take care of deferred maintenance, state funding and the current operating budget needs to meet these needs. Funding used on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Local bond debt is unnecessary. Especially not bonds with huge interest rates funded over many years.

If a bond measure does pass much of the proceeds may be wasted on new facilities, when older buildings could serve their same purpose with minor upkeep, maintenance and repair. Even new buildings needed to be repaired and maintained. When the board isn't doing the necessary work on older buildings, voters can't trust them to keep the new constructed buildings in good shape either.

There is no overcrowding problem at Mt. SAC.

F. We have been informed by contacts in the construction industry that the profit markup for school project contracts is 60- 75 percent. (email me evidence to the contrary if you don't believe this fact). So voters conclude that it is crucial to repair and maintain the current campus infrastructure. Lets not allow buildings to become run down.

Clearing all deferred maintenance--this is the task of the board of trustees. Voters need to force them to take reponsibility for the current situation that exists.

So one might conclude: this bond proposal is an even bigger pig-in-a-poke than it first might appear. Passage require homeowners to pay out hundreds-of-millions over decades and only marginal benefit will accrue to the school facilities. As absurd as it might appear, the upgraded campus might be less useful than the current campus "As-is", thus a terrible investment.

G. The following argument included for voter's wonderment and amazement is Measure C-- currently before voters at a community college near Stanford University in the Bay area. All the arguments apply to Mt. Sac very well in this local election. The Situation is nearly identical. Enjoy!!

40,000 students? http://www.smccd.net pegs gross enrollment at 24,777, or only 18,272 full-time equivalent students (FTES).

But inflated figures don't surprise us. When they floated this measure in 1999, they asked for $148 million. -Now it's $207 million. Add interest payments, etc., and we're looking at a total tax bill over $370 million. That's $20,000 per FTES, or $600,000 per 30-student classroom. Taxpayers should get 3 new colleges for that kind of money - not asbestos removal and electrical retrofits. Clearly this is no economy-minded proposal.

That's almost $1,500. in new taxes for each of the county's 250,000 households - on top of existing taxes.

• * *

Most of us live in older homes - many without record-level incomes - and we are able to arrange our budgets to perform important maintenance before undertaking major expansions.

Indeed, the author of this rebuttal is a part-time student at Canada College, and it appears to him that the campus is presently maintained to a higher standard of quality than mostof the homes in the area - i.e. those which would be taxed by this measure. That doesn't seem right or fair.

Yet, the SMCCCD is undertaking many major initiatives, new programs, etc., while complaining that they need a bond for the basic stuff.

They don't need a bond. They need to get their priorities straight.

/s/ Christopher VA Schmidt
Part-Time Student

In 1999, voters rejected a $148,000,000.00 San Mateo County Community College District bond. Now this arrogant bunch, emboldened by the unfortunate reduction of the historical 2/3 vote to 55%, has upped the ante to $207 million.

And, their pattern of spending tax dollars for voter surveys, touchy feely TV commercials and slick promotional mailings continues. In the past election, they spent nearly $300,000 on such activities, and persuaded the Foundation bearing it name to donate $40,000 to the committee supporting the bond. Total expenditures over the past two years approach $750 K.

They blame lack of funds for alleged deterioration of campus buildings. Such meritless allegations are hyped to the media using taxpayer dollars.

San Mateo County taxable property values rose from $65,839,959,957 to $79,064,457,064.00, more than 20% in the past two years. Schools receive 65% of property tax revenues. County schools now receive $86 Million dollars more each year than two years ago! This at a time when inflation rose less than 4.5% and enrollment is declining.

Funding is NOT the problem.
Management of resources is!

. Our high technology information and communication age demands rethinking brick and mortar solutions. Further divestiture of excess District assets is in order.

Divestiture of excess properties and facilities, to private taxpaying owners, would increase property tax revenues and supplement funding for the technology transition.

Bonded indebtedness is a poor substitute for fiscal
responsibility.
Vote NO on Measure C

/s/ Brian Holtz
Candidate for San Carlos School Board