Letter: Measure F deserves a yes vote
To the community,
I strongly encourage our community to vote yes on Measure F. This measure helps to maintain and upgrade existing facilities on the Lake Tahoe Community College campus, construct a public safety training center for emergency personnel training, and supports the planning of on-site residential housing.
The college gives our local kids a hometown college option upon graduating from high school. The college is an important training ground for our youth, who someday will be leading this community, in much-needed skills such as fire safety, environmental protection and business development.
LTCC is one of the smallest community colleges in the state. Of the 112 colleges, Tahoe is one of eight with less than 3,000 full-time students enrolled. This presents challenges since with a smaller enrollment there is less tuition collected to maintain facilities and to lay the foundation for the next phase of the college. The college has developed a well thought-out strategic plan including increasing energy efficiency, modernizing the science and computer labs, establishing a sustainability degree, and offering four-year degrees in certain fields.
Even non-traditional students get to directly benefit from the college by enrolling in classes that can help further their careers, or to just add a new skill or hobby. There is a robust year-round theater program featuring local talent, a state-of-the-art culinary program, and an expansive physical education facility with a large variety of classes. You can learn a new skill from highly qualified faculty, such as creative writing, pottery, dance, computer programming, and there are many more to choose from.
LTCC and its diverse and rich programs and beautiful campus were built by long-time locals who dedicated thousands of volunteer hours to creating this vision. Forty years ago this dedicated group launched the college in a motel along Highway 50. Twenty-five years ago they broke ground on the first building on the beautiful campus where it exists today.
Let’s not let the heart and soul of the South Shore community and the vision and hard work of dedicated locals just wither away. The measure will add an average of $68 per year to our property taxes. This small investment provides a high return for the community.
Kim Carr, South Lake Tahoe
I fully support LTCC… however, what is the on-site residential housing plan all about? Community Colleges usually do not have on-site housing. Perhaps some consideration to turning older or under-used motel space into student/employee housing would be a better option. I am not sure I would support on-site housing construction/maintenance, etc. Can you address this in greater detail?
….voted for it.
Improve our town! This is a worthwhile measure. Attract a student, not a gambler.
Take out the Platinum wish list and come back another time.
No NO NO !!!
Isn’t there a limit as to how many Pro- Measure F posts LTN can publish ?
Fed up with seeing this platinum bond measure bombardment by a group strategically submitting different versions of the same propaganda over and over.
How many more ways can this group promote a bad package ?
Vote NO on Measure F !
sure seems to be a lot of Money behind this measure.
it would be good to know the real story – the Truth about what the real objectives are.
The truth is obvious and was expressed in the local printed paper this week by an employee of the college. The is a job security program for teachers and employees of LTCC. I am sure I am not the only one gagging on the shoving-this-down-our-throats that we’ve all experienced over the last couple months from the friends of LTCC. A lot of ill-will has been created in the community because of the tactics that have been used. The phrase “back-off!” comes to mind.
This is a ill-conceived measure and deserves a no vote. Scale the requests down and maybe it will pass next time around. The school is barely making it as a 2 year institution no need for a 4 year program.
You’re right, Giguy. I don’t think the author of that letter meant to give away the ‘secret’. But that’s EXACTLY how it works. In the grand scheme of the budget, this tax will free up funds that would have gone to building and maintenance and programs, and can now go toward staff. And benefits.
It is all a shell game with government budgets. And as long as they can keep conning the taxpayers with those big, sad, starving eyes, they will continue to spend lavishly on everything they want, while we who support them are cut to the bone.
Kim Carr, who are you besides a talking parrot or monkey who repeats talking points. You are embarrassing not only to yourself but to any truly educated person.
“Diverse and rich programs”, “non-traditional students”, “just to add a skill or hobby”, and “heart and soul of the south shore community” are some of the psychotic nonsense you spewed at the direction of your handlers.
Why don’t you grow up and THINK for yourself?
BTW, was your possible college degree in creative writing?
And Dog your are so right on how money is moved around to pay off the union members and the fat educrats.
I’m not ashamed that this town is trying to upgrade itself into the 21st Century (after all, the same level of comment probably came about in 1974 as well), but I am somewhat appalled & ashamed at the continuing low-level of discourse – I hope & trust that this is not the entire level that shows up at the ballot box. . .
Whether it is actually into the 21st Century they’re taking us, or merely into the ’90’s is another question.
I will say again that my problem with this measure is the bang for the buck. The proposal is for $55 million in bond money, another $50 million in matching money from the state, and $50-$60 million in interest over the life of the bond. Add it all up, and it’s $160 million or so in tax payer money. All for energy efficient lighting, fixing a leaky roof, replacing some portable classroom buildings, expanding parking, a building for a 4 year public safety degree, and a bunch of other small time capital improvements.
I fully support expanding the college, but, seriously, imagine if you were running the college, and the taxpayers gave you $160 million to spend. Is this what you would come up with? Asking for that much money for what should truly be $20 million in improvements, makes me question if we have the right people running the show.
NO……
NO on F
gigguy, thanks for writing- you obviously nailed it.
There is a lot of money behind this…multiple color mailings, robo calls from “students” etc.
When they bring back a coherent plan backed by facts instead of projections, I would strongly reconsider.
The California community college program is not a one size fits all goal. Big colleges in big communities, small colleges in small communities. LTCC cannot make South Lake Tahoe a bigger community, or prosper economically unless you are only looking at its employees, as Laurie Thorne put it so well.
In 40 years the college has not presented any proof that the area can steadily support even a 2000 person student body. SLT has gone down in population in the last 40 years despite the growth of the college.
What is this telling us???? It is big enough obviously.
That being said,SLT uses what there is very well, and people graduate each year and transfer to Berkely, UCLA and other universities all over the country.
As it exists, LTCC serves the community well, but is not well managed.
Building it bigger and adding additional proposed services will not guarantee that LTCC grows, but it does guarantee it will be more expensive, no matter what the enrollment is.
The bond issue proposes a 10 year, 100 million dollar program, in an environment where predicting the next 12 months is impossible.
Roll the money grab back to something fact based instead of wish based, and the community will support it in my opinion.
A couple of things:
1. To see the Bond Project List and the Bond Project Budget, go to: http://www.ltcc.edu/web/ltcc/measuref. I think the PDF documents linked on that page will help to answer a lot of the questions people have. The “real objectives” of the bond measure can be found there.
2. The bond doesn’t pay outright for dorms. There is $1.5 million set aside for dorm site development, to prepare the space/land for a dorm. But like a lot of colleges and universities are now doing, LTCC will leave the dorm building and management to an outside company who routinely does this work. This makes dorms possible for a fraction of the total cost.
3. Measure F print and radio advertisements, robocalls, street signs and mailers were all paid for with private donations, not out of the college’s budget. There have been two robocalls: one by physics student Harvey Von Gunderman (he was born and raised in Tahoe, and is a current LTCC student), and the other by Spanish teacher and Academic Senate president Sara Pierce. Both are real people with real connections to the college.
Vote NO!
Voters , homeowners and renters – do not be fooled by another advocate for this wasteful attempt to extort more money out of your wallet. It will not only simply waste money but will also degrade the environment and open space along Al Tahoe Blvd. destroying wildlife habitat and have additional negative effects on the Lake.
Make your vote count to preserve the Lake.
Vote NO on Measure F