Guest Opinion | Dr. Todd Jones: Pasadena City College: Broken Promises and Irresponsible Use of Taxpayer Bond Measure

It’s back to school next week at Pasadena City College, but the college administration is running amok with the taxpayer’s PCC Bond Measure that we voted in a year and a half ago.

I am alarmed by the apparent mismanagement of the PCC Bond Measure, ignoring the March 2020 Board of Trustee-approved master construction plan for the campus (“Facilities Master Plan”), and not using professional seismic reports to guide decision-making.

Instead of principally using the $565 million bond for repairing and retrofitting as promised on the promotional materials which had been mailed to voters ahead of the election, PCC administrators are opting to demolish several buildings on campus without budgeting for their replacements, and without following the retrofitting advice of the seismic reports. This comes after the debacle with PCC’s Sarafian Hall science building that was emptied and condemned in 2011, sat for over a decade then demolished, for “seismic reasons,” which is now finally being rebuilt.

As I told the PCC Citizen’s Bond Oversight Committee at their public meeting on December 5, 2023 (which curiously PCC failed to record),  “We the voters were promised to see fiscal accountability with prudently formed updates and upgrades to existing facilities.  There was a flyer that PCC sent out to voters to push for successful passage of the Bond… The title of the flyer is all about ‘updating aging classrooms’. …it promised to remove hazardous materials such as lead pipes & asbestos, and to retrofit older buildings to make them earthquake safe. Thousands of voters received this campaign flyer advertising the PCC Bond Measure so we are expecting intentional repairs, necessary and cost-effective facility upgrades.”

How does the Bond leadership at the college (PCC Vice President of Business and Administrative Services Candace Jones and Executive Director Chief Facilities Officer Richard Laret) justify spending $204 Million on Project Management and Design as seen on page 10 of their Powerpoint  they presented to the PCC Board of Trustees Facilities committee on November 7, 2023?  That is 62% of the summed project construction costs of $329.2 Million.

They are not even budgeting to construct the academic building for classrooms which is present on the Facilities Master Plan and which would replace the “W” building. The Facilities Master Plan timeline  (p. 106) plans for the “W” building to be demolished in 2028.  Instead, they want to demolish it this year in order to use its footprint as yet another “temporary” bungalow space as they prioritize demolition and re-construction of an office building (“L” building). They are prioritizing this office building (“Student Services – L building”) and plan to rebuild that one with Measure PCC monies, but not the academic building.

From what I’ve heard at subsequent meetings, the administrator double-speak now refers to an upcoming “refresh,” not a revision, of the Facilities Master Plan. That is long overdue, but how is it that they have already been planning to demolish and reconstruct without it? When last year, administrators told the Board of Trustees that PCC is down in enrollment, just what data had they been using to guide their decisions to put the demolition of these two buildings on a fast-track?  

Maybe the 2020 master plan to demolish the “W” building in 2028 to put in a much larger “Academic Building” in its place is outdated and unnecessary. What data, if any, about the demand for hybrid and online course formats, are they using, as that can inform the pre-pandemic decision on whether to still demolish the “W” and construct a brand new academic building where “W” building had been?  What about data on how full current classrooms are at PCC now? The COVID-collapse of PCC’s enrollment surely evokes a revisit to the lofty projections which fed the 2020 Master Plan which fed the plea for $565 Million.

Is the public to expect another plea from PCC for another bond to raise our property taxes again to cover more demolitions and re-constructions?

In December 2023, the PCC Board of Trustees approved a Zero-Carbon-Campus resolution.  A PCC which claims to embrace environmental sustainability will look pretty evil when it reduces valuable structural assets to piles of dust and debris. Given the above, it’s unfathomable that the college is engaging in such an unsustainable practice.

Neither the “W” building nor the “L” building need to be demolished, both of which are being fast-tracked by the two administrators spending the $566 Million bond that Pasadena-area voters approved in 2022.

The “W” building  provides specialized studio space for dance students, offers several classrooms and a large outdoor roof patio, faculty offices, and a relatively new Veterans Center. The Student Services (“L”) building on the quad houses academic counseling, registration, and financial aid. According to the PCC website, many of those services are now offered online, such as by phone, video, or email in lieu of face-to-face attention.  Questions remain:  how many students are physically going in-person to that building, and why is the Bond Leadership duo prioritizing and fast-tracking these demolitions, reconstruction, and expansion?  

One would think with the way the pandemic put the college on hold for over a year, and its still-low enrollment, the comprehensive projects and timeline would be pushed back, certainly not sped up to demolish buildings that don’t need to be.  

At no meeting with the PCC Board of Trustees Facilities Committee or the Citizens Bond Oversight committee have the administrators shared costs for repairs of the buildings on their fast-tracked chopping block. In fact, the premature condemnation of the “W” Building is neither based on sound financial planning nor any proven eminent need. It appears to be an arbitrary decision without any publicly documented committee votes.  When asked by the student trustee at the November 7, 2023 Board Facilities Committee meeting, how she sets the priorities on the Facilities Master Plan, Vice President Jones did not give a straightforward answer but likened the administration of this project to a jigsaw puzzle.

The VP’s narrative has consistently been to escalate the “W” building’s demolition.  Apparent obfuscation was in full display when PCC management led some of the Trustees on a tour of the “W” building on November 29, 2023. This was obviously in preparation for securing the Board’s buy-in for its accelerated demolition. It was more than obvious to me as we walked the halls, that the trustees were being shown the building’s various bad bits that need TLC. Conspicuously absent was any discussion or viewing of any structural concerns that had been alleged to drive the decision of the W’s condemnation.

The seismic reports of 2008 and 2021 provided to me as a public records request detail three simple remedies to the “W” Building which would bring it into compliance with adequate building safety standards:

1)        Apply seismic cladding to six columns

2)        Apply Shotcrete to an 18 foot length of concrete wall

3)        Replace the gypsum roof over the gym with a metal roof

If the college retrofits the “W” building like it is seismically retrofitting the “E” building,  then the students who use “W” won’t unnecessarily and indefinitely be displaced from achieving their educational goals. This would go toward restoring trust with the public by performing repair and retrofit.

I have shared my concerns with the entire Board of Trustees at the December 14, 2023 PCC Board of Trustees Meeting (2:06:04).  It is my hope that more residents will keep a close eye on how the PCC Bond money is being used at our beloved college.

Dr. Todd Jones is a Pasadena-Altadena community member, voter, and taxpayer