Bond Bounds

Last week, The Independent reported on the proposed new bond measure that seeks $288 million for Santa Barbara City College. A bond measure in 2008 for $77 million was passed by a large percentage of voters and has many more years before being liquidated. Do voters approve bonds because bonds seem like easy money, without regard to the fact that interest owed on bonds increases the cost of a project significantly?

Why would any administration move so many temporary structures onto a campus with no plan to remove them? Why repair a connecting bridge between the two campuses after so much time and money from the last bond was used to repair it?

Why is it important for the SBCC campus to grow and serve more and more students from outside the district? Who among those involved in this new bond measure knows how the huge traffic and parking problems the campus already generates will be solved? Who cares about the pressures brought on this community by additional students who will require affordable housing?

Isn’t it important for those in charge at SBCC to lay out a plan that charts where the college intends to go with its growth plans and explain why unchecked growth of the campus is important for area students?

Santa Barbara itself will need to grow and change dramatically if such extravagant bonds aren’t carefully scrutinized. A small bond proposal might be justifiable, but the $288 million bond begs logic.