PCC Courier, April 22, 1993

Pasadena City College Pasadena, California VoL 75 No. 9 COURIER Thursday April 22, 1993 Verdict evokes varied reactions Rejection of proposal stalls negotiations Editor's Note: Reporter Rod¬ ney Mitchell was at the First AME church when the verdict was announced. Here is his first¬ hand account of the African American community's reaction to the verdict. By RODNEY MITCHELL Staff Writer The long awaited and much dreaded day had come. As of Friday night April 16 on the eve of verdict day all bets were off. No one could predict the unpre¬ dictable. Only 12 people knew the fate of the four police officers charged with violating the rights of Rodney King. And no one knew what the fate of Los Angeles would be after the verdict came down - peace or civil war. Most residents of South Central slept as the city, covered in an eerie mist, teetered on the brink of catas¬ trophe. National guardsmen and local police agencies on full alert deployed forces to strategic loca¬ tions throughout the city, ready to defend the city against aggressors Meanwhile at the First AME church, a spiritual stronghold in the African-American community in Los Angeles something more on the positive was happening. A room inside the church designated as the trial review room served as a com¬ fort zone for residents and commu¬ nity leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson a long time veteran of the civil rights movement . All too reminiscent of the pro¬ tests during the civil rights move¬ ment church leaders led the packed room with prayer and traditional gospel hymns until the point when the TV monitors began to tell the story of civil rights, police brutality and African Americans. A tense hush enveloped the room as the proceedings began. But once the guilty verdicts of Sgt. Stacy Koon and Laurence M. Pow¬ ell were announced, deafening spontaneous cheers rang out from the crowd and the media. And then came the acquittals. Both the acquittals of Timothy Wind and Theodore J. Briseno sent a sud¬ den somber gust through the room and then a voice form the back of the room exclaimed, ’That’s ok! Wegot the main two,” referring to Powell and Koon. Judging from the mood of the room, there was dissatisfaction with the acquittals but it was far below the riot level of 1992. As the audience continued to shout words of praise in response to the two convictions, community leaders began to address the audience, putting the monumen¬ tal events that had just taken place into perspective. Rev. Jackson, who has had decades of experience in the civil rights movement, addressed the packed room and said that it was too soon to celebrate, ’’This is not jubilee or Armageddon. We need to formulate a plan for ur¬ ban justice to prevent further Rodney King beatings and to bring the focus of urban plight to the world.” Jackson went on to say that the Rodney King controversy was a Please see "VERDICT," page 5 By ALFREDO SANTANA News Editor Negotiations between the college administration and social science instructors in the selection of their new department chairperson stalled after faculty members rejected a pro¬ posal that would have put only one of them on the final screening com¬ mittee. Some social science instructors responded that if the standoff is not solved soon, they will seek Board of Trustees intervention to find a solu¬ tion. “We are at an impasse,” said Elvio Angeloni, social science professor. “Anything less than what we pro¬ posed amounts to lack of effective input in the selection process.” College officials offered to change current procedures choose a substi¬ tute for Kennon Miedema, social science chairman, who will step down once this semester finishes. Under the plan, four social sci¬ ence representatives, along with four administrators would decide how many candidates for the opening would make the second screening level. Perhaps the most important por¬ tion in the proposal was a change at the second level, where seven ad¬ ministrators would be joined by one faculty to make the final selection. However, the stand of social scences faculty members is immu¬ table. They consider that a majority of faculty members at the first inter¬ view level is essential. On the second interview panel, they are urging PCC officials to provide social sciences members with two seats. Currently, the first level commit¬ tee is made up four administrators and three faculty members. On the second level, eight ad¬ ministrators form the interview committee, and no faculty members are included. Here is where ulti¬ mately a candidate to fill chair va¬ cancies is chosen to serve in a per¬ manent position. “We feel that our original pro¬ posal would be a fair compromise,” said Angeloni, who has taught classes at PCC since 1967. He pointed out that if an agree¬ ment is not reached between them, the Board of Trustees will ultimately settle the issue. “The question here is what [pol¬ icy] is the best,” Crystal Watson, faculty senate president, said. “When we are talking about someone ad¬ ministering 40 instructors, that person must work with the Dr. Jack Scott faculty group. PCC President “The best decision-making is not from top to bottom, but from the bottom to top,” Watson said. Faculty Senate members have previously stated they will oppose further chair selections until the social science impasse gets settled. Meanwhile, college officials said their resolution to offer equal repre¬ sentation for faculty members at the first interview level and the decision to accept one instructor at second level shows the administration’s de¬ termination to alter current selection procedures. “We are willing to make a change. We made an offer we thought was a reasonable one,” said Dr. Jack Scott, superintendent-president. “We said we’ll be happy to con¬ sider four faculty members at the second level and one at the first level,” Scott added. He said social science members have not changed their stand, whereas college administrators acknowledged that a different chairperson selec¬ tion policy had to be implemented. Earth Week plans focus on survival Making a decision By ELIZABETH SCHMIDT Staff Writer Today is Earth Day and at PCC, the focus is understanding how people survive by interacting with their environment. Volunteers will be in the Quad through Friday with information from Earthwise, Environmental Task Force, Zero Population Growth, Foothill Family Services, United Way and student ecology projects. At 12:50 p.m. today anew all-ter¬ rain bicycle will be awarded to a student who enters a lottery by recy¬ cling a symbolic aluminum can. The Roadmaster 21 -speed Tracker bicycle was donated by Tetra Tech of Pasadena to remind students and staff that non-polluting transporta¬ tion can help in many ways to keep our environment healthy. Earthwise is PCC’ s student envi¬ ronmental group which, along with the Environmental Task Force, is sponsoring Earth Week on campus. Earthwise president Bob Cagle says that the recycling containers in the quad are a demonstration of how easy it can be to recycle. Zero Population Growth is an international group dedicated to taming our exploding human repro¬ ductive rate. Laurie Ingman , chairman of the local chapter of Zero Population Growth, graduated from PCC 60 years ago. Now Ingman is active in ZPG, because “unless we stabilize popu¬ lation growth on our finite planet, all the good work of caring for the earth will be nothing. " Environment means everything, not just the biological and physical world, but our spiritual environ¬ ment as well.First, people must be spiritually involved, then they can get political action," Ingman said. At noon Friday, spiritual leader of the Lakota Indians Dave Swal¬ low will talk about protecting and saving the earth from problems re¬ lated to careless sexual activity. David Uranga, political science instructor, gave a talk on “Politics and the Environment” last Monday. He emphasized that we have to find out who will sponsor, process, and then protect environmental legisla¬ tion. Then we must apply political pressure where it will be effective. Photo by HOWARD BURGER/ The COURIER A student seriously discusses her career options at yesterday's College and Career Opprtunity Day in the Quad. Community colleges face bleak budget future ‘It's an incredibly dismal budget situation and the only precedent we have for something this bad goes back to the depression of the 1930s.’ Raymond Reinhard assistant secretary of child development and education By JONATHAN BLAKESLEEE Staff Writer When nine PCC students met with 1 1 different legislators and staffers in Sacramento to lobby against the proposed $20 per unit increase in tuition, the budget situation they found was grim at best and may prove to hurt every student on campus this year. "It's an incredibly dismal budget situation and the only precedent we have for something this bad goes back to the depression of the 1 930's," said Raymond Reinhard, assistant secretary of child development and education, in a meeting with PCC lobbyists in Sacramento. California’s stalled economy is lagging the rest of the nation in re¬ covering from recession. Because of this, the tax base is severely less¬ ened and there is a shortage of funds to run the state. Reinhard elaborated that two years ago, Governor Pete Wilson agreed to the biggest tax increase in the state’s history. The $7 billion in¬ crease occurred at the point where California should have been pop¬ ping out of the recession. He stressed that the governor is aware of the lesson he learned from that increase because the recession got steadily worse from that point on. Wilson has said he will notraise taxes again. “To re-stimulate the economy, we need to create extra funds by leaving more money to the private sector. A lot of high paying white collar jobs are leaving the state be¬ cause of our situation and the tax base is shrinking. We desperately need to get our economy back on track,” said Reinhard. Without raising taxes, the only alternative is to cut spending. How¬ ever, of the $40 billion budget, half of the finances go to areas of manda¬ tory spending which can’t be touched. The $19 billion in funds that can be cut cover in large part, education: K- 12, community colleges, CSU, UC, and financial aid. With education comprising such a large part of dis¬ cretionary spending, raising fees is an obvious outcome. Wilson’s proposed 93-94 budget is facing at least a $2.7 billion dollar deficit. This will require cuts in spending to previously existing pro¬ grams by 12 percent in order to bal¬ ance the budget without raising taxes. His proposal hits community col¬ leges hard by enacting: □An 1 1 percent cut in their funds, equalling about $301 million. □To counteract this loss of reve¬ nue, tuition will have to be raised to $30 per unit, or $900 per year for full time students. □Those students already possess¬ ing a B.A. degree will pay $105 per unit. According to figures from the office of David Mertes, the state chancellor of community colleges, this increase will put 194,000 full time students and 300,000 students in actual head count, out of the com¬ munity college system. “There are three legs to the state’s education process,” stated Reinhard, “quality, access and low cost. We’ve squeezed all we can on the quality side. We don’t want to limit the access any more than we have to. That only leaves the low cost area as an option, and we have to meet our budget deficit. We are caught be¬ tween a rock and a hard place and that is the reason for the increase to $30 per unit.” Aaron Lublely, an aide in the Office of Glendale assemblyman Pat Nolan said, “I go to Cal $tate L.A., and I was outraged when the fee in¬ creases hit. But since I have come to work in Sacramento, my view has changed completely. There is no one up here who says ‘Hey, lets slam the students.’ The problem is that cuts have to be made. They just have to be done.” Several Republicans in Sacra¬ mento also added that just because fees have to go up to $30 per unit doesn’t mean that a student’s actual cost will be that high. Thirty per¬ cent of the proposed fee increase is scheduled to go to financial aid for needy students. “Eighty-two percent of the un¬ dergraduates of UC are financially dependent on the state. We think it makes sense to charge more of those who can afford to pay and redistrib¬ ute the funds to those less able to pay. By raising tuition, yet still offering more financial aid along the way, we hope to balance this.” stated Reinhard. Wilson’s budget gives K-12 schools priority funding, cutting none of their current state finances. Similarly, no cuts will be made to available financial aid. However, higher education does get hit substantially. Community col¬ lege tuition may go up 200 percent, UC’s is going up 33 percent, and CSU's is going up 40 percent. These figures are preliminary however, and Please see "BUDGET", page 4