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Pasadena City College
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Tender
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Oct. 14, 2004
pcc-courieronline.com
Vol. 90, Issue 6
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Parking Structure Delayed Until Late November
Stephen Folan
News Editor
Waiting for the parking structure to
open? Don’t hold your breath.
Originally scheduled to open on Aug.
30, the latest estimate is that the parking
structure will not be available for student
use until at least the end of November.
The delay, according to a recent memo¬
randum from college president Dr. James
Kossler, is a result of Kajima
Construction Services, Inc.’s failure to
meet its deadlines.
“What we have decided now is to let
the contractor complete the structure at
his pace,” said Kossler in the memoran¬
dum. “For our part, we will insist on a
quality building before we take posses¬
sion.
Until the parking structure is com¬
plete, Kajima will be fined $2,500 per
day, and will be required to reimburse the
college for any rentals or expenses
incurred during the delay.
“The current schedule indicates com¬
pletion in about three weeks,” said
Richard Van Pelt, director of facilities
services. “However, the contractor is run¬
ning the job, and whether they meet the
schedule or not is their responsibility.”
When completed, the parking struc¬
ture will provide 2,000 parking spaces for
students and faculty. In addition, it is
designed to be almost completely self-
sufficient; turbines have been installed in
Parking
Page
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Courtesy of David Arenas
A giant dinosaur made of sand and earth, created by several students from various departments on campus, will be a common
sight on campus for the next four months as the display “Earth to Earth” slowly erodes away in the Boone Sculpture Carden. The
art installation was unveiled on Saturday as part of the citywide Tender Land celebration. - See related story on Page 5 -
Construction on the new parking lot is
expected to be completed next month.
Campus
Police in
State of
U nrest
■ Several officers again speak out
against the acting police chief to
the board of trustees.
Part-Time Teachers Want Their Money
Diane Garcia
Entertainment Editor
Part-time instructors demanded that
the board of trustees pay teachers nearly
$1 million owed to them. Roger Marheine,
lead negotiator for PCC
СТА,
and approx¬
imately 50 instructors appeared at the Oct.
6 board meeting to question why the board
has not paid adjunct faculty augmentation
funds promised to them in July.
Augmentation funds come directly
from the state and are meant to equalize
the pay for adjunct faculty in community
colleges. For PCC the original funding was
well below that of the other colleges and
$998,221 was set aside to be allocated to
the 700 part-time instructors. Depending
on the number of hours worked, some
instructors would receive anywhere from
$1,000 to $1,500.
In a tentative agreement, signed in July
2004 by the PCC administration and the
СТА,
funds were to be dispersed by the
last pay-period of 'the 2003-2004 academic
school year which ended in August. At its
Sept. 30 meeting the
СТА
board said the
school administration was withholding
the funds to use as a bargaining tool in
their new contract. However the adminis¬
tration said the money has not been paid
because the ynion has not ratified the
agreement.
Marheine presented a petition to the
board that he said has hundreds of signa¬
tures. "The administration is demonstrat¬
ing bad faith and unjustly penalizing
. PCC's most vulnerable and exploited fac¬
ulty," Marheine read from the petition.
Bemardine De Paolis, who has taught
for 25 years, showed her support for facul¬
ty members at the meeting. She said,
"Many [instructors] don't have pension
plans. They were really looking forward to
having a check arrive," said De Paolis. She
added that since most adjunct faculty are
younger and have little, if any, money
saved up many were hurting financially for
the two months they went without receiv¬
ing a check.
De Paolis suggested the funds be used
to bring PCC up to the pay level of other
local colleges, like Mt. SAC and Glendale,
where part-time instructors earn $15 to
$17 more per hour than their PCC coun¬
terparts. De Paolis also said many inexpe¬
rienced teachers come to PCC to get then-
start and leave for higher pay as soon as
they gain experience.
"We should have an open-door policy,
but instead we have a revolving-door poli¬
cy," said De Paolis. "All the time, money
and expertise that full-time division chairs
put into training or mentoring these new
teachers, and they're gone. Then we get a
new batch."
Dr. James Kossler, president of PCC,
said the funds could not be distributed
because the distribution agreement is
included with a number of other tempo¬
rary agreements. Kossler said the agree¬
ments are included in a new contract that
must be ratified by union members and
approved by the board of trustees.
He said the district could not distrib¬
ute the funds because there has been no
new contract. "The administration is just
as interested in paying the funds to our
part-time instructors as our part-time
instructors are in receiving the monies,"
Kossler said.
Jackie Jacobs, vice president for
instructional administration, said she
believed the district had done its part. She
said the district hopes the union ratifies
the agreement within the next week. If
so, it will be presented to the trustees at
their Oct. 20 meeting. "We want to get
[the money] out to them as soon as possi¬
ble, there is no question about that,"
Jacobs said.
Linda Rapka
Editor-in-Chief
The board of trustees met on Wednesday, Oct.. 6
before a packed house. So many people wanted to speak
that time spans were shortened from five minutes to
three minutes in order to give everyone a chance to be
heard.
One of the hot topics of the evening surrounded the
controversy over acting campus police chief Lt. Brad
Young and several of the campus officers who have said
that they are dissatisfied with his leadership.
Officer Leroy Henderson, president of the Police
Officers Union, presented the board with a letter that
served as formal notification of the officers’ vote of no
confidence in Young. Henderson said that an “over¬
whelming majority” of the campus officers feel that
Young is “unable to lead [the officers] in a professional
and ethical manner.” The department is composed of
eight officers, four of them part-time.
Henderson mentioned several allegations recently
brought up against the lieutenant, including illegal eaves¬
dropping, racial slurs, and unfair use of cadets, alluding
to a complaint filed by officer John Hynes that Young
forced cadets to do his math homework last year when
he was taking a class on campus with business and com¬
puter technology instructor Jeff Winter.
Winter addressed the board at the meeting, saying he
was there to “set the record straight.” He said that the
homework assigned for his class was not graded and it
would have been pointless for Young to have forced any¬
one to do his homework.
Young vehemently denies this and all other allega¬
tions against him. He said that he only asked some
cadets to help him with some homework, which the were
willing to do.
Henderson reported that the officers with the com¬
plaints against Young had already gone to human
resources, but that nothing had been done about the sit¬
uation. “We want an impartial board formed on campus
that can hear complaints like this,” he said.
Henderson asked the board to advise him of what the
Young
*AGi
Get a Haircut and Help Raise
Money for Breast Cancer
Caroline Ikeji
Staff Writer
Need a haircut? Don’t want to spend
much? Why not help a good cause while
you’re at it?
The PCC cosmetology department will
take part in the fourth annual City of Hope
“Haircuts for Hope” Cut-a-Thon on Oct. 18.
The event is sponsored by the Association
of Cosmetology Teachers and will be hosted
by 10 community colleges throughout
Southern California.
Forty cosmetology students will give hair¬
cuts for $10 each. The event will take place
from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Community
Education Center.
The event will raise funds for the City of
Hope National Medical Center and the
Beckman Research Institute, benefiting the
breast cancer research program. The event
raised $1,800 last year, and $2,400 in 2002,
according to Nadege Williams, director of the
cosmetology program.
Charitable donations will also be accepted.
Cash is accepted, but in order to receive a
receipt for taxes, donations must be made by
check or money order because the cosmetol¬
ogy program is not authorized to provide
receipts by City of Hope.
“This is for a great cause,” said Williams.
“We hope people will get enthusiastic about it
and that students from the campus will show
up.”
' For more information, call the cosmetol¬
ogy department at (626 )585-3050.
Talking Heads: Liu and Gabriel Face Off
Candidates in the upcoming election
if
К
#
■г
:
debated in the Crevling Lounge about
issues relevant to students
Natasha Khanna
Staff Writer
Carol Liu (Democrat)
Photos by Jim Comeau/ Courier
Assembly candidates spoke
out on campus last week.
In their campaign to win the state assembly elec¬
tions, Democratic assemblywoman Carol Liu and
Republican assembly candidate Lynn Gabriel spoke
out in a debate at the Creveling Lounge last
Wednesday over issues concerning students.
About 200 spectators, mostly students, many of
whom showed up for class extra credit, watched as
Liu and Gabriel stated their views on community col¬
lege tuition fees, the cost of textbooks, lowering the
voter age, the three strikes law, and the community col¬
lege system.
• m
SSI
*
■i
Lynn Gabriel (Republican)
Debate