Valley Star

Issue date: 2/23/05 Section: News

Media Credit: Greg Burmann THE BUCK STOPS HERE - DMJM/JGM Program Director Frederick J. Gans explains in detail to the staff the costs of construction. Greg Burmann / Valley Star

Valley College's re-vitilization project has hit a roadblock. With funds running dry, downsizes are being made in the planning stage and DMJM, the construction team behind the project, won't move forward until the college is back on budget.

"We trimmed and clipped, trimmed and clipped and finally we downsized," said Valley President Tyree Wieder at a town hall meeting last Tuesday. "We had to look at what we could downsize and we had to prioritize."

The restoration project is part of a broader, district-wide construction project funded by Proposition A, passed April 2001, and Proposition AA, passed May 2003, but those funds won't be enough to complete all of Valley's projects, according to Wieder.

The Facilities Master Plan Committee reached a consensus to put the Media Arts building on the chopping block - its fate yet to be determined.

"When it comes down to it, the Media Arts building affects less students and it stands alone; it has no domino effect," Wieder said.

Current students may not be affected, but it will result in a different kind of domino effect.

"[Removing the Media Arts Building] doesn't impact many students, but it will affect prospective students," said Rebecca Davis, AMAC co-president. However, this may not be goodbye for the Media Arts building. According to Wieder, back-shelving the building is just a safety-net measure.

"Out of all our projects we had to find $20 million to set aside, so we had to figure out where that resource was."

If the money isn't used, the building will be built on schedule.

"Everyone is disappointed that there's not a lot of big yellow equipment everywhere right now," said Larry Eisenberg, Executive Director of facilities planning and development with the Los Angeles Community College district. "The easiest part of construction is when the trucks show up, the hardest part is everything leading up to that."

The FMP team ciphered through the list of campus projects and broke it into four categories, based on priority.

The first category being top priority with the Central Plant and Allied Health and Science Center, which is scheduled to receive $14 million from the state. Category two consists of the Central plant, maintenance and operations. The third encompasses classroom and restroom renovations, and the last category, of low-priority projects, houses the library, student services and Media Arts building.

According to Wieder, everyone has to make sacrifices to get the project completed.

"We had to ask 'What is realistic? What is possible?'" Eisenberg said.

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