County locals still want future Gavilan San Benito in town;
students want full campus
In a sparsely attended meeting this week, many of the same San
Benito residents who objected to a proposed airport area campus
turned out to say they don’t see the need for a full campus. But
this time, a student representative took them to task.
County locals still want future Gavilan San Benito in town; students want full campus
In a sparsely attended meeting this week, many of the same San Benito residents who objected to a proposed airport area campus turned out to say they don’t see the need for a full campus. But this time, a student representative took them to task.
Betsy Avelar, president of Gavilan Community College’s Associated Student Body, publicly told the handful of county residents – none of them students – who insist that the future campus be built in downtown Hollister that their notion would not best serve students from the area.
“These areas are under the state standard of 100 acres,” Avelar said from the podium at Hollister City Hall, before the college’s Site Acquisition Committee. “The ASB feels that the dissent expressed by the Smart Growth Group may be motivated by their business affiliations, and thus would produce a conflict of interests.”
The statement brought a few scoffs from the three members of the group – rancher Joe Morris, retired Gavilan instructor Tony Ruiz and county Planning Commissioner Gordon Machado – who say they have no motivations behind their push for a downtown campus other than making it accessible to Hollister students. They call themselves the New Urbanism Group, and focus on issues of planning for economic sustainability and optimum public health.
The local group contends the future San Benito college doesn’t need to be a “full campus,” which would include several athletic fields, and their reasoning is based around the amount of land available for the project – to be completed between 2025 and 2030. They want Hollister students to be able to walk or bicycle to the new campus, which doesn’t jive, they say, with the Gavilan Board’s preferred site choice on a parcel of land next to the Hollister Airport, about four miles north of downtown. Currently, the college’s extension in Hollister consists of five classrooms at the Briggs Building parking structure on Fourth Street.
“Why would you build a big college unless you would build a big city?” said Tony Ruiz, when it was his turn to speak. The new campus should follow the city’s General Plan, he added, by taking up infill space within the city limits.
Morris reiterated his group’s resistance to a full campus, but was open to suggestions about the impasse.
“We don’t see a full campus as necessary, but that’s your call,” he said to the trustees. “The main thing is access to the students. But we’re not going to throw ourselves in front of something that makes sense.”
Avelar and college representatives argue that athletic fields are a necessary component to the plan, and therefore, the local campus can’t be built as infill because there are no available parcels in town large enough. The campus also has to be big enough to house services that are now available only at the Gilroy campus.
“There has to be a level of critical mass at some point regarding tutoring services, library services and counseling,” said Gavilan history professor Enrique Luna.
“I know a lot of students who have to drive to Gavilan’s main campus because of the lack of services here,” Avelar said.
“People may misunderstand what athletic fields are for,” said Jan Bernstein Chargin, head of Gavilan’s public relations, commenting after the meeting. “It’s not primarily for teams. It’s for physical education classes that are required for graduation.”
Bernstein Chargin said athletic fields had a second benefit in that the entire community can use them. That would include public use of the college’s hiking trails, track, swimming pool and tennis courts, to name a few.
“What if the community decided they wanted an ag program at the college that required fields, or a nanotechnology program that required labs?” she said. “Who knows what the future will bring, but shouldn’t we be prepared to go there?”
There are potential problems, however, with the board’s initial campus pick near the airport, said several citizens attending the meeting. And it’s not just the new campus location they are worried about. They don’t approve of Del Webb’s proposal to place a 4,300-home senior community and golf course just west of the airport either.
“Being so close to an airport, within two miles of a runway, that’s one of the foremost things that should have been looked into,” said Ruth Erickson, chairwoman of the Hollister Airmen’s Association. “Del Webb wants to build there now. These things just don’t work.”
“Del Webb is also in the process of jeopardizing the wishes of expansion of the airport,” said Gordon Machado. “Anything that curtails the expansion of the airport is a big concern.”
Gavilan President said that, so far, the college has considered 15 other sites, so the decision is far from sealed. At the end of the session, the board and local citizens decided to organize a joint meeting with college representatives and members of the city and county governments, including the Board of Supervisors, City Council and their respective planning commissioners. The meeting is tentatively scheduled for May 23 in the county Administrative Building.
