Marty: Gavilan College – education, empires and errors

San Benito County commuters represent more than a quarter of Gavilan College’s Gilroy enrollment and 30 percent of its total headcount; however, almost 10 years after passage of a $108 million bond that promised to establish a county Education Center with permanent facilities and access to a non-commuting bachelor’s degree, we are not even close.
The primary reasons are Gavilan’s refusal to right-size and properly locate a San Benito campus and decisions to cover for a new Coyote Valley facility where they have already squandered $20 million, two-and-a-half times the original budget, just for land.
Besides insisting we build a large, expensive, isolated, car-oriented southeast campus serving 10,000 students, five times our current and twice our future needs, Gavilan is requesting 100 percent state construction funding of $24.3 million in direct competition with its San Jose white elephant. At best one facility will be completed in 2021, but more likely several decades later, as that account is never fully funded.
Adding insult to injury, Gavilan is now proposing to divert more than $12 million of so-called “excess funds” to south San Jose to lease and equip a police training facility while San Benito County waits in line.
Ironically, the leased facility is close aboard the empty property Gavilan purchased to become a major player in development that never materialized and will not get another serious look until 2040, if ever.
Don’t hold your breath for our campus; kicking in that $12 million and using it for existing students would not give the illusion of action in Coyote Valley.
We never needed a full campus and still don’t – that was more empire building. The $9.8 million Gavilan spent just for the property near Fairview Road and Airline Highway could have built a complete system adjacent to downtown and it would have had few, if any, environmental issues to stifle the project.
There was, or is, no sense wasting decades and $33 million for land and facilities while students do without; they should have built something useful.
Gavilan has been acting first and planning later. The February 2006 Facilities Master Plan listed the following priorities and estimated costs:
1. Permanent facility for San Benito County: $12.8 million
2. Expand and develop site adjacent to Gavilan Campus: $18.4 million (current golf course site) for allied housing needs, and
3. Acquire land for permanent facility for Coyote Valley: $8.4 million
Subtotal: $39.6M
However, a month before that plan update was even presented, the board had already approved spending $20 million for the Coyote property alone adding, “The College anticipates having about $12 million dollars left over to get a building constructed on both [Coyote Valley and San Benito] sites.” Now, they propose to steer that money elsewhere.
If that $12 million went to the San Benito Campus as matching funds we would have a much better chance of getting state funding for the balance; if it went to a downtown satellite facility it would offer something other than decades of commuting. 
The bond text specifies that the San Benito County campus will be made with a combination of bond monies and “State matching funds,” but neither the land acquisition nor the facilities are based on matching funds that are available, a clear violation of Proposition 39, which allowed the measure to pass with less than a two-thirds yes vote.
Complaints from San Benito’s Gavilan Trustee Tony Ruiz have been ignored, while it is past time the political leadership of San Benito County and its cities confront the college administration over these issues.