MINUTES
Los Angeles Harbor College Oversight Committee
Monday, October 1, 2001
Present: Jeff Callender, Olivia Cueva-Fernandez, Hal Garvin, Arthur Guzman, Margaret
Hernandez, Fred Kennedy, Patrick Lovett, Florence McTaggart, Susan Prichard, Bruce
Sperka, Linda Spink
Guest: Jim Favaro, Camille Goulet
Absent: Thomas Boles
Dr. Spink called the meeting to order at 4:07 p.m.
Introductions
All members introduced themselves.
Role of the Committee
Proposition 39 requires that the District has an oversight committee. The Board of
Trustees chose to implement a Districtwide oversight committee, which includes each of
the nine colleges and other citizens such as a homeowner, senior citizen, and labor, all of
the required categories. The role of the college committee is to give each college a closer
examination than one large committee would be capable of doing.
Review of the Brown Act
Ms. Camille Goulet, District’s General Counsel, distributed information, including
Government Codes, on the Brown Act. Since we are a public agency, we must operate
under the Brown Act.
We have a certain responsibility to the public. All meetings must be open with either the
door open or a sign posted. The agenda should be posted in an area where it can be seen
twenty-fours a day. Our quorum is six. No votes can be taken outside of a meeting
where the public cannot be involved.
Emergency meetings can be called within 24 hours. Documents shouldn’t be passed
around unless we want them to become public. It is a misdemeanor if the Brown Act is
not followed.
Report on District Oversight Committee
Mr. Garvin is our representative to the Districtwide oversight committee. Althea Clark
from the Harbor area is also on that committee. The District’s Citizens’ Committee has
already met and has bylaws. The college bylaws will need to include specific reference
to the college. When our bylaws are ready, they will be submitted to the Chancellor.
Any changes have to be approved also. Dr. Spink will get the District bylaws out to the
members. Margie Hernandez and Olivia Cueva-Fernandez will look at the Districtwide
bylaws and develop a set of recommended bylaws.
Prop. A Overview and Its Impact on Harbor College and Role of Master Planning
Items 4 and 6 were combined. Our PAC talked about the projects and made decisions in
the prioritizing. We have a Facilities Subcommittee of the PAC which consists of 8 to 10
individuals. Each institution must have a Facilities Master Plan based on their
Educational Master Plan.
During our last Accreditation we got cited for not having either a Facilities or a Strategic
Master Plan. We now have a Strategic Master Plan. The Facilities Subcommittee met
numerous times, had open forums for both the college and the community to discuss and
prioritize the proposed project lists.
Dr. Spink is willing to arrange for a tour for anyone who wants to see the campus.
We hired an architectural firm to help us develop the college Facilities Master Plan. The
president, vice president of administrative services, and facilities manager went through
35 applications and narrowed them down to three. The Facilities Subcommittee
interviewed the three finalists. MDA Johnson/Favaro was chosen. Jim Favaro of MDA
Johnson/Favaro Architectural and Urban Design was introduced. His firm is national in
scope and located in Santa Monica and Boston. They do both urban design and planning
and emphasize the quality of the environment.
We have $124 million to spend. Some of the project priorities will need to be changed;
for example, Project II should become I. The community center is noted twice by
mistake. Many renovations are included. This committee will play a key role in the
future shape of the campus. The Draft Master Plan will take six weeks to put together.
To get views from people will take another six weeks. This will be finalized into a
document for the record of both the process and the product for any project taking place
the next twenty-five years. In six or seven years we could go back to the voters and ask
to finish it.
Mr. Garvin passed around the list of the District Oversight Committee. They met on
September 21st. They want to spend 85% within the first three years. The first issuance
will be 525 million dollars; districtwide we can spend the money faster. It will probably
be a year before we break ground. We get 10% of the dollars and we have 7% of the
students. The decision-making was done in the Chancellor’s Cabinet Meeting. Our PAC
worked out several strategies. It will be difficult working around existing classes.
Future Meeting Dates
Most of the committees are meeting quarterly. The time of 4 p.m. appears to be okay. If
the bylaws are properly noticed, we could adopt them at the next meeting.
The meeting concluded at 5:44 p.m.