Mt Hood Community College Bond Measure Delayed Until May

October 11, 2024News0

Here’s one item area voters won’t see on their Nov. 5 election ballots: A proposed $131 million bond measure to fund much-needed Mt. Hood Community College campus repairs and upgrades.

Over the summer, the MHCC Board of Education held a series of meetings focused on getting just such a measure before voters this fall. But by the July 17 Board meeting, the panel chose not to put the issue forward until next spring, citing a lack of community awareness about the issue.

At a July 10 Board work session with the public relations contractor, Jeremy Wright, hired to help direct a campaign effort, a separate panel the board had tasked with measuring local support for a bond measure attempt recommended that the Board put off any public vote until May 2025.

Board member Annette Mattson said, “Our community is not yet ready for us to go out and ask them for money,” after hearing the panel’s report. This decision was informed by the results of polling that showed limited support for a bond measure.

For his part, Wright gave two different explanations for this: In general, voters are currently unhappy with paying more taxes to local government agencies – “We are seeing similar results with all public agencies” considering such measures, he told the Board – and secondly, that a lot of voters probably are unaware of the condition of the MHCC campus.

“A huge chunk of voters… actually don’t know what’s going on, on your campus,” Wright said.

On top of the general tension over increasing property taxes, the college’s taxing (and voting) district that covers East Multnomah County and northeast Clackamas County was explained as posing a major challenge to overcome.

Put simply, the MHCC District cannot be easily described, so some voters likely won’t know they even reside in it until the bond measure shows up on their ballot. The District extends from near the Portland airport and Parkrose, across east Portland and to the city of Sandy and other portions of Clackamas County.

Veteran Board member Diane Noreiga noted on July 10 that some people in East Portland and Clackamas County simply don’t identify with MHCC – they instead identify with Clackamas Community College or Portland Community College.

MHCC’s location in the wooded edge of Gresham may simply not feel important to the lives of people who live closer to another community college, basically.

The Condition of the Campus

In addition to decisions on bond effort, summer work by the Board included formal adoption of the college’s operating budget for the 2024-25 year. In the budget document and the public meeting where the public Tax Supervising and Conservation Commission approved the budget, references to the bond came up a lot.

MHCC President Lisa Skari noted that the college had gone without passing a bond for over 50 years and compared the state of the campus to a neglected house.

“If you have a home and you don’t do anything to it for 50 years, I think you’re gonna have some serious issues or something broken or (that is) going to break.”

And indeed, there is plenty broken. Students have complained about the deteriorating condition of bathrooms (some remain only partly functional) and the lack of easy access to drinking water due to the prolonged winterization of water fountains to protect the college’s fragile plumbing.

For example, the college experienced significant plumbing leaks during the Jan. 13-14, 2024 winter storm that closed the campus for several days. And a backflow incident in one classroom building on Oct. 26, 2023, triggered an emergency advisory to avoid all campus drinking water.

In addition to the more obvious failings of our facilities, the 2024-25 budget document gives a candid warning as to the state of campus: “Many roofs are past the end of useful life and (there are) deteriorated building conditions” present, meaning that upgrades need “to happen soon to prevent further degradation and potential water intrusion.”

Just such trouble came in February 2021, when an icestorm resulted in an undetected roof leak that badly warped the Yoshida Events Center gym floor. The damage prevented any home games for Saints basketball squads until a complete floor replacement the following summer.

The college does have a schedule over which it plans to repair the roofs. But, with $23 million in deferred maintenance projects, there’s still more that needs to be done and could be done to extend the lifespan of our buildings.

The budget document also notes that passing a bond could help the college manage its debt by increasing the value of its assets and hopefully lowering the interest rates on the college’s cumulative debt accounts.

Meantime, failure to win new bond funding would leave the college with a potential $4 million funding gap to complete a permanent retractable pool cover for the Aquatics Center’s Olympic-sized swimming pool. Mt. Hood has pass-through federal dollars allocated for the project, which would expire if the bond measure doesn’t materialize soon.

For all the seriousness of the situation, some humor managed to find its way into the District Board room. One of the TSCC commissioners made a quip wondering if community members were aware of the college’s notable achievements (among them, the January 2023 ranking by WalletHub that put Mt. Hood No. 4 among 668 community colleges nationwide for affordability and education and career outcomes) – and so simply didn’t see a need for a bond measure.

“Wow, you guys are doing an incredible job with no money!” said the commissioner, then rhetorically finished, “Why should we give you more money?”