The Sunnyvale Sun

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Two individuals respond to district bond challenge

By HUGH BIGGAR

Shortly after voters approved a $490.8 million bond measure for the Foothill-De Anza Community College District in June, the district invited all interested persons to challenge the bond measure by July 17.

Two individuals, Aaron Katz and Melvin Emerich, have since responded, with Katz receiving a 10-day extension to do so.

"They claim they don't have any money, but the bond measure is designed to free up money from the general budget to pay for administrative salaries," said Katz, a Saratoga attorney with property in the district.

Voters approved the bond measure to pay for building and equipment projects at both De Anza College in Cupertino and Foothill College in Los Altos Hills. The bond, Measure C, also allocated $40 million for a future satellite campus in Sunnyvale or Mountain View. The schools are among the lowest-funded community colleges per student in the state, and serve a district stretching from Palo Alto to San Jose.

According to Katz, the district has used the bond to help pay for high-level administrative salaries.

Bond passes, salaries hike

He pointed out that after the bond measure passed in June, the district approved a 15 percent raise for Chancellor Martha Kanter, boosting her salary to $216,228. Four other high-level administrators, including De Anza President Brian Murphy, also received cost of living adjustments and placement on a new salary scale.

At a June board meeting, Jane Enright, a vice chancellor of human resources, said the raises were important for recruitment and retention.

The community college district also says Measure C helps maintain and upgrade facilities and equipment at a time when enrollment is about 40,000 and some facilities are nearly 50 years old. Once the bond passed, the district's attorney, Sean Absher, said Foothill-De Anza anticipated some future legal challenges. As a means of expediting that process and avoiding costly delays, he said the district then initiated the lawsuit through a procedure known as a validation action. "We anticipated challenges because of letters to the editor we had seen in the past," he said.

Absher said he expects a judge to hear the case within the next two to four months.

Challenges to measures not new

The district has had problems with its bond measures in the past.

In 1999, voters in the district passed another bond. Measure E provided for construction and technology projects at the schools, but exceeded expected costs of $248 million. As a part of the Measure E campaign, the district also made an illegal $75,000 contribution to a group supporting the bond measure. California's Fair Political Practices Commission later fined the district $4,000 for the infraction.

Such incidents have made Katz wary. He also questions whether the district is correctly following the state's Proposition 39 requiring specific descriptions of bond projects.

"None of this benefits me personally," he said of his challenge. "I am trying to put a stop to it, or the district will keep on doing it."

Emerich and his attorney Gary Wesley did not return calls for comment.

Katz has sued several instistutions in the past including the Campbell Union High School District, El Camino Hospital district and the West Valley-Mission Community College District. In the West Valley case he argued residents of the district who did not own land should not be able to vote on a district bond. The case settled for $60,000.