[StBernard] AWAITING REPAIRS

[Westley Annis]

AWAITING REPAIRS
Community and technical colleges hoping state aid arrives soon 
Monday, November 05, 2007
By John Pope
Staff writer 
Two years after Hurricane Katrina blasted through Delgado Community College
and floodwater as deep as 6 feet drowned the City Park campus, life seems to
have returned to normal. 

 
Drive past the grassy site on City Park Avenue or Marconi Boulevard and
you'll see students with bulging backpacks streaming into classroom
buildings and, on sunny days, lolling on the broad lawn. 

It's pretty enough to make a college recruiter proud. Arnel Cosey, the
campus' chief academic officer, agrees -- up to a point. 

"It's that side that's nice," she said with an edge in her voice, adding
that reality intrudes "when you drive around to Navarre." 

A left turn from Marconi onto Navarre Avenue is an introduction to the part
of the campus that still awaits repairs that are expected to cost nearly $14
million. Until the work is done, structures that make up nearly one-sixth of
the college's square footage are unusable, said Adolfo Girau, Delgado's
director of facilities and planning. 

Other local state-run campuses in the state-run community and technical
college system need major hurricane-related work, too. 

Rebuilding the Louisiana Technical College's Sidney Collier campus in New
Orleans' 9th Ward, which Katrina obliterated, is expected to cost nearly $12
million. 

And at Nunez Community College in Chalmette, repairs are expected to total
about $5.2 million. 

Under the existing system, the work can't start because these institutions
have had to stand in line and hope for money from the state's capital outlay
budget, Delgado Chancellor Alex Johnson said. 

The longer these repairs aren't made, administrators said, the more likely
it becomes that students may look elsewhere to get the courses they need to
help the area recover and compete for jobs. 

"We're desperate," Johnson said. 

A solution is at hand: An act that the Legislature passed earlier this year
would, through the sale of bonds, provide $173 million for 23 projects at 14
community and technical colleges around the state. Getting a steady stream
of money would eliminate the necessity of going back for money year after
year, he said. 

"Normally, these usually move one at a time. What we did was . . . move 23
forward," said Joseph May, president of the Louisiana Community and
Technical College System, which includes Delgado, Nunez and Collier. 

Because the Blanco administration and the Legislature had to approve the
proposal, and because the Community and Technical College System had to
comply with the procedure for selling the bonds and hire the necessary
personnel, "I wouldn't say it's any easier," May said. 

"However," he said, "we think it's the best approach out there for moving
projects we need to get funded to address statewide needs and needs in the
city of New Orleans." 


Bond panel must act 

But first, the state Bond Commission must bless the sale of the bonds at its
next meeting Dec. 20. The agenda is to be set the Monday after Thanksgiving,
Delgado spokeswoman Molly Jahncke said. 

"We have not heard any opposition" to the proposal, May said. 

But, he added, "a lot of people are competing to get on the same agenda." 

To build support, the Community and Technical College System has launched a
campaign to show what the campuses need and the services they provide. 

For instance, Johnson said, about 90 percent of the 50,000 jobs expected to
be in the New Orleans area by 2009 -- jobs in fields such as construction,
health care and manufacturing -- require post-high-school training. 

With repaired and revitalized colleges, "children will stand a better chance
of receiving the education they need to get a viable job opportunity,"
Johnson said. "They won't have to look out of state." 

But as long as buildings can't be used, administrators said these colleges
won't be able to meet the demand for skilled workers. 

"The City Park campus is normally 12,000," Johnson said. "Now it's 8,000,
but we're maxed out." 


Students may leave 

On that campus, the most conspicuous unrepaired structure is the big brown
block that is the 65,000-square-foot Student Services Building. Delgado's
offices, including those of the registrar and financial aid, have been moved
to the ballroom of the nearby Student Life Center, where black drapes
hanging from pipes define their borders -- and provide no privacy. 

The library is in temporary quarters with only 15,000 of its 101,000-volume
collection, Jahncke said. 

Students and faculty members can use the other 86,000 books, she said, but
they must wait because the books must be fetched from an off-campus storage
site until the library is repaired. 

Because two buildings that have housed infant- and child-care facilities
aren't available, students may leave, Cosey said. 

Delgado got a $2 million private grant for a new structure that would
include money for razing one of the buildings because it is beyond repair,
Girau said. 

But there's a deadline for using the grant, he said, and Delgado, as a state
institution, can't use private money for demolition. 

So, unless the method of paying for state projects is changed, Delgado will
have to wait in line for the money to start the process and risk losing the
grant. 

"It's very, very frustrating," Girau said. "Not only are the buildings
unusable, but we can't do anything about it because somebody else has the
power and control." 

. . . . . . . 

John Pope can be reached at jpope at timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3317.