Prop O was rejected, What's Next?
Proposition O, a parcel tax designed to provide more funding to City College was not passed. What are we gonna do now?
By Onyx Hunter
onyxhunter@gmail.com
It’s no secret City College has lost more than few of its teeth under budget cuts and deficits over the past 6+ years.
Proposition O, a parcel tax designed to provide more funding to City College was not passed. What are we gonna do now?
There are a few options proposed by Rick Baum who gave alternatives during a debate on the topic “We need to be going after enrollment, or after the Democrats who run the state to cough up more money for public education.”
Rick Baum shared sentiments regarding the time scale of Proposition O “By the time the money arrives in two years it would probably only make-up for the downsizing of the past two-three years.”
Rick’s position was generally that Proposition O had issues like oddly specific fund allocations, a lack of any public or even school union input on the measure, a taxation of San Franciscans for mistakes that the board has made, and poorly written tax code.
Proposition O’s failure cannot be seen as a death knell for the College’s future. On the contrary it needs to be a wake up call.
Mayor Breed herself vetoed three million in emergency funding the College would have received to restore 300 classes cut by Chancellor Rocha in 2019. As a school and community we have to prove that this school is worth fighting for, because now that Proposition O has been slashed we can create a more open and succinct plan of action to reinvigorate the College.
Students must be informed of the College’s status and the teachers of the college who are informed of its processes should get students involved.
The newest generation of students coming to City College are some of the most politically active and aware, the midterm elections lack of red wave is accredited to young voters by many people. The only people who can solve this situation is the new mass of young voters who go to City College.
We have two years to show that we don’t need emergency funding from Proposition O, we need higher enrollment, and to get there we have to involve the High Schools more heavily. We need simple instructions and a simple user interface to get there.
All it takes is one Youtube video and Computer Lab to get people started.
