Administration awaits approval for projects

Jonathan Tucker jtucker.roundupnews@gmail.com

Pierce College needs permission from the Division of the State Architect, who has continuously rejected plans, that says the conditions under which the buildings north of the Mall are being constructed meet their standard.

“All of our projects are a year and a semester old,” Chapter President Don Sparks said. “They should have been done by now and we can’t seem to get the DSA to approve them.”

Each rejection delays projects 6 to 8 weeks leaving a lot of time where no physical work can be done leading to semesters worth of time with little to no progress.

“It’s unfortunate because it is out of the college’s control,” Co-chair of the Pierce College Council Curtis Smith said. “The college is held hostage by the DSA. We just have to wait.”

The Pierce College Council hosted a special meeting March 1 to discuss at length future and current projects on campus.

During the meeting Walker made of point of letting the council know that they needed to invest in the proper items that the maintenance crew would actually be able to maintain.

“I’ve been here 18 years,” Lock- smith Lawrence Walker said. “This is my home and you want things comfortable in your home.

Walker wants to make sure the college continues to make steps in the right direction.

“We’re working through getting all the proper hardware installed,” Walker said. “We’ve done well. They just gotta continue hearing the endusers point of view.”

Currently the district believes that the user-groups should not be involved in the construction phases because once the budget is set the will need to stick to the budget, it is important.

The panel discussed the point of view of the district and said that would not be a problem if the finished product always came out the way that it was planned in the pre-production phases. There were multiple instances cited by the panel regarding to the plans that changed.

These changes affected the outcomes of certain building projects in a negative way.

“The purpose was to provide a forum to give feedback from the college constituency,” Chairperson Lyn Clark said. “And now the President will receive these comments and take them to the chancellor.”