Running out of budget rope

$46.4 million of the Los Angeles Community College District’s state funding was cut in the past year, and the District is scrambling to stay afloat with those tens of millions gone.

did it, after the fact.

If you’ve been in the North Gym lately, you already know that there has been a number of lockers broken into.

No cameras anywhere near the gyms means no luck prosecuting.

Are you not getting the picture yet?

“More eyes is always better. Surveillance would be a deterrent and camera footage provides vital evidence

-Angel

Northern Illinois University. Indiana State University. University of Arizona. San Diego State University. University of Washington. Virginia Tech. Ohio State University. Texas A&M.

These are just a few of the campuses across our nation where shootings have occurred.

We have an open campus where just about anyone can walk right in.

The chances of cameras actually preventing anything in these instances is a matter of debate; but on the ground, it’s a no-brainer.

Sheriff’s Security Officer Angel Morales believes that more cameras at Pierce is a necessity.

“More eyes is always better,” Morales explained. “Surveillance would be a deterrent, and camera footage provides vital evidence.”

With a more robust security camera system, law enforcement personnel would be better able to see more of the campus, and by proxy, be more prepared to deploy to escalating problems.

In other words, more cameras would make you safer by not only deterring criminal behavior before it happens (Smile! You’re on camera.) but also documenting criminal activity as it happens.

That car that got stolen– we could have used video footage to identify the thief.

If the unthinkable happens, and we do have an armed assault situation on campus, the sheriff’s station would instantly have eyes on that area.

The solution is simple: bring Pierce College up to speed with the rest of the district in this vital, yet overlooked security measure.

Anyone arguing that this a budget issue should be flat out ashamed of themselves.

Classes are a budget issue. Beautification is a budget issue. Cameras are a safety issue.

You don’t skimp on the safety of your students. You just don’t. No amount of manicured grass or shiny new buildings will matter if we have a real-world situation erupt here at Pierce.

The only force between us and the danger is our sheriff’s station, and they should have whatever they need in order to keep us safe.

You’ve already axed their cadet program. This makes surveillance equipment even more a necessity than ever before.

Buy cameras. Install them. Wire it in to the station so our officers can do their jobs.

They deserve it, as do our students.

Sure the budget cuts are a bit unnerving, but that’s not fear.

Real fear is being responsible for the safety and well-being of 23,000 people, and knowing you can’t see them.

An autumn breeze fuels a dancing collage of leaves and litter on Pierce College’s Mall, its hushed roar casting a sickly ironic serenity under the midday sunlight of a school gunning towards a cliff.

The state is $15.7 billion in the hole. That figure has risen from $9.2 billion since January. Boo.

The cuts have forced the LACCD to, as the District’s Chancellor Daniel LaVista writes, “balance the needs of its students, faculty, and staff with having colleges further reduce classes, restrict hiring, and freeze purchasing in addition to using balances to minimize impact on programs and services.”

An all-caps “We’re running out of rope!” would have been fine. Anyway, that was then; This is worse.

The LACCD’s final budget of the 2012-2013 school year outlines the worst case scenario wherein Proposition 30, a state tax initiative to fund schools, doesn’t pass.

That gut-churning account of a sinking ship LaVista described with business-memo verbiage?

Remember those tens of millions of dollars taken from the budget this last year?

They’ll be joined by hundreds of millions more dollars, the budget projects.

LACCD will be left with a tick under $340 million less in state funding.

The cuts would plant the LACCD, along with the rest of the state’s schools, deeper in the red than any helping hand could reach.

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