By Alex Emslie and Estela Fuentes
The Guardsman

Ingleside officers have been conducting undercover “sting” operations at Ocean campus since January due to the new requirement that local police departments answer for crime statistics in their district.

Property crimes at Ocean campus totaled 35 for March, Ingleside Station Captain Louis Cassanego said, and accounted for 27 percent of the Ingleside district’s total.

“Since City College is part of the Ingleside district, their statistics add on to ours,” Cassanego said. “That’s why it’s a big concern for us.”

Under the new system, officials from each station attend monthly meetings where “the chief puts the captains on a hot seat,” grilling them about statistical increases or decreases, San Francisco Police Department Sgt. James Miller said.

CompStat, a program initiated five months ago by SFPD Chief George Gascón, collects crime statistics from reports generated all over the city. Police officials then analyze the data and use it to deploy patrols more efficiently. CompStat emphasizes quick and thorough investigations, accountability, and consideration of social issues that affect crime, according to the SFPD website.

Miller, who leads the Ingleside Station Special Problems Unit in charge of the undercover operations on Ocean campus, estimated a 75 percent drop in property crimes since his unit began conducting stings at City College.

“It’s not just collecting the data, it’s doing stuff with the data,” Miller said of CompStat, adding that SFPD is trying to be more proactive in responding to crime trends using data collected by officers over the years.

Though it’s new to San Francisco, CompStat has been effectively used by other metropolitan police departments for more than a decade. The New York City Police Department pioneered the program in the mid-90s and experienced a dramatic drop in crime.

Armed or assault-type robberies near Ocean campus have greatly diminished after violent crimes spiked approximately two years ago, City College Police Officer Rachele Hakes said. SFPD aided City College police in bringing those violent crimes under control.

“There are very few forced break-ins,” Miller said. “Violent crime, cross our fingers, is at a minimum there. It’s almost non-existent.”

A summary analysis of City College’s crime logs given to the Ingleside Problem Solving Unit confirmed what Miller already suspected: Most property crimes on campus are crimes of opportunity.

‘Everything comes back to money’

The City College Police Department had attempted its own undercover operations before the beginning of the spring semester when Ingleside officers started taking a more active role on campus, but they were unsuccessful.

“It takes three to five officers to handle a sting operation,” Hakes said, adding that at times as few as three City College officers are on duty. “So we’re relying on Ingleside to step in and pick up where we can’t do it.”

While reducing crime stats attributed to their district was the main impetus for Ingleside’s more active role on Ocean campus, Hakes said City College budget constraints were also a factor.

“Everything comes back to money,” she said. “Training, hiring more officers, any kind of overtime to handle special details and stuff like that.”

City College PD is operating with minimal staffing because of unfilled positions, medical and military leaves, said Hakes, who doubles as one of the departments two public information officers.

Other officers are shouldering administrative duties like compliance with the Clery Act, a federal law requiring educational institutions to report campus crime in a timely manner.

“Right now, everybody’s budgets within the college are pretty frozen,” Hakes said. “We have very little as far as equipment and supply budgets.”

While a poor economy is impacting the college’s public safety budget, Cassanego doesn’t believe it is driving up crime.

“In general, a bad economy does not drive people to commit crime,” he said. “Criminals are just criminals.”

Ingleside officers are currently analyzing the summary of crime reports from City College PD and looking for ways to make the Ocean campus location safer.

“The unfortunate thing is that, by the time we get this whole thing finalized, the school year will be ending,” Miller said. “But when we start anew next school year, Ingleside Police Department and City College Police Department should be much better prepared to deal with that criminal activity.”

ROBERT ROMANO / THE GUARDSMAN

By Estela Fuentes
The Guardsman

City College is looking to reduce its carbon footprint at Ocean campus with the new Multi-Use Facility scheduled to open this fall.

Although the college was allocated $64.7 million to construct and furnish the building, it’s been difficult to find sustainable furniture while staying within budget, Kathy Hennig, City College’s purchasing manager said.

“Its about a third of what we need,” Hennig said. “So I’m really working hard to stretch it as far as I can to accommodate what we need to get up and running. But I want to make the building look nice too.”

Classrooms in the new building will have adjustable tables and chairs instead of traditional chair desks so students can be comfortable.

Some of the countertops going into the building are made of Paperstone, which is 100 percent post-consumer recycled. The chairs going into the ESL labs are green certified and are made out of 97 percent recycled content. All instructor desks going into the new building will be made of 78 percent recycled content.

Sustainable furniture is a lot more expensive than regular furniture, so Hennig is working hard to find creative solutions.

“Fifty of the office chairs are actually recycled chairs. We bought them used, and I’m having them steam cleaned and tightened up,” Hennig said.

She also bought used cabinets that will be repainted to match the new furniture and said she even searched through Craigslist to save money.

Dean of Scheduling Terry Hall said that although the Multi-Use Facility will be ready for use next fall, the original plan of sharing the space with San Francisco State is still undetermined.

“SF State, if they plan to offer classes here, will be renting classes from us,” Hall said. “But they don’t have anything scheduled.”

The building will house a number of classes as well as department offices and student services.

“The primary occupants will be the health education department,” Hall said. “The child development department will have all their programs in there.”

The new facility will also house the financial aid office, counseling and the Ambassador Program among other student services.

“The building is a classroom building so we’ll have all types of classes in there: math classes, ESL, foreign language and English,” Hall said.

Both Hennig and Hall hope that students enjoy the finished and fully furnished building next semester.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BRUCE SMITH

By Alex Emslie
The Guardsman

Deborah Kay Porter, a devoted City College management assistant and long-time Service Employees International Union member, died April 8 after an eight-month battle with lung cancer. She was 56 years old.

More than 400 people attended a memorial service held for Porter on April 20 at the Ocean campus Diego Rivera Theatre.

“She hitchhiked here from Indiana when she was 15,” Porter’s son Omar Brown said. “She started here with nothing, and she created everything she left behind for us.”

Porter joined City College in 1995 as a senior clerk typist in the art department. Her personal and fair way of dealing with people from every level of the college precipitated two promotions throughout her career. She was promoted in 1998 to the School of Liberal Arts and Castro/Valencia campus dean’s office. She was promoted again to management assistant in the same office in 2006.

“She was a mother to lots of students,” said Bruce Smith, dean of the school and campus Porter worked for.

Her passion for helping didn’t stop with the City College student body. She served SEIU, Local 1021 in the offices of secretary, bargaining team member and Chief Steward — a position that allowed her to help fellow union members resolve issues with their supervisors.

After joining the union “she blossomed, she looked for lots of different opportunities, and there were so many wrongs that she wanted to right,” SEIU member Patti Tamura said.

Porter often served as a mediator concerning “problem cases” including students, staff and faculty at City College, Chancellor Don Griffin said.

“We called her, in a very positive way, ‘the social worker,’” Griffin said, adding that Porter was so skilled in mediation that she could have taught a class on the subject.

Porter was a voracious reader who also loved movies and discussing them with colleagues and friends. She was a lifelong student who often enrolled in classes at City College. She liked to arrive early to work so she could chat with her good friends George Cardoza and Brenda Cruise at the Crown Catering food truck outside the Visual Arts Building.

To many who knew her, it seemed she alone had “a 15-day week,” as she was able to juggle so many professional obligations and hobbies and still never turn down a friend in need.

“Debbie was only vulnerable if you asked her to dance, the only thing that she could claim to call a social phobia,” retired art department Chair Ray Holbert said.

Along with making herself indispensable to her colleagues, Porter’s professional relationships always bloomed into friendships, Smith said.

“We’ve all lost someone special, and I lost my best friend,” retired art department instructor Michael Ruiz said.

Porter is survived by her children — Shenqua, Omar and Kalief Brown; sisters — Jeanne Porter, Amanda Whittier and Leslie Dyra; stepchildren — Gabriel and Dejanae Brown, Sunseria Pierce and Dionna Noguera; and grandchildren — Tamia Brown, Jaden Marcel, Dominic and Donovan Noguera.

By Don Clyde
The Guardsman

Students are encouraged to attend a May 5 meeting at the state Capitol to testify about student fees.

The California Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance will hold hearings beginning at 4 p.m.

City College representatives will take a 12:30  p.m. train from the San Francisco Ferry Building to Sacramento.

By Ramsey El-Qare
The Guardsman

A district-wide emergency evacuation drill will take place on a random day and time during the week of May 3.

Everyone on campus is expected to stay calm and evacuate the campus in a safe and orderly manner at the first sound of the alarm. Building monitors, along with faculty and staff, will be present to help people leave through the appropriate evacuation locations.

Personal belongings should not be left behind, and traveling against traffic in the stairwell is not advised.

All injuries should be reported to building monitors or emergency officials.

For an evacuation map visit http://www.ccsf.edu/News/EmergEvacBook_v1.pdf, or for more information call the campus police 415-239-3200

Number of classes greatly diminished from 2009 level

By Don Clyde
The Guardsman

A Board of Trustees resolution from the March 25 board meeting indicated that there will be a 2011 summer session, but only about 40 percent of the 2009 number of classes will be reinstated.

“It’s not even an option about having a summer,” Chancellor Don Griffin said about the 2011 term. “Without the summer we cannot generate enough enrollment in fall and spring to maintain the solvency of the college.”

City College eliminated the 2010 summer session due to massive budget shortfalls.

By William Chamberlin
The Guardsman

Two Senate bills were heard on April 21 that directly combat future tuition fee increases in post-secondary schools.

Limits would be put on growing tuition hikes imposed every year at some California higher education institutions.

Neither of the new bills protect community colleges, as SB 1199 originally had. The tuition hike limits will only affect the UC and CSU systems. Public post-secondary education costs have been increasing over all three tiers of California campuses.

“We have never taken a position to support any fee increases,” City College Dean of Governmental Relations Leslie Smith said. “Our position will remain to support no increases.”

SB 1199 and SB 917 requires that student tuition fees cannot increase by a yearly percentage or set the maximum roof for increases to be 10 percent more that the previous academic year at UCs and CSUs.

“At present there is no statutory guiding policy on student fees beyond fiscal conditions and the stated needs,” according to background analysis in SB 1199 that was provided to the committee.

“Community colleges as a system have never supported a similar policy and we will fight to keep the fees low,” said Smith.

The community college level will continue to have no guiding policy. Current tuition per unit is $26 for resident students. California community college tuition was free until 1985 when it jumped to $5 per unit. It has increased 420 percent since then.

If legislation had been passed in 1985 to have a maximum cap on the tuition for students at 10 percent from the previous year, today City College students would be paying over $50 per unit, at a fixed 10 percent increase every year.

Sen. Leland Yee, who represents the 8th District, which include San Francisco and San Mateo counties, is co-author of SB 917. Yee aims to limit the UCs and CSUs power in the decisions and amounts to raise fees.

City College continues to stand behind its conviction to fight for no new increases. City College Board of Trustees Vice President John Rizzo wrote a special board resolution passed at the March 25 board meeting specifically opposing a recommendation by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office to increase community college rates to $40 per unit.

The guidelines of the trustee powers in raising tuition for CSUs and UCs may affect all students who are planning to transfer to those schools from the community college system.

“Increases may be inevitable, but they should be gradual and predictable,” said Los Angeles County Sen. Carol Liu in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.

By Hannah Weiner
The Guardsman

A status hearing concerning the misappropriation of funds case involving former City College Chancellor Phillip Day Jr. and former Associate Vice Chancellors Stephen Herman and James Blomquist revealed April 14 that the trial continues to be delayed.

“Right now we’re still reviewing the documents and doing legal research,” Doron Weinberg, Herman’s attorney said. “We informed the court that we had not made progress to make a resolution, but we want to continue to try.”

The District Attorney’s office began the investigation after the San Francisco Chronicle published an article addressing some of the transactions made.

“Those transactions ended up forming the basis of the charges,” prosecutor Evan Ackiron said.

The defense hopes to avoid a trial and instead come to a settlement.

“We think it’s a case that shouldn’t have been brought in the first place,” Weinberg said. “These are not criminals who deserve to be punished. These are people who believed they did what was necessary to help a public institution.”

Ackiron made no comment about the defendants’ motives but said that if convicted, “Day and Herman face a maximum of nine years and Blomquist faces a maximum of three years.”

The next stage in the legal process is to set up a preliminary hearing.

“It’s really just a question of when the defense is ready,” Ackiron said.

Once the preliminary hearing happens, court officials will set a start date for the trial.

By Tania Cervantes
The Guardsman

The City College Textbook Affordability Task Force has launched a campaign to promote the use of free open-source textbooks for professors and students at the college.

Through a Creative Commons license, open textbooks are free of charge when downloaded from the Internet and are low cost when purchased in print.

“When looking for ways to make textbooks affordable, we came across free open textbooks,” Bookloan Coordinator and Task Force member Deena Samii said. “We want teachers to know that free textbooks are an option.”

Currently, there are over 450 community college textbooks online, ranging in subjects from mathematics to biology. Professors from various schools including New York University have reviewed some open textbooks.

Textbook advocate for CALPIRG, the California Public Interest Research Group, Nicole Allen, works with students to bring textbook campaigns to college campuses.

She said more than 2,000 professors have signed a statement of intent which means they will consider using open textbooks.

“The thing with open textbooks is that it empowers the faculty to customize the content in order to meet the students needs,” College Open Textbook Director Jackie Hood said.

Because open textbooks are licensed under Creative Commons they can be rearranged to better fit a curriculum. Chapters may be taken out, and depending on the license and format, books can be combined.

“The most that the Academic Senate can do is support the campaign, but it is ultimately up to the departments and professors,” City College Academic Senate President Hal Huntsman said. “We can encourage them, but we can’t make them do it.”

Professors may choose not to use an open textbook if they don’t consider it to be the best book.

“When you choose a book, it’s a big deal. The best book may be $500, but if I can find a good book for $75 then I might just choose that one,” Huntsman said. “But I cannot choose a book just because it’s free. I have to examine the content first.”

Hunstman, who is also a math instructor, said he has looked at some of the open books and found some that are good and some that are not so good.

Ultimately, it would be the professor’s task to examine the book and find those which can be used.

While there are many models to make the books free and affordable, the most common way has been through the use of grants, Hood said. Some professors have also written textbooks during their sabbatical.

“Change is never easy and the idea of open textbooks is new,” Huntsman said. “We just have to get the word out so professors know that these are real options and that there are some really good things.”

Several colleges have already incorporated open textbooks. California schools using them include Foothill College and De Anza College. Nationally, North Seattle Community College in Washington and St. Petersberg College in Florida have also integrated them.