Building, expanding and renovating are three words that should seem familiar to Riverside City College students.
With the new Math and Science Building finally finished in February 2012, students went through two years and three months dodging construction on their way to class.
Now, RCC has three new phases in store for the campus.
Phase one to build a new Student Services Building has a budget of $32 million and phase two being $1.55 million.
The third and final phase is a “Grab N’ Go” café with a budget of $1.6 million.
All together it will cost roughly $37.3 for the school to go through this mass construction project.
The tennis courts will also be relocated to the Lovekin field in order to put parking spots in their place.
It will cost $2 million for the relocation and $225,000 to paint stripes for parking spaces.
But is that the only price that will be paid?
In addition to unnecessary spending by the college, students will now suffer from fewer parking spaces, detours on their way to class and noise disruption during class.
The estimated time of completion is fall 2015.
But what about after all this is built?
Now the college has dipped into the $350 million Measure C bond for additions to the campus, while there are still older buildings that need attending to.
Where will the money come from to keep the buildings up and running?
More facilities mean hiring new staff members, paying electric and water bills and whatever else the building may need to stay in business.
Suppose an incident similar to what happened with the Math and Science building occurs with these new additions.
Are students and employees going to experience a similar sickness?
Is the school going to fork over more money to fix those issues again?
These plans were made to make it simpler for the students so everything is more convenient.
However, in the process of it all, it will cause more damage than it would be a solution to the various issues.
Yes, it would be ideal if all of the Student Services were in one place.
And how nice would the college look with those new tennis courts?
Plus, it sure would be neat to have a Panera Bread/Starbucks like café right here on campus.
But at what cost?
Sure, RCC will look modern and it may be slightly more accessible, but is that really where the focus should be?
The students’ education is what is most important.
After all, students do not come to RCC to sit around and look at pretty buildings.
They honestly come to get the proper education and tools they need to get out of here and move on to a university.
RCC does not need a café that will most likely cause students to be late for class anyway.
City Grill was just renovated two years ago, and is good enough for coffee and snacks, and the Bookstore is just as useful.
The money should be used for a larger Reading and Writing Center to prevent excessively long lines and to allow more students to put in the hours they need without it being too full.
The Student Services Building is in working condition and is fairly easy to locate and there are signs all around campus clearly indicating where each building is located.
It seems as though the real reason this money is being used and new buildings are being constructed is so the college does not lose the Measure C bond.
If the college does not need it, then using it will be a loss in other areas.
Sometimes money isn’t the only thing at stake.