Government and Community Relations
Speeches and Presentations
Speaking Out essay -- Residence Halls at MCC Lori VanDusen, Chair, MCC Board of Trustees and R. Thomas Flynn, MCC President Democrat and Chronicle 04/04/2006 Last year, more than 600 Monroe Community College students were refused housing in our residence halls because we simply did not have room for them. Now the MCC Association proposes to build another dorm – at no expense to taxpayers – and some vocal opponents are questioning the building process and distributing misinformation. This project is good for the students and the community. The suggestion that there are political motivations and possible cronysim is simply wrong. Further, questions about accountability and oversight are unfounded. No one disagrees with the value of residence halls at MCC. The questions that are being raised surround how to build them. While the issues are complex, they are easily understood when the facts are sorted out from the rhetoric. First, it’s important to understand that state regulations prohibit community colleges from owning or operating residence halls. We cannot use taxpayer dollars or tuition to build, operate or maintain the halls. The New York community colleges that have residence halls use an affiliated, non-profit, private organization or some other private enterprise to establish residence halls. The MCC Association Inc., a 501(c)3 corporation established in 1962, operates a number of auxiliary services for the college, including the bookstore, food services, and child care center; the Association also owns and operates the existing dorms on our Brighton Campus. When we began building our first residence halls in 2002, the MCC Association signed a 30-year ground lease with Monroe County. At the time, it was our understanding that the lease being held by a private entity – the MCC Association – qualified the project as a private project. Hearing no objections, we proceeded with construction and opened the halls in 2003. When planning our second set of dorms, we proceeded under the same financing and ownership model as the first halls. Representatives of area labor unions raised questions with the New York State Department of Labor, which issued an opinion that county ownership of the land made the project a public project. We accept that. The Department of Labor went on to say that if the MCC Association owned the land, it would be a private project. Consequently, the MCC Association obtained two independent appraisals to determine the fair market value of the land. The issue before the Monroe County Legislature is whether or not to sell approximately 7.6 acres of land to the MCC Association. If it does not, the MCC Association will not be able to build the residence halls and everyone loses. Now some have questioned our financial model and project oversight. For MCC, there is one important bottom line: these residence halls must be financially self-sufficient. Income from students living in the halls must pay for the construction, the operation and the maintenance of the halls. If the business model does not support financial self-sufficiency, we won’t build the halls. Second, the fees charged to students must be in line with the market and affordable for students. Access to higher education is a key component of our mission; we are not interested in developing residence halls that students cannot afford. Finally, when planning the first halls, the MCC Association developed a comprehensive request for proposals (RFP) process to which six firms (four local, two national) responded. MCC Association officials chose The DiMarco Group based on its proposed design and the cost of construction. The soundness of our choice was borne out by the quality of the buildings, the positive experience of working with The DiMarco Group and the attention the halls are getting from other community colleges interested in developing their own. The choice of The DiMarco Group to build phase two of our residence halls was based on their quality work, the cost and our overwhelming satisfaction with the first residence halls they built for us. We know the $18.4 million price tag is fair because we watch the market and we know residence halls. Currently, two other area colleges are building residence halls at a construction cost in excess of $200 per square foot. Our halls will cost $132 per square foot. As to project oversight, while the MCC Association will own and operate the halls, the MCC Board of Trustees sets the direction for the college and unanimously endorses this project because it makes good educational and economic sense. Further, the MCC Association has three decades of proven fiscal responsibility and integrity. Questions raised regarding accountability and alleged political favoritism conveniently ignore the political diversity of the MCC Board of Trustees that endorsed the residence halls and the board’s 45-year history of balanced budgets and sound business decisions. Finally, we are saddened by the negative public discourse of union advocates who are opposing this project. MCC has a long and positive history of working cooperatively with union leaders, most recently on our $27 million campus center. We tried in earnest to work with union leaders on these residence halls; in fact, we thought we had reached a mutually acceptable agreement regarding the use of union workers over a year ago. Despite all this negativity, we look forward to working with union workers on nearly $80 million worth of public projects in the coming years – from our new downtown campus to the Wolk Center for Excellence in Nursing to a new field house. MCC needs more residence halls. This project is good for the community, good for MCC students and is being pursued in an open, fiscally sound manner. All the facts support that. |
