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Well it appears only 3% of registered voters were naive enough to vote.
Voting is for the naive.
Well it appears only 3% of registered voters were naive enough to vote.
Damn, that sucks- I was just kidding (obviously).
~ 39,000 in the ACCD election. Damn.
I think it was a mistake for those who voted against the bond issue, but they had more votes.
Can't vote for SA mayor.
Yeah, I didn't think many people here would have voted. A lot of people love to talk about what happens in the world, and how things suck, but the easiset method they have of making a difference is completely ing ignored.
3%
Wow.
Joe, I voted against the bond package. They had their head up a huge ass by trying to place the school in the medical center area on a lot that didn't even meet the size needs they declared.
A new bond can be brought before voters in as little as 3 months, so I'm not going to sit here and fall for their scare tatics.
I would vote, If I lived in city limits
it was a county wide election! It had nothign to do with city limits, I also live outside of them.
I voted for the ACCD package...and I'm with Johnny. It was a big mistake to turn it down.
And what I read said the downtown plan didn't meet the district needs, not the Med Center plan.
But whatever...the votes are cast.
I voted NO.
Not voting is for the weak.
My thoughts exactly.
Plus, where better to forge a bond with the medical community than @ the Medical Center?
I even remember that article in the ExNews a few weeks ago talking about the average commute from St. Philips to the Med Center was under an hour each way using VIA.
It was by Gloria Padilla. I ran across it while I was making sure I had my facts straight.
The people have spoken and did speak before but the ACCD leaders refused to listen so the people used their votes to make their voices heard.
I've disagreed with both Jane and Travis in the past, but for what it's worth they have 204809328302983092832 times more respect from me than most people in here as of today.
It starts in your own backyard, and I'm glad that some (3% or so) realize that regardless of agreement/disagreement.
*fingertips to eyebrow*
Why are you people surprised? San Antonio, home of CA Stubbs, votes against public infrastructure funding?
I'm shocked.
* Three studies recommending a downtown location for the Allied Health campus were supressed by the ACCD Board. Dr. Orozco and others are considering legal action to get the reports released.
* ACCD has publicly released a $450 million budget that shows fund distribution specific to each bond item, however the actual bond and related do ents indicate no specific fund allocation. Therefore, if this bond passes ACCD does not have to follow the guidelines they've outlined publicly.
* ACCD argues that the Medical Center location is necessary to consolidate training resources, however the majority of clinical training for family practice, geriatric, and pediatric programs happens in downtown hospitals already. Furthermore, renown diabetic and clinical research clinics are located downtown.
* It's true that a majority of students who attend all ACCD campuses combined come from north, north east, and north west areas of town. However, the nursing and dental programs at SAC and St. Phillips provide education to a whopping 80% of students who come from downtown, south, east, and west areas of town. The proposed Medical Center location will limit access for these students, while a central city location would provide equal access to students from all parts of the city.
* ACCD has publicly stated they need 20 acres to build the Allied Health Facility. The actual proposal outlines only 10 acres. The county has offered the 12.5 acre Brady Green site located downtown, and ACCD already owns adequate land contiguous to St. Phillips. As proposed, the ACCD is going lease land in the Medical Center which will cost much more than the other sites.
* According to proponents, if this bond doesn't pass, we'll have to wait 2-4 years before another is proposed. This is a scare tactic. Legally, another bond can be proposed in as little as three months.
Some of the reasons why I voted against it. There is pressure to get this thing back on the ballot by may, and I really hope they do. They are debating on what they need to fix, and finding that out, but I think everyone knows the issue at hand was the location of the medical college. Not only that, but I woudl hope they would change the budget provision in the actual bond.
ACCD to reconsider location for health careers campus
Web Posted: 12/27/2004 05:13 PM CST
Karen Adler
Express-News Staff Writer
With pressure mounting on the Alamo Community College District — and just three weeks to go before early voting starts on a $450 million bond election — the board of trustees has called a special meeting for Thursday night to reconsider the location of the controversial nursing and allied health careers campus.
In accordance with state law, the meeting will be closed to the public because board members will be discussing real estate. Any vote taken will be done in an open, public meeting afterwards.
The board will discuss new information about a potential site, board Chairman Charlie Conner said.
"We could leave it as is or we could take a vote," he said. "We want to make sure we made our decision based on all the information available."
The ACCD board voted 5-4 on Dec. 14 to build the campus on the Northwest Side in the South Texas Medical Center, but the decision has been blasted by community groups, business leaders and local elected officials who want the $100 million facility to be built in the inner city.
The announcement of Thursday's meeting was welcome news to members of Communities Organized for Public Service and Metro Alliance, two of the city's most powerful grass-roots organizations. The groups have lobbied ACCD to build the campus in the central part of the city, which is in the federally designated empowerment zone.
There, they say, the campus will spur economic development and be accessible to students from all parts of town, especially those who live in the less prosperous East and South sides.
"The fact that they're actually meeting gives us hope that they will make a decision in favor of passing the bond," said Sister Gabriella Lohan, a representative of Metro Alliance. "Should the facility be placed at the medical center it will create unnecessary opposition to the bond."
The health careers campus is part of a $450 million bond issue on the Feb. 5 ballot. The bond package would fund improvements and expansions for each of ACCD's colleges as well as the construction of the district's fifth campus on the Northeast side in Live Oak. Early voting starts Jan. 19.
The bond — which will require a property tax increase — will be presented as an all-or-nothing proposal to voters.
"This bond is so important, so very important," state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte said. "The only negative we have heard is on one part of the bond, the $100 million that goes to the allied health and nursing facility. That tells you this bond has a very good chance of passing if that part is taken care of."
Adding an extra thorn to the issue is that the plan requires moving the nursing and allied health programs at St. Philip's and San Antonio colleges, which are both near downtown, to the new campus in the medical center. Students still will take prerequisite courses at St. Philip's or SAC, or at ACCD's other colleges, but, once they are accepted to the nursing and allied health programs, they will have to continue their training at the medical center.
But for some, it further supports the perception that all good things eventually go to the more affluent suburbs.
Van de Putte is part of a delegation of lawmakers and business leaders that met with ACCD officials last week to urge them to re-evaluate the location decision. Also last week, the board of the University Health System unanimously passed a motion asking ACCD to consider building the campus in the empowerment zone and specify a site later.
The health system owns a 10-acre property in downtown San Antonio that has emerged as the front runner among those pushing for an inner-city site. The University Health Center — Downtown, often referred to as Brady Green, is near Santa Rosa and Baptist hospitals and the University of Texas at San Antonio's downtown campus, said Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff.
"What we're trying to do is provide a reasonable option for them," he said. "Everything is right there together."
Two consulting groups were hired by ACCD to evaluate 10 locations all over the city, including Brady Green, and both selected the medical center as the No. 1 choice in part because of its proximity to health care ins utions and students and the availability of land. The largest concentrations of current allied health and nursing students are on the Northwest and Northeast sides of the city, and the population center of the city is now on the Northwest Side.
Conner, the ACCD board chairman, has said the Brady Green site is too small, and it's impossible to renovate existing buildings into medical laboratories.
ACCD needs about 20 acres to build a 250,000 square-foot facility that can help meet Bexar County's quickly growing need for medical technicians, radiographers, licensed vocational nurses and other health care workers. The programs at St. Philip's and SAC now turn away hundreds of qualified applicants.
The South Texas Medical Foundation has offered a 99-year lease on 20 acres to ACCD for less than $5 million.
ACCD trustee Dr. Bernard Weiner, said he'll attend Thursday's meeting with an open mind, but he believes the medical center is the best choice for students.
ACCD has thoroughly evaluated all the possibilities, and "nobody's come up with a different location that will work," said Weiner, a family practice physician.
"It's not our job to give economic incentives and play political games," he added. "It's purely education. That is our job."
Gloria Padilla: In ACCD fight, focus on future
Web Posted: 01/23/2005 12:00 AM CST
San Antonio Express-News
It is 8:53 a.m. as I step onto the No. 26 bus that will take me from St. Philip's College to the South Texas Medical Center. I am the only person besides the driver on board.
I am not a regular bus rider. Most of my mass transit experience has been on vacation.
My journey on this chilly Friday morning is spurred by the Alamo Community College District's controversial plan to build a nursing and allied health campus in the medical center area.
I did not grow up in San Antonio. I wasn't here when the great controversy over the location of the University of Texas Health Science Center and UTSA in the northern sector of the county divided this community.
I am, however, well-aware of the deep scars those decisions created.
It bothers me that the ACCD's plan to move the nursing and allied health programs from San Antonio and St. Philip's colleges has reopened those wounds. Opponents to the plan are threatening to bring defeat to the college district's $450 million bond election on Feb. 5.
Accessibility for minority students is a key issue. To hear some opponents to the campus location talk, the medical center is almost inaccessible from economically deprived areas of our community.
They raise some serious questions.
Will the students who attend those programs at St. Philip's and San Antonio colleges, and the communities they serve, be shortchanged if programs are moved to the northern sector of the county?
Do the programs have to be located near the inner city or the East Side to maintain enrollment?
How difficult is it to travel from to East Side to the medical center, anyway?
I grew up in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, where many of us had to travel hundreds of miles to get an education. I find it difficult to oppose something that will enhance education in our community because it's 15 miles away.
And so I board a VIA bus at St. Philip's College on Martin Luther King Drive and travel to the transit station between the Audie Murphy VA and University hospitals to learn firsthand what that commute would entail.
I worry whether the black cat that runs in front of the bus on Montana near Hackberry is an omen.
Headed to work
As the bus heads west into downtown, it slowly fills with other commuters. I am no longer alone.
I get off the bus at Navarro and Commerce streets at 9:10 a.m., and walk a block to board the No. 92 bus to the medical center.
Chilly gusts of wind are brutal, and there's no bus shelter here to escape them.
At 9:15 a.m. I board a "skip bus" on Route 91 at the suggestion of a young medical technician heading to work at the medical center. A skip bus means it will take me to my destination with minimal stops.
I am all for that.
On the way, I visit with Rose Mary Lopez, 23, a medical assistant at University Hospital, as we head north on Fredericksburg Road. She's been commuting on this route from her South Side home for about eight months.
A Kennedy High School dropout, Lopez earned a GED and went to Texas Careers so she could pursue a job that paid more than minimum wage to support her son, Dominique, 6, and her daughter, Vanity, 4.
Lopez would like to own a car and is saving for one, but she is not sure she is ready to trade in her $20 monthly bus pass just yet.
Her medical training allows her to earn $8 to $9 an hour. Lopez wants to be a physical therapist, but that's on hold as she juggles two jobs to support her young family.
It's 9:51 a.m. as we arrive at the transit station by University Hospital. Lopez bundles up against the cold and waves goodbye as she heads off to her 12-hour shift at 10 a.m.
This trip, with one transfer, took 58 minutes.
Not a bad ride
I don't plan to linger at the medical center. Buses for the return trip downtown are lined up at the transit station. This time, I take a "frequent" bus instead of a skip bus. It's 10:20 a.m. when I board a bus on Route 92.
As its description implies, the frequent bus provides frequent service, but it makes more stops along the way. Those extra stops add about 20 minutes to the trip, explains veteran VIA bus driver William Hernandez during an eight-minute stop at the Crossroads Mall Park & Ride.
I arrive back downtown about 11:10. I have a few minutes before my connecting bus arrives, so I get off the bus a few blocks from my transfer point to enjoy some fresh air.
I board my transfer along Route 26 at 11:24 a.m.
At 11:36 I am back at Mittman and Martin Luther King Drive. The return trip took one hour and 16 minutes. According to MapQuest, a car trip from St. Philip's to the medical center takes approximately 25 minutes.
The public transit commute was long, but not unpleasant. I shouldn't have worried about that black cat.
Students commute now
There is no question that ACCD will have to work out some direct transit to the medical center from its other campuses if the nursing and allied health programs are moved north.
Before I return to my car, I go in search for some nursing students. I spot a young woman in a white coat — but it's a chef's jacket, not a lab coat.
The culinary arts students directs me to the cafeteria, where I find five women enrolled in the LVN program that began this month.
Surprisingly, they all live in the North Side. Three live in the northwest area, one in the north central and one northeast. They each spend 25 minutes to an hour driving to the East Side campus each day.
Four of the women say they support moving the program to the medical center area.
Veronica Campbell, who is African American and moved to Bexar County recently, is concerned that moving the nursing program from St. Philip's will hurt its status as a predominantly minority-serving ins ution.
"I live closer to the medical center, but if the program is moved it would hurt minorities. I am concerned about what it would do to the neighborhood," Campbell said.
Maria Cardenas lives outside Loop 1604 near Potranco Road. Having the nursing and allied campus at the medical center would be to her benefit, she said. Her commute to school is sometimes more than an hour, but she doesn't mind.
She, her husband and their three children moved here from Eagle Pass so she could go to school.
"At Southwest Texas Junior College, they selected only 10 students for the LVN program each year from the 200 who applied," she said.
Cardenas plans to stay in San Antonio to work when she graduates in a year.
Her $5,000 investment, which includes tuition, books and supplies, will make her eligible for jobs that pay $12 to $14 an hour. If she goes into the home health industry, the pay could be as much as $18 an hour.
Right now, 1,263 students are enrolled in the health occupation classes at SAC and St. Philip's. Another 769 students are on waiting lists.
Construction of a nursing and allied health campus at the medical center will allow the college district to double its enrollment capacity in those programs over a five-year period.
Fighting wrong battle
I have listened to the passionate arguments made by those who want to locate the nursing programs out north and those who want to leave them near where they are now.
Both sides make valid points. Is the medical center location the best place for the nursing and allied health programs?
We may never know. The ACCD should have spent more time exploring all its options. But it did not.
Arguing about what they should have done is not going to change the Feb. 5 ballot on the $450 million bond election.
The proposal before the voters includes funding for the nursing campus, the four existing community college campuses and construction funds for a fifth campus.
It's disheartening to hear opponents of the ACCD bond issue vowing to defeat it solely over the location of the nursing and allied health campus.
Instead of fighting over location, we should be concentrating on ways to make this site work for everyone.
Are there ways to improve accessibility through better mass transit?
What can we do to increase enrollment in these programs, regardless of location, among the less fortunate students in our community?
There are no easy answers, but fighting is only going to make that job harder to accomplish.
I read the one about the commute. It's a tough call, because neither site in it's entirety would have been the 20 acres they need. But with the downtown campus, they would have been able still use existing SAC and St Phillips faciliites.
I really hope they can get this into the next election in May. I think we'd have to wait untill November if that one doesn't go through. I don't know what the provisions are for a special bond election beforehand or if it's even possible.
Nothing I've read even mentions the possibility of a special election. I don't know if the county will go for it...mainly because of the expense.
Makes more sense to put it in the medical center.
med center made more sense..
also, unless you are from the east, south or west side of town nobody wants to go to those areas...
Yeah, your 2 opinions mean because you didn't vote. Blow me.
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