The Telescope 62.2

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PALOMAR COLLEGE, SAN MARCOS, CALIF.

MONDAY SEPT. 15, 2005

FOCUSED ON PALOMAR

VOL. 62, NO. 2

the-telescope.com

Blackouts cause cancellations Palomar

waits for funds

MELISSA RAYMOND THE TELESCOPE

Three times in the first three weeks of school, Palomar College students, faculty and staff found themselves in the dark. Officials from Palomar College and San Diego Gas & Electric, the college’s power supplier, still do not know the exact cause of the outages. What they do know is that the problem is on Palomar’s side.To diagnose the problem, SDG&E installed monitors on Palomar’s transformers in order to track the schools usage and determine the reliability of the system. The monitors will record for a week and then be evaluated. Around noon on Aug. 25, Palomar lost power from a blown fuse in a new transformer, according to President Robert Deegan.Then on Sept. 2, Palomar again blew a fuse causing the school to lose power. The third outage occurred on Sept. 9, with power out for 45 minutes before being restored. In the first outage, SDG&E discovered a bad fuse on a new transformer that was installed last spring. During that outage, the school went into low-tech communication mode. Personnel went around with bullhorns announcing that classes were cancelled and the police assisted with notifying teachers, Deegan said.The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department was called in to assist with the traffic flow. Shortly after the power went out at noon, SDG&E arrived and by 2 p.m. initial power was restored, but not all air conditioning throughout the campus was working. “We should not have tripped,” said Bonnie Ann Dowd, Palomar’s, assistant superintendent/vice president of Finance and Administrative Services. A new transformer was installed along with higher capacity fuses. These short-term solutions should support the college until the final phase of the electrical upgrades are completed in December 2009, Palomar officials said. At the Palomar College District Governing Board meeting on Sept. 9, SDG&E officials

MELISSA RAYMOND THE TELESCOPE

YUKIE ZUILL | THE TELESCOPE

Freshman photography major Kristine Choy listens to a lecture in a photojournalism class during the power failure. were questioned about what needed to be done to prevent more outages and of the possibility of another outage. “We will work with Mike (Ellis, Palomar College’s facilities director) and haul (ourselves) out here, if it happens again,” SDG&E’s Ronald Smith said. Prior to the first outage there had been three power outages in the last year. Deegan and other school officials met on Aug. 29 with SDG&E and decided that another

transformer needed to be installed to accommodate the power needs of the school, both present and future. The date was set for installation of the transformer on Sept. 1. However SDG&E called and cancelled the appointment. The next day, Palomar once again blew a fuse, causing the school to lose power. The college administration insisted on TURN TO BLACKOUTS PAGE 5

Students feel parking crunch MAGGIE AVANTS THE TELESCOPE

With every new semester the same old problems arise, and on top of many students’ list of problems is the lack of parking on campus. For those students who are still searching for a parking space, help might be on the way. School officials said parking will improve as the semester wears on and they are considering rezoning some faculty spaces for students. During the first three weeks of school, it was common to see students stalking pedestrians leaving class in hopes of snagging their space. For first year student Amanda Condie, it is a daily frustration. “I get here an hour early to get a space, and still I have been so late for class that I’ve had to sit on the floor,” Condie said.

Condie added that she feels strongly that paying $40 for a parking permit should give her precedence over those who do not have permits and pay $3 a day to park. Mike Ellis, director of facilities at Palomar College, said that whether a student buys a day permit or a semester permit, they should have equal rights to the parking lot. “Those students may only have one class a week, and it wouldn’t make sense for them to buy a permit,” Ellis said. Valerie Villanueva, also a first-year student at Palomar, speculated that more and more people are parking at the Sprinter lot across the street and walking to campus. “But even that lot is full,” Villanueva said. Ellis asked for students to be patient, as the parking situation will improve. “It’s always like this the first two weeks of class. On

OPINION

Who will be the one to bring the needed change? PAGE 4

YUKIE ZUILL | THE TELESCOPE

All student parking spots in lot 12 were full by 9:20 a.m. the first day of school. the first day we ran out of parking at 9:20 a.m.,” Ellis said. Ellis added that he has been on the job for 30 years, and seen this time and time again. What he did want to stress was that the college is taking steps to mediate the situation. “We recently added 251

ENTERTAINMENT Street Scene returns downtown PAGE 6

new spaces by redesigning the east side of lot 12 and creating a new lot above the soccer field,” Ellis said. When asked about the open staff spaces in lot 12, Ellis explained, “When the college placed portable classrooms on the site of Lot 1, the staff lost 97 parking spaces. They

FOCUS

“What budget?” That is one school leader’s take on the state of Palomar’s funding. Nancy Chadwick, Palomar College District Governing Board Trustee, means is that the California state budget that was due July 1 has not been passed by the state legislation as of press time. It is a new delinquency record for California; the old record was Aug. 30. It also means that all the programs that operate off state funds, such as Palomar College, public schools, police, public transportation, hospitals and numerous other services, have been operating without that money for the last two months. “It’s like starting a job, and asking what your salary is and they say we haven’t decided that yet,” said Palomar student, James Baker, 47, of the delay in passing the budget. “You work on your own money.” “That makes me feel that my tax dollar is going to waste,” said Palomar student Kasey Allison, 21, of her thoughts on the absence of a budget. Palomar has been operating on its reserves and a projected budget, according to Palomar President Robert Deegan. The projected budget is based on the amount of money that was given to the college last year. Usually, budgets are increased to compensate for higher costs of living. Palomar’s projected budget has no increase. This does not allow for coverage of any increases in expenses that the college has incurred this year. For example, the 3.2 percent enrollment increase or the new wage increases for teachers. That means Palomar has cut 220 class sections along with class supplies in order to help balance the budget, Deegan said. The cut in sections shows in the amount of students who are still trying to add classes two weeks into the semester, many of which are already full to capacity, Allison added. “I have seen in all my classes that there are at least 10 people trying to crash,” Allison said. The state legislation has been at an impasse on the budget with neither side reaching a compromise. “There has been no movement to approve the budget,” Chadwick said. If the budget is not passed by October the college will have to borrow from the county to continue operating. When the budget is finally passed the college will then TURN TO FUNDS PAGE 5

TURN TO PARKING PAGE 5

Tips to interview like a pro

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SPORTS

Comets off to great season PAGE 12


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