| | |||
President Corrigan's ViewPointViewPoint by President Corrigan is published in First Monday for the faculty and staff at SFSU on the first Monday of the month during the fall and spring semesters by the Public Affairs and Publications offices. EXT 8-1665. pubcom@sfsu.edu |
With the California General Election less than a month away, the thoughts of most voting-age Californians are likely to be drawn more to the debate over Iraq than to statewide issues, and more to the gubernatorial race than other items on the ballot.
Yet it is here, on November 5, that we can most directly affect our shared future in this state, and we have some exceedingly vital matters to decide beyond the Governor's seat. Proposition 47 is one of them. Its title - Kindergarten-University Public Education Facilities Bond Act of 2002 - may not be compelling, but within this $13.05 billion measure to fund construction, repair and modernization of public education facilities are projects tied to a number of California State University campuses, San Francisco State among them.
That is, of course, not the only reason not to overlook Proposition 47, but instead to read and consider it carefully. Proponents and opponents of the proposition agree on one thing: California schools at all levels are critically overcrowded. The CSU has certainly seen that this year, with 6,000 unfunded students in the system - 25 percent of them at San Francisco State. Repair, technology updates and seismic retrofits are also acknowledged needs. Opinions can, and do, vary on the soundness of the solution that Proposition 47 represents. No one, however, will challenge the importance of the issues it addresses.
You can find abundant information about Proposition 47 through a link on SFSU's home page, information that also appears in this week's issue of CampusMemo. That site links to voter information prepared by both proponents and opponents of the proposition, as well as to the Legislative Analyst's impartial assessment. We also provide detailed description of the multi-million dollar telecommunications infrastructure and Hensill Hall lab and classroom projects that would be funded on this campus with the $14.8 million we would receive. In something of a domino effect, Proposition 47 also affects a future bond-funded project for us - a new classroom and office building on 19th Avenue that could be part of a 2004 bond measure, if Proposition 47 has passed.
Vote as you see best on Proposition 47, but please vote.
Once again, San Francisco State University is making it easy for faculty, staff, and students to cast their votes. Our two-week voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaign opens today. I am pleased to collaborate once more with the California Faculty Association, the Academic Senate, and the SFSU Bookstore in a civic project that really comes to life on this campus. To target new student voters in particular, the Office of Civic Engagement, CSEA, the Associated Students and several student clubs are holding several days of registration drives in Malcolm X Plaza, complete with music and entertainment.
As befits a campus as politically and civically engaged as this one, we get a tremendous response to these campaigns, regularly leading the CSU in new registrations and in the last Presidential election, hitting a peak, with 74 percent of our eligible students voting.
Three important dates to keep in mind as you pass by the registration tables on campus are the October 21 deadline for voter registration and the October 7 - 29 window for applying for an absentee ballot by mail.
Between now and the election, a flood of political advertising and commentary is going to be competing for our attention. For California's schools, Proposition 47 represents one of the most important decisions voters will have made in several years. It deserves our careful attention.
Return to October First Monday
Return to First Monday Archive
Home Search Need Help? 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132 (415) 338-1111
Last modified March 1, 2002, by the Office of Public Affairs
