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A FIRST AMENDMENT PUBLICATION Volume 119 - Issue 7
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REVIEW: Pierce Philharmonic Choir . . . PAGE 5
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
One copy free, each additional copy $1.00
Farm Center faces eviction Over a decade of service could be coming to an abrupt end Tim Toton Opinion Editor
Monica Salazar / Roundup
CLEAN UP: Sandra Lopez, 21, and Victor Lopez clean the window of the classroom 8330 in the Village on Oct. 30, 2013.
Done with the dirt
Lack of janitors force students to clean up their own classroom Tim Toton Opinion Editor
A
t promptly 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 29, the entirety of Pierce instructor Kim Rich’s criminal justice class instituted the first top-to-bottom scrubbing the Village 8330 classroom has known in her time teaching there. Rich, who has been in the temporary Village structures for four years, said that the only type of janitorial support she receives from Facilities staff is the emptying of trash cans.
“We were only supposed to be out here [in the Village] for a year, then it became two, three, four,” Rich said. “Half the stuff doesn’t work. We’re just kind of out here.” Fed up with the dirty work environment, Rich spent $200 of her own money on brooms, longhandled deck scrubbers, blue Nitrile gloves, Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, muck buckets, a variety of liquid cleaners, donuts and candy and asked her students to help clean the classroom after their quiz – and they did, she said. Working a deck scrubber against the tired plastic thatch wallpaper covered in bits of gum and dark mystery fingers of dried liquid was
Jesse Cortez, who has been taking Rich’s classes in the Village for two years and hadn’t seen any improvement before their cleaning.. “It’s pretty disgusting,” Cortez said. “It’s always been like this.” Also helping out her classmates was Samira Noorzad, an 18-year-old criminal justice major, who was cleaning the door that leads outside to the soccer fields, which is blamed for some of the mess. “I didn’t even think it was this dirty until I started cleaning. It’s really gross,” Noorzad said. “Some classes have carpet, so imagine how dirty that is.” [See DIRT, pg. 4 | See PHOTO ESSAY, pg. 6]
Coping with HIV and AIDS
Pierce College is evicting the company that runs the Farm Center on the corner of De Soto Avenue and Victory Boulevard after nearly a decade of community service, citing financial and college program support reasons. Asylum Productions runs the Farm Center and is currently in a legal battle with the college administration and Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) to save its business after Vice President of Administrative Services Rolf Schleicher served a 30-day eviction notice on July 10, 2013, according to public documents. The owners of Asylum, Robert and Cathy McBroom, hired legal counsel Roger Stanard, who demanded in a July 19 response letter that the notice be retracted: Even if the contract can be interpreted to have expired on December 31, 2012, the interim contract was renewed by operation of law in accordance with Civil Code §1945 … if a leasee continues to occupy the leased premises after the expiration of the hiring, and the landlord accepts rent, the parties have presumed to have renewed the hiring on the same terms and for the same period of time. Stanard said later in an interview that Best, Best & Kreiger, which represents the college and LACCD, has offered to mediate the matter and that the McBrooms have
accepted that proposal with new counsel, Paul C. Bauducco. Asylum was under a joint occupancy contract with the Foundation for Pierce as a fundraiser project when college administration took control of farm oversight, representatives from the Foundation said. The Foundation for Pierce College has been a non-profit organization since 1970 and currently manages 32 scholarship funds and assists 84 departments with resource and financial support. generates revenue for scholarships and school support through grants, donations and fundraising endeavors like partnering with Asylum on the Farm Center. “I hope an agreement can be reached and they will be allowed to continue,” Nancy Pearlman, an LACCD board member, said. According to public tax records from the years 2008 through 2010, in the last three full years, the Farm Center contributed a total of $1,312.351 in revenue to the Foundation. The amount the Farm Center was compensated by the Foundation and the cost to the Foundation to run the project is not clear as accountants and the tax reporting changed, said Kathy Zanghi, financial manager for the Foundation. The revenue in 2011- after Pierce took on oversight for the Farm Center- dropped from the hundreds of thousands down to $58,268 for the fiscal year.. [See EVICTION, pg. 4]
Midnight Madness // Online
‘Being Alive’ speakers come to share stories with students Genna Gold News Editor
A normal morning for an HIVpositive person begins with a hefty cocktail of numerous medications and enough water to last for a trip through the desert. For Hillel Wasserman, a 57-yearold motion picture marketing specialist, this has been his reality for the past 26 years. “I have more physicians than I have friends,” Wasserman said with a laugh. Fighting a deadly illness makes it a daily challenge to stay positive, but Wasserman has found a way to continue to live each day to its fullest by being a speaker for an organization called Being Alive. His speeches assist others by helping them deal with their illness and provide insight and education to the public about an illness that seems to remain a step ahead at all times.
RUONLINE?
Mohammad Djauhari / Roundup
AIDS: Hillel Wasserman displays his daily medications while speaking to students on Oct. 30, 2013. “The purpose of Being Alive is to draw HIV-positive men and women out of the isolation and hiding that tends to come with this kind of devastating diagnosis and bring them back into the real world again,” Wasserman said. Being Alive was created 27 years ago and was the very first peer-led,
P I E R C E
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non-profit HIV/AIDS organization in the country, with everyone connected to the association being HIV positive. The group has a dynamic mental health program and is the only HIV/AIDS organization in the entire country that offers free one on one counseling to all of their members.
The Pierce College Weather Station has provided meteorological data to national agencies since 1949.
These first hand accounts are more personal than a description from a doctor. “Our mission is to try to tell a personal story,” Colin Hadlow said, chairman of the speakers bureau. “We’re not trying to educate people on AIDS 101.” [See BEING ALIVE, pg. 4]
Mohammad Djauhari / Roundup
DUNK: Trey Archambeau (33) jumps over teammate Tatsyuki Suenagasi (1) to perform a dunk during the slam dunk competition portion of Midnight Madness event in the South Gym on Wednesday Oct. 30.
W E A T H E R
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Wednesday Nov. 6 High:84° Low: 55°
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