By Daegan Waagmeester
News Editor

Prior to the November election, The Clackamas Print sat down with Clackamas Community College President Tim Cook and CFO Jeff Shaffer to find out more details about bond measure 3-613, and what it would do to the campus.

The Print started by asking them by their definition of what the bond measure does.

“So a big part of the bond is looking at these old buildings and making sure that we have up-to-date technology.” said Cook. “Online learning is the technology that we need to be thinking about.”  He also briefly mentioned the Center of Excellence for Agriculture, as well as the possible OSU extension.

Jeff Shaffer said, “Other projects are that our athletic fields are out of compliance to be able to do large regional events for track and field because it’s not an Olympic size track. Our women’s soccer team currently has to go down the hill in Oregon City to the Pioneer Stadium to practice and play. So this would allow us to build a synthetic field in the middle of that track and actually have our own soccer fields on campus. And then we’re going to modernize classrooms in our oldest buildings, such as McLoughlin and Dye. And that’s another opportunity where they’re just the old traditional classrooms of 30 desks looking at a whiteboard. And other projects like updating our Douglas Loop Trail to have a complete trail.”

The bond measure also states that a high-tech rocket control simulator from Challenger Center would be constructed on campus.

“A couple of years ago, the Challenger Center organization reached out about a possibility of a partnership,” said Cook. “It was an interesting way to increase STEM opportunities for our K-12 students in the area and get them onto campus.” As of now, the closest space simulation center is in Spokane, Washington.

Another goal of the bond is to make security improvements around campus.

“When we built the new parking lots, we got new cameras for those lots. On the old cameras, like over by the bookstore, you see a car and it’s pixelated. You go over to the bus center and you have a beautiful high-def vision,” explained Shaffer. “We really should have those consistent, nice high-definition cameras across our campus. There’s also some areas where there aren’t any cameras already. So this would be an opportunity to have consistent nice cameras, covering most of our areas around campus and Wilsonville and Harmony campus. The security measures will also expand door access control.”

Another thing the bond mentioned is having an outdoor grandstand. “We don’t have a place in Clackamas County that’s big enough to really host large outdoor events,” said Cook. “So for us to be able to have graduation outside in our field and having a covered grandstand is something that we don’t currently have access to.”

Both Cook and Shaffer were excited about the large influx of money for deferred major maintenance here to take care of our older buildings that have old water piping and old heating and cooling systems. “Big brick buildings like Barlow and Randall, they’re actually hard to keep cool during summer and keep warm during winter. So things like this really excite me. Or we can get some of those big, huge things that really need to get done on those old buildings built in the late 60s, early 70s and get them more efficient and up to modern standards of repair,” said Shaffer.

New programs will not be added to the campus. “When we look at adding new programs, it’s almost a separate conversation from this bond,” Cook said. “In this case really about updating and upgrading. We’re not necessarily even looking at expansion as we are looking at making sure we’re using our existing spaces better.”

The OSU partnership previously mentioned was described as doing 4-H teaching. They do what Tim called noncredit community education. The idea behind CCC’s collaboration with the university was to have them play a big part in the new horticultural building that would be constructed with this bond. The idea is that right off the street there would be a massive lit up building with a huge tree and it would be a great statement piece for the campus.

The passage of the bond measure will not be raising the taxes of Clackamas County homeowners. 3-613 is a renewal bond, which means it’s already built into what taxpayers are currently paying. Homeowners will be paying an average of $87 a year to cover the cost of the bond measure.