City Council Approves Lease & Purchase of College of Santa Fe

I've been following this on KSFR .

In a series of votes the Council voted unanimously in favor of several aspects of the plan -- except for Councilor Patti Bushee, who voted against the purchase agreement. She said she wasn't satisfied with some of the provisions. But she voted yes on other aspects of the deal.

UPDATE: The New Mexican's story by John Sena is HERE

Richardson Urges Council to Vote for CSF

Gov. Bill Richardson just released this statement on tonight's City Council vote.

John Sena's story on the vote is HERE.

Gov. Bill Richardson is urging Santa Fe City Councilors to approve several measures aimed at saving the College of Santa Fe and will attend tonight’s city council meeting to speak in support of the proposals.

“Tonight’s vote is critical to the future of the College of Santa Fe and I want to personally assure the city council that the State of New Mexico is a committed partner in this endeavor to save the school,” Gov. Richardson said.

The Santa Fe City Council is scheduled to vote tonight on a measure that will allow the city to purchase the college’s campus, with support from the Governor’s Office, and lease it to Laureate Education. The proposed partnership developed out of the Governor’s College of Santa Fe Task Force which he convened earlier this year to develop a plan to save the financially troubled college.

The governor has committed up to $11 million in state and federal funds for the project: $5 million in funds authorized to the General Services Department for a land purchase that the governor is urging the legislature to reauthorize for a similar purchase at the College of Santa Fe, $4 million in the governor’s discretionary federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds and $2 million in federal economic development funding.

CSF Students Protest

These was taken right before sundown. There were a couple of dozen College of Santa Fe students protesting the lack of action on HB577, which would allow the state to negotiate the purchase of the college, which otherwise will shut down this year.

UPDATE: After posting the photos I got an e-mail from one of the protesters addressed to "Respected Members of the New Mexico Press." Somehow I was on that list.

My name is Irina Zerkin and I am a senior at the College of Santa Fe. As I write this, several dozen fellow students, staff, faculty, and members of the Santa Fe community are sitting outside the east entrance of the Roundhouse holding a sit-in. We started arriving at 5pm tonight, and intend to stay here until the Legislative session ends tomorrow, unless our bill gets heard.

The bill I refer to is HB577, which outlines a process by which any NM state institution might be able to acquire the College of Santa Fe. HB577 passed through both the House Education and Appropriations and Finance Committees without any problems, and then was met with great support on the House floor. The bill then passed UNANIMOUSLY through Senate Education. That was about two weeks ago, however, and since then the Senate Finance Committee has been sitting on our bill.

We are not holding this sit-in to demand that the Senators vote yes on our bill (although that would be nice.) We are here simply because we deserve a fair hearing. It is absolutely undemocratic for the Finance Committee to just ignore the bill and hope we go away.