Measure CC = Return on Investment scheme?
Builders contracted with Cerritos College seek new PROPERTY TAX.
By Brian Maquena
November 4, 2022
SOUTHEAST LOS ANGELES COUNTY — Building contractors for Cerritos College have invested thousands of dollars into a property tax campaign. They may see MILLIONS in returns, all at taxpayers’ expense.
Measure CC is a proposed property tax that will allow Cerritos College to build or refurbish buildings. The $425 million bond will increase the college’s property tax by about 60 percent. However, even Measure CC supporters admit that the property tax makes no sense as the college has lost 23 percent of its student body since fall 2019.
“We’ve all been here since 5 p.m. and how many students have we seen?” asked Marisa Perez, a Lakewood resident who sits on the board of trustees, at a July 20 meeting. “It’s wonderful that we’re going to have wonderful facilities for them, but if we don’t have students here to fill them, I don’t know if this is the right time.”
Perez voted Aug. 10 to put Measure CC on the Nov. 8th ballot. She was joined by trustees from Downey, Bellflower, and Norwalk in supporting the measure. Trustees Zurich Lewis of La Mirada and Shin Liu of Cerritos voted against putting the proposed property tax on the ballot.
Artesia and the southern half of Santa Fe Springs will also be subject to the Measure CC tax.
“We have a sewage problem - what will they (residents/voters) say?” asked Liu, regarding one of the rationales given for the property tax. “Two (previous) bonds, you didn’t fix that? We went through two bonds! The second bond should fix that! The first bond should fix the water problem!”
So why the push for a property tax that will seemingly build empty classrooms and an unnecessary “front door” to the campus, along with a new administration building? The answer may be found in the those FINANCING the pro-Measure CC campaign.
An organization calling itself “Friends of Cerritos College - Yes on CC” has distributed expensive mailers and posted campaign signs up and down Pioneer Boulevard, a major thoroughfare in east Lakewood and Artesia. Public records show that contractors who may profit from taxpayers’ $425 million are the ones financing the campaign.
Tilden-Coil Constructors donated $49,000;
HPI Architecture donated $20,000;
Southern California IBEW-NECA Labor Management Cooperation Committee donated $10,000;
Ridge Landscape Architects, Inc. donated $2,500;
MHP Structural Engineers, Inc. donated $7,500;
PS2 Inc., a construction and painting firm, donated $7,500;
Laborers International Union of North America Local 1309 Issues PAC donated $5,000.
Four other organizations donated another $11,500. See the public campaign records here.
However, online records show that some of these organizations have had business dealings with the college for construction purposes.
Tilden-Coil Constructors—the largest funder of pro-Measure CC campaign—has served as the college’s program and construction manager since 2010, according to its website. One of their big projects was the new Performing Arts Center built to the tune of $80 million. The money came from another property tax bond, Measure G - one of the bonds referenced to by Trustee Liu.
You can see more of Tilden-Coil Constructors’ college projects here.
HPI Architecture, which donated the second most funds to the Measure CC campaign, was in line to receive a nearly $650,000 construction contract from the college in 2019. Due to the lack online public records, the Lakewood Populist cannot verify what the final contract’s cost came out to, but one available document shows HPI Architecture as part of a 2022 construction project.
Per the company’s website, the architectural firm is working on a 95,000 square-foot project consisting of the Math and Computer Information Sciences Building and the Fine Arts Building.
MHP Structural Engineers has worked on the college’s Facilities and Purchasing Complex, per a publication by another contractor.
Golden Star Technology Inc.—which donated $5,000 to the Friends of Cerritos College - Yes on CC—is listed on a 2020 informal list of prequalified contractors for the college.
One of the public officials campaigning for Friends of Cerritos College - Yes on CC is the chairwoman of the college’s Citizens Bond Oversight Committee. Carmen Amarillas-Rivera appears on the campaign org’s website supporting the property tax. Student Trustee Hector Ledesma is also featured.