Prop. 55 Wins by the Skin of Its Teeth

Declaring himself "greatly heartened," UC President Robert C. Dynes joined California education leaders in breathing a sigh of relief over the March 2 passage of Proposition 55, a $12.3 billion bond measure for funding construction in K-12 and higher education facilities. The UC system will receive $690 million from this measure, about 10 percent of which will go to UCSB projects.

Chief among the campus projects funded by Prop. 55 is the nearly $50-million complex called the Education and Social Sciences Building planned for Parking Lots 20 and 21. Separate buildings will become the new homes of the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education and the College of Letters & Science. A third structure adjacent to them will house the privately funded Center for Film, Television and New Media, which will include a cinema (see "New Film, Media Center," page 1).

The education construction bond passed by around 57,000 votes out of about 5.6 million cast statewide, a narrow 50.6 percent majority. In Santa Barbara County, 50. 2 percent of the voters approved Prop. 55 and 49.8 percent opposed it.

As Dynes noted in his statement earlier this month, passage of the $15 billion Economic Recovery Bond Act (Prop. 57) along with Prop. 55 "will prevent even worse damage to UC programs" than would have happened without them. He said that both the state and the University "still face major budget challenges."