TIMES-NEWS 'PUBLIC EDITOR' LIZ ALLEN IGNORES RESPONSE TO COMMUNITY COLLEGE CRITIC

Following the publication of my op ed piece in the Times-News proposing that Butler Community College be invited to set up a satellite campus in Erie County, the paper published an ad hominem attack on me by someone from Corry named Steve Bishop whom I don't know. In response I wrote the following and sent it to the Times-News'   "ublic editor" so called, Liz Allen for publication. That was more than a month ago, but Allen has ignored it.

By JOE LaROCCA

In his June 27 ad homenim assault on me, (Erie County Still Needs a Community College), Steve Bishop, director of the somewhat nebulous “non-profit” Corry Higher Education Council, devoted more than 800 words to rebut my 148-word letter to the editor (June 1) in which I attributed outgoing County Executive Barry Grossman’s failed reelection bid to his aggressive support for the Erie County community college he proposed.

His proposal failed because of real concerns that it would lead to an increase in county property taxes, a concern that can be ruled out by accepting an offer by the widely-respected Butler, Pa County Community College to establish a campus in Erie County like those it has successfully established in five other northwestern Pa. counties.

Not only would it negate the need for increased taxes; it could be much more quickly brought to operational status in order to meet the immediate need for training skilled workers in Erie County than building an Erie County facility from scratch.

Bishop wrote: “Kathy Dahlkemper, Grossman's opponent in the May 21 municipal primary, had earlier espoused support for a community college,” thus implying that it didn’t compromise her election campaign success. “In addition,” he wrote, “the community college was barely mentioned by either of these candidates during the campaign,” thus debunking his own point, while making mine.

Both Ms. Dahlkemper and Mr. Grossman had supported his proposal for the community college last year when it appeared to be politically correct prior to its rejection by county council. But both backed down from it during this year’s election campaign after it had become clear that it was political poison primarily because of its implications for prospective county property tax hikes and dramatically lowered expectations for surplus county casino revenues.

But it was too little, too late for  Grossman. He had invested tons of political capital in his ill-advised scheme from the bully pulpit of his county office last year. He was too closely identified with the community college backlash to escape its fateful electoral consequences. He lost. Ms. Dahlkemper, on the other hand, kept a discreet rhetorical distance from the community college. She won.

Bshop acknowledges that “There would, in fact, be a cost to taxpayers, but,“ he writes, “ I've done the math and it would represent a very marginal increase in county taxes.” He doesn’t bother to offer us “the math“, nor tell us how “marginal.” But the reality is that any property tax increase within a depressed economic environment where they should be reduced (fat chance), not increased, is unacceptable.

Mr. Bishop is dead wrong when he writes that “the Erie region is not only at a significant competitive disadvantage to the other populated areas of Pennsylvania with community colleges, but also to virtually every city of size in the nation.”

As I wrote in my column here the other day, our county is fortunate to have within a couple hours drive south on I-79, one of the finest community college systems in the nation, Butler County Community College. It has been in existence for half a century, and has offered to establish a sattellite campus here in Erie County like the highly successful ones it has already established for five northwestern Pennsylvania counties - besides Butler, Elk, Crawford, Jefferson and Lawrence.

Bishop has completely ignored my call for a partnership between Erie and Butler counties to establish a first-rate campus here keyed to Erie County‘s low cost and affordable post-secondary vocational and academic needs. It would require no expenditure of county property tax or any other revenues, but would be supported primarily by student tuition fees.

For purposes that can only be described as chauvinistic, Bishop and his ilk insist on establishing an Erie County-built, owned and operated community college from scratch, which would take decades to infuse with a learning curve already greatly surpassed by Butler CCC. For them, it’s either that or nothing, which causes one to wonder what their real objectives are. What motivates them? Public interest and service - or self-interest and service? (Would you like to be chancellor or president of Erie County Community College, Mr. Bishop?)

Taking my words out of context, Mr. Bishop writes: “LaRocca is wrong that Erie County has "ample higher education options,” citing high cost local private for-profit trade schools and state and private collegess and universities. He carefully omits my qualifier “without building a separate empire at taxpayers' expense.”

Among other alternatives, of course is the Butler CCC scenario, with its minimal life cycle maintenance costs and its considerably lower-cost, affordable curricula., which Mr. Bishop so steadfastly ignores.