(What follows is my plea to the 22 voting members of the Santa Barbara County Republican Central Committee to which I was elected in November 2024. Please cast your own vote in the reader poll at the end)
Dear Republicans,
A few months back, Allan Hancock college came asking for our blessing on a new bond planned for the ballot this November. We shot it down, decisively. “Good riddance,” I thought. We could get back to the real work of finding solid candidates, raising money, and turning out voters for the 2026 mid-term election.
Yet today, the same bond endorsement request is back on the agenda. We are again being asked to endorse a huge blank check.
Are we just supposed to keep voting until they get a “Yes” from us?
“We have to pass it to see what’s in it,” was the strategy Nancy Pelosi used to shoehorn Obamacare into Americans’ lives, destroying health-care affordability in the process. Surely, we Republicans would never endorse anything without knowing precisely what we are endorsing and assessing its purpose?
A Little History
Take a look at what happened the last time Alan Hancock College issued a bond. In 2006, the college narrowly won approval of Measure I, a $180 million dollar bond that the prospectus promised would “improve the quality of programs” at the community college by constructing a number of new facilities.
Did more students avail upon these new quality programs?
Nope.
Over the last two decades student headcount has fallen 60%: from 24,245 students in 2006 to an estimated 15,000 today.
And, what’s even more troubling, is that although Alan Hancock has far fewer students, the colleges’ bureaucracy has grown dramatically.
Total college employment doubled between 2006 and 2025, with the greatest growth in non-faculty roles. Pay packages for nearly every employee category rose faster than inflation, sometimes significantly so.
In 2006, the college president’s salary and benefits were around $200,000.
In 2024 – the last year available – that number was $430,000—more than a 100% increase.
Nearly all original bond money has long since been spent, but the bill is still due. In fact, thanks to the magic of compound interest, property taxpayers still owe $184 million—just $4 million les than the amount originally borrowed.
In short, enrollment has declined dramatically, the bureaucracy has grown bigger, fatter, more intrusive, and taxpayers are left – twenty years later – with almost as much debt that, as far as one can tell, will never be paid off.
And they want us to approve yet another bond?
A Look At The Proposal
Advocates for the new Allan Hancock bond have an ostensibly compelling argument, until, that is, you scratch beneath the surface.
We are told that many of the students at this predominantly Hispanic community college lack access to a nearby four-year degree program and therefore don’t have realistic options for climbing higher on the academic ladder. This narrative resonates with many Republicans who believe strongly in offering a hand up to those in the hardworking, family-orientated, local Hispanic community. The only problem is that Allan Hancock’s own data refutes this “college desert” narrative.
It’s not that a four-year program is too distant; it’s that much of the student body is woefully unprepared for college.
Decades of Democrat-controlled public-school underperformance have taken a terrible toll on academic preparedness.
Based upon the Chancellor’s Office data, just 11% of students complete transfer-level math and English; only 9% report skill gains, and less than one-third of the students complete their program within three years… for a two-year degree!
For those of us who believe community college should facilitate integration and a path towards upward mobility, it is heartbreaking that only 7% of ESL (English as a Second Language) learners at Allan Hancock went on to complete a level of education.
For the 2025-2026 academic year, approximately 25% of Allan Hancock College’s total class offerings are available online. Why are new buildings needed when increasingly many classes are offered online?
Finally, there is this: the Republican Party and its values – your values, our values – are regularly dismissed, if not openly mocked.
Unless, of course, we can be recruited to endorse yet another bond.
Just Say “NO”
Allan Hancock College accepts federal monies, but ignores federal guidance. Including Pell Grant pass-throughs, this community college receives over $17.9 million from federal taxpayers, which covers just over 20% of its annual budget. Yet, Allan Hancock’s DEI department continues to actively disseminate toxic and radicalized ideology. Students are still required to take and complete the divisive and biased Ethnic Studies curriculum in order to graduate.
The trustees, some of whom oversaw the rise of bureaucratic bloat and the demise of positive educational outcomes, have shown no interest in de-radicalizing the college and/or ending the harmful and divisive indoctrination that its students are subjected to.
Just last year, the Board of Trustees unanimously declared that a land acknowledgment must be read at all college-wide events.
Vote NO: No more blank checks.
Vote NO: No to more waste, bureaucratic hyper-expansion, and radical agendas
Vote NO (once again) on the Allan Hancock College Bond.
•••
Community Calendar:
Got a Santa Barbara event for our community calendar? Fenkner@sbcurrent.com
I never vote "yes" for a bond-period.
Thanks James for so throughly "following the money" and exposing how good intentions can be misdirected. My preference would be to have Hancock transitioned into a trades school like Greenville Tech in Greenville, South Carolina, was when I taught Industrial Engineering there. Our two year programs trained engineers assistants in a school that taught all sorts of trades, such as auto repair and culinary skills.