San Mateo County Community College District may seek more big bucks

It’s the same district that failed to obtain the best possible deal on the sale of its public TV station, KCSM, because an inept administrator dropped the ball on a key deadline, resulting in a low-ball price for the valuable asset.

The money squandered by the district over the last decade-plus is breathtaking by any measure. It’s been a litany of oversight failures by the administration and trustees. Any notion of trusting this bureaucracy with another gusher of public money is almost laughable if it wasn’t so utterly tone-deaf.

They have lost the goodwill of their constituents. Expecting them to embrace yet another whopping monetary request appears to be an exercise in wishful thinking, if not outright chutzpah.

Like some other local public school operations, the multicampus college outfit, in the main, is opting to fund most of its important facilities maintenance requirements via bond elections (with a relatively low-bar 55% approval requirement), not the annual operating budget.

One key reason for this practice is almost certainly the escalating salaries and benefits (including pension requirements) negotiated by employee groups, including instructors. Typically, about 80% of a local district’s budget goes to employee outlays.

The trustees and administrators can put on blinders, pretend that their troubling past is irrelevant and go ahead with this bad, new bond idea, of course. But expecting success at the ballot box in the face of the district’s sorry track record of mishandling taxpayers’ cash is wild optimism at its finest.

They may be hoping that, by waiting for enough time to pass (perhaps into 2026), the citizenry will forget about the district’s wasteful past performance. We’ll see.

FOR SOME, GOLF IS SECONDARY: Imagination is a wonderful thing. That’s especially so when creative types see big possibilities where others have failed before.

That’s the case with a huge, new, high-tech golf/entertainment facility perched atop a former waste disposal site on the Burlingame Bayfront.

The location, dubbed Mount Methane by some locals with long memories because it was once used as a sprawling city dump (now encapsulated and masked by foliage), was never seen as particularly attractive — a sewage treatment plant is close by too. But that has changed over time.

A cutting-edge Topgolf driving range opened for business last month. An early iteration of a similar enterprise on the same land collapsed years ago. It was a financial flop for the city and other investors. There is high hope for this one.

Topgolf, though, is much more than a driving range. It’s a massive, three-floor building that essentially doubles as a sports bar off Anza and Airport boulevards. The view looking out to the east over the Bay is spectacular.

It’s already a destination venue. The wait for a driving bay slot can run up to two hours, depending on the day and time, according to a Topgolf spokesman. Reservations are advised.

Parking is plentiful and free. Nongolfers are more than welcome. Dining/drinking is available both indoors and out. Capacity is officially listed at 1,577 individuals. The attraction is open seven days a week.

SHE SERVED FOR 41 YEARS: Marie Brizuela, who passed away last month at the age of 82, had one of the more remarkable public education careers in the long history of San Mateo County.

She served on the Jefferson Elementary School District Board of Trustees for a staggering 41 years, fully half her life. She won a variety of awards during her tenure there; for a time, she was president of the county’s School Boards Association.

A resident of the village of Broadmoor for 60 years, she also worked for a variety of public agencies during her lifetime. A funeral Mass for her will be 10:30 a.m. Thursday at Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church in Daly City.  

John Horgan has been writing about San Mateo County’s ins and outs, to the tune of an estimated 7 million words, since 1963 (JFK was still alive and in office at that time), beginning modestly at the defunct Burlingame Advance Star. He can be contacted by email at johnhorganmedia@gmail.com.