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Caldwell Councilor On TVCC Funding Scheme

 August 10, 2008 ⋅  Post a comment

A GUARDIAN reader inquired of a Caldwell City Councilor about the wisdom of the lease-purchase scheme about to be signed with Oregon’s Treasure Valley Community College without voter approval when the College of Western Idaho has yet to even open its doors.

Here–unedited–is the explanation she got from a Caldwell Councilor:
“This is true with a couple of interesting facts: The college of Western Idaho is funded by tax dollars. TVCC is funded with tuition and private enterprise with no tax dollars being used for the Caldwell Campus.

Their classes with be geared to areas needed in the labor section. First ones out of the gate will be welding (which is already going on now—a joint program with Vallivue and TVCC) Fireman education and nursing are on the horizon. TVCC has been going for several years at the Mercado in Caldwell (by Larry Miller) with over 1,500 students.

The college of Western Idaho is still struggling to get going and has had to scale back their efforts because they promised to use only a certain per centage of tax dollars. They have found it very difficult to get buildings, etc. ready to go. Even with an initial infusion of several million dollars from the State to start they are a long ways from being viable.

The City has been working on TVCC for over 5 years. TVCC has been slow to come around because they are an Oregon institute and must stand on their own with funds, etc. in Idaho. They get no support from Idaho tax dollars or from Oregon.

Thus, they have been test driving the waters for the last several years and are now ready to proceed. The biggest drawback we have as to having business locate here is our labor force so this will be a great boost for all. I could go on and on, but this is probably more than you want to know.

This is very positive and won’t cost you money. There is so much demand for this schooling that there is room for both schools and more. Oh yes, the College of Idaho is very much in favor of this happening.

If you want to know more, email again and I will give you a call with the rest of the story. The Guardian is a spin paper that spins stuff to create readership. Most of it is not accurate or does not explain the whole story.”

Our GUARDIAN reader finds it difficult to understand why the city is involved at all if, “it won’t cost you money” (why doesn’t TVCC just go to a builder with its tuition money and leave the city out of the loop?”

Now that we have the “truth” from the City Council, we hope readers will have a better picture of WHY the city is pulling for the out of state TVCC and not offering to help College of Western Idaho.
The lease-purchase deal set to be signed August 27 will indeed be funded by taxes on the appreciated value of property within the Urban Renewal District–without voter approval.

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