By Brian Anderson
Valley Times

April 25, 2000

LIVERMORE —If there was one thing almost everyone involved agreed on, it was that Corporate Connections was based on sound principles of educating an evolving, technologically thirsty work force.

But how the downtown Livermore project went from an ideological blaze in the minds of Chabot-Las Positas Community College District officials to a smoldering pile of ash largely depends on who is asked.

For some, it was the project's $13 million price tag; for others, it was the fear of failure. There were students and faculty who voiced concern that Corporate Connections would siphon critically needed funds from classrooms. And there was the geographic worry -- Livermore, after all, is far from Hayward, where the college district was born in 1961.

To project proponents, however, "petty politics" and a spotty nine-year history of studies, talks, extensions and more talks signaled doom for the next generation of Tri-Valley education long before its official demise at a meeting last week.

"I worried about it even at the beginning that there wasn't enough constant and persistent attention paid to it," said Barbara Mertes, district vice chancellor for institutional planning. "I don't think anyone ever knocked the concept. But I don't know if they truly understand it."

It was in the early 1990s, a short time after district offices moved into rented office space in Pleasanton, when Mertes and then-business manager Phil Wagner sat down with Livermore staff members. The group would later come to an understanding -- the district would get a 1.2-acre swath and the city would get a partner in its downtown redevelopment plan.

On the land at South Livermore Avenue and First Street would be a "think tank" playing host to guest lecturers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. Corporations would contract with the college district to help teach their workers advancing technology. Officials even talked about moving district headquarters into it.

Finally, late last year, the board voted 4-3 to put together a business plan and preliminary designs. Those plans were rolled out earlier this month before drop-jawed board members concerned about the $13 million cost.

"My concern was strictly fiscal," said trustee Isobel Dvorsky, who has represented San Leandro since 1985. "We were given the impression that the city and local individuals and corporations would help raise the funds for that because we are not a fund-raising organization. Promises are one thing, but there was never anything concrete."

Board trustees were nervous, and with good reason, given that the district was just removed from a state watch list designed to keep tabs on financially uncertain community colleges.

Enter David Rice, executive director of the Tri-Valley Community Fund, and a pledge to round up Corporate Connections sponsors to the tune of $10 million.

"When you have an opportunity for a work force training program that will virtually guarantee a highly employable job market at a high level, it virtually guarantees you are going to have a prosperous, healthy community," Rice said.

In October of 1998, Rice offered to the board his proposal to raise a $10 million endowment that would fund the initial and future technological innards of the center. The board tabled his offer.

"I was a little surprised because it meant that they would be rejecting the project out of hand without a fact-finding (effort)," said Rice, adding that he remains committed to putting together the endowment.

Board President Alison Lewis said the risk involved in building the center was simply too great to go ahead with Corporate Connections.

"All the other buildings we have built have been risk-free in the sense that they have been classrooms or administrative buildings; they haven't had to generate income in order to pay for them," Lewis said. "We, as an institution, are just not set up for that."

Karen Majors, Livermore's economic development director, said she wished the trustees would have decided that before the city spent $1.2 million to buy the land.

"We have been working on it since 1992, so certainly when you see all those years of work go down the drain you're saddened and obviously frustrated," Majors said. "But that's the way it is. Disappointments are part of life."

Majors said the city is still hopeful the district will move its headquarters to the site but said that possibility was slim. If that move does not take root, she added that it will likely be privately developed as the downtown becomes more marketable with the completion of several high profile projects.

For Mertes, who has spent nearly the last decade working on the project, Corporate Connections is a missed opportunity -- ripe for the picking by another idealistic college district.

"That's what I suspect saddens me a bit is that we missed a wonderful opportunity to be on the cutting edge, to be one of the firsts," Mertes said.