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Athletic
Facilities at Compton Center in Need of Repair
A recent tour
of campus weight room, locker rooms, pool reveal neglect
By
Allison Jean Eaton
Bulletin Staff Writer
COMPTON – Upon
taking a tour of the gym, weight lifting and pool facilities at Compton
Center earlier this month, students were more than eager to offer up
complaints about the state of the campus’ athletic facilities.
At about 3 p.m. in the afternoon on Thursday, July 10, roughly 20 students
are hanging out and using the exercise equipment in the Tartar weight
room. At least, the pieces of equipment that work.
The two connected rooms that make up the weight room are choc full
of weightlifting machines that are out of commission simply because
there are no pins. According to student F.C. Herbert, there hasn’t
been for months. He said he put in a request for the school to supply
more pins about 10 months ago, but the request as of July 10 remained
unanswered.
The school recently recovered the vinyl padding on many of the machines,
but because there are no pins, they continue to sit unused.
The lone treadmill does not work and has not for at least three years,
Herbert said. Neither does the stair machine.
A lot of other machines are antiquated and rusting. One is so old it
still uses chain technology for the pulley mechanism.
The carpeting is in places torn to shreds, leaving gaping holes and
frayed edges that pose a potential tripping hazard.
Surveying his surroundings, one student told The Bulletin: “How
are we expected to do this stuff with inferior or antique equipment?
You don’t see this kind of stuff anywhere.”
In the gym, two basketball players point out weak spots on the basketball
court where the floor has buckled – one right under the west
end’s free-throw line.
The sound system does not work, they said, and the lighting is inadequate.
There is no functioning air circulation system, making it hot and stuffy
during games and practice. And during the winter, there is no heater.
“It’s still dark even when all the lights are on,” said
one basketball player. “When it was really cold, they tried to
turn the heater on and a whole bunch of dust came out.”
There is also something wrong with one of the basketball backboards,
he added.
“It’s hard to practice,” he said. “This gym
is not up to standard. There’s a lot of things that need work.
Things just aren’t up to where they should be.”
The same player also complained about maintenance in the gym.
“We have to sweep the floor and gym ourselves when we come to
practice,” he
said, motioning to a push broom and a pile of dust, dirt and garbage
in the corner. Along the bleachers, a handful of plastic bottles and
cans and a couple pieces of crumpled paper lay strewn on the floor. “Before
the games, they’re supposed to mop the floor, but they don’t,
so we have to do it ourselves.”
In the men’s locker room, he points out a broken window. The
rest are filthy and appear to have not been washed in months.
The swimming pool sits empty, save for a standing pool of water at
the bottom. Herbert, who graduated from Compton College in 1973 but
continues to take classes there and is considered a campus activist,
said it’s been that way for at least two years.
And it’s been about that long since Herbert has been attending
the monthly board of trustees meetings to voice his concerns about
what he considers the embarrassing and inadequate gym facilities. And
every month, for the past two years, nothing has been done to address
the issue, he said.
It’s also been about two years since the college, now technically
an educational center, was able to remain open through the partnership
with El Camino Community College in Torrance. Former interim Provost
Doris Givens was brought in at about that same time, too.
This whirlwind of change and the devastating blow suffered by the college
and community at the yanking of its accreditation created a cloud of
confusion at the campus, which could in part be to blame for why maintenance
was allowed to slip. Still, the wear and tear on much of what The Bulletin
saw appears to date back much further than that.
Herbert said Givens “always had one excuse after another” about
why nothing was being done to address his concerns. “She’d
tell me this and tell me that. The condition of things is now worse
than it was when I started asking questions.
“They (the school) have done nothing but stonewall and make excuses.”
So why has the questionable condition of the athletic facilities gone
unaddressed for so long?
Dean Keith Curry doesn’t have an exact answer. However, he said
he and new Provost/CEO Lawrence M. Cox Ph.D. took a tour of the facilities
Thursday, July 17 and are aware of their state.
“I was there today, and looking at the carpet – that stuff
has to be replaced before the school year begins,” Curry said
July 17. “We’re trying to determine what caused it to be
that way, cleats or what.”
Relative to the dysfunctional equipment, he said new equipment has
been ordered, but part of the problem lies in the antiquated electrical
wiring found throughout campus, which is inadequate to support modern
electrical machines like stair steppers and treadmills. Until that
is fixed, even though a new treadmill is on its way, it will likely
remain unusable until the wiring issue is addressed.
Director of Facilities Management and Planning Fred Sturner said last
week that the school has for the last three months been working to
add additional electrical systems to the athletic facilities.
According to him, there are a variety of reasons why the facilities
are in such a state of disrepair. The bottom line, he said, is maintenance
has been lacking in a big way.
In the past, a lack of control over who used the weight room and gym
played a factor. Non-students would frequent the facility and at some
point removed portions of a door apparatus, leaving the door unlockable,
Sturner said. They would then return in the middle of the night and
use the facilities, causing a large amount of wear and tear. The problem
has since been fixed, but the damage remains.
The pool has been out of service because there is a major leak in the
underground piping, he said. The small pool of water The Bulletin saw
standing at the bottom of the pool July 10 was the water that remained
after the pool was filled during a visit by geo-tech inspectors to
size up the severity of the leak.
The price tag to fix the pool, Sturner said, will be at least a couple
hundred thousand dollars.
A lack of funding has played a big role in much of the deferred maintenance
that has resulted in the facilities falling into their current state,
he explained.
Much of the money the school has available, like bond funds, cannot
be used for the types of repairs that are needed. Plus, the gym facilities
are slated for eventual demolition as part of the facilities master
plan to make way for a fine arts center. Brand new athletic facilities
will be constructed as part of that plan, and the school does not want
to spend an excessive amount to fix up buildings that will eventually
come down, Sturner said.
“
We have plans to do some renovations and re-work, but we’re waiting
on the budget to be approved,” he explained. Because bond funds
cannot be used, “part of the debate is whether or not to extend
the line of credit.
“We have requested $500,000 (in the budget) along with state
matching funds for another $400,000,” said Sturner. “Right
now, what we’re wrangling over is increasing the budget,” which
he described as “tight.”
But it’s not just the athletic facilities that need work. Several
classrooms on campus are also in dire need of repair, and “we
have to prioritize.”
Because enrollment is up, the priority right now is fixing up several
water-damaged classrooms and their roofs – an expensive undertaking – to
ensure that there are enough classrooms to house students for the upcoming
fall semester. According to Sturner, the school is currently at capacity,
which on all accounts is good news in the move toward reaccreditation.
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