The current dysfunctional relationship between Cal Poly and San Luis Obispo is an amazing turnaround. Twenty-some years ago, the extraordinary campaign for the Performing Arts Center to be built was successful due to a remarkable partnership of local citizens and the university. The people of this county broke a number of state records for leadership and cooperation with Cal Poly, ultimately helping to raise $30 million to build what was a one-of-a-kind facility at the time.

In return, we now have an administration that ignores citizen concerns about where to put new student housing, then wonders why people are complaining.

There are more than 1,300 acres that compromise Cal Poly, with 155 of them used for the campus core itself. It is astounding that in all that room, the administration chose to plan for additional housing in the same area where major town/gown conflict has escalated in recent years. Students are being allowed to create a major rift and are destroying an extraordinary kinship with citizens of the county.

This is not the kind of education that was envisioned when another SLO county group of citizens pressured Sacramento to build a college here in the late 1800s by contributing local earnest money to get it here.

People here have given more than ample indication they are willing and eager to get and keep Cal Poly here, but their efforts are not reciprocated by the school’s administration.

-- Barbara Wolcott - San Luis Obispo

-- Barbara Wolcott - San Luis Obispo