OCC Foundation votes to sell island

COSTA MESA — The Orange Coast College Foundation voted Thursday evening to sell its 36-acre island in Canada, reasoning that the property’s academic benefits did not offset the high cost of maintaining it.

At the foundation’s regular meeting on campus, the board members voted, 15-1, with one abstention, to sell Rabbit Island in British Columbia. Foundation chairman David Cline, who estimated that the transaction could net the school more than $1 million, said the island would likely go on the market in May.

“We hope that the process that goes about creating a sale will go on to create something of great value” for the school, he said.

The foundation announced in November that it was considering selling Rabbit Island because of the high annual cost — about $75,000 — of maintaining classes and facilities there. A number of students and teachers implored the foundation to give them time to seek funding for the island, and the foundation agreed to postpone its vote.

The decision on Thursday came rather quickly, with only a few comments by board members before the foundation voted. In February, a study group of field experts had recommended that OCC sell the property, citing not only maintenance costs but also environmental concerns and the small number of students who could use the island at a time.

Student body President Lynne Riddle, whose government had lobbied in recent months for OCC to hold on to Rabbit Island, said she would support any other field station programs for science students. The school has considered other opportunities for students to work in the wilderness, including a proposed one by the city of Fort Bragg.

“We have not diminished our support to students in the science areas,” Riddle said. “Any time there is an opportunity for work at a field station, we will keep our commitment.”

The one board member voting to keep the island was Mary Lynn Bergman-Rallis, who said she considered Rabbit Island a valuable enough academic resource to brave the expenses.

“My vote will probably reflect my passion rather than the bottom line,” she said shortly before the vote.

The college received Rabbit Island, a mostly wooded property near the coast of Vancouver, as a gift in 2002 from Henry Wheeler. The school has held summer courses there in science, photography, kayaking and other subjects, with a final slate of classes planned for this year.

Biology professor Dennis Kelly, who has taught classes on Rabbit Island and was among the teachers lobbying to keep it, said the foundation’s ruling came as little surprise. He added that if the foundation sold the property, he hoped that some of the proceeds would fund similar programs.

“I’d like them to take as much money out until they feel happy and satisfied with this whole thing,” Kelly said. “If there’s some left over, I wouldn’t mind seeing some of it put back into field study.”