One of the many repairs completed this summer included re-roofing a section of the main campus.

According to Don Wallace, facilities manager at MHCC, the roof on the main campus needs to be replaced, but funding for the project fell short.

“The college doesn’t have the money to replace the whole roof, so we save money and do it in small pieces,” said Wallace.

The cost to replace the roof would be between $4 million and $5 million, according to chief financial officer Gary Murph. As it is, the college is spending more than $1 million to replace a fourth of it. A bond measure was rejected by voters in 2003.

“The bond measure would have funded several maintenance projects including re-roofing, electrical upgrades, remodeling and a university center which would have made available to East County” a central place to meet representatives from Oregon universities, said Murph. Instead, the college had to get the money from investors through a full faith and credit obligation that will be paid back from the college’s general operating budget.

The leaking roof on the main campus has long been a problem.

When the college opened in 1966, the original roof was a rolled roof, an inexpensive option and common for public institutions when finances are a problem.

The rolled roof was replaced more than 20 years ago with a rubber membrane roof, which is a layer of rubber about half-an-inch thick, laid over other materials with a light-weight concrete tile placed on top. But the rubber-membrane roof typically has a lifespan of 15 years.

The major problem with the old roof, according to Wallace, is that when damage occurs to the roof, water gets in and migrates from the original hole via the rubber membrane. The leak can spread through other vulnerable points within the structure.

“There’s no way to know where the damage is to repair it,” said Wallace.

The new roof is a traditional built up roof, or layers of tar and paper with gravel on top to ballast, creating a seal against weather. This type of roof should have a lifespan of 40 years, said Wallace, and is of better quality. The sections replaced include the College Theater, the Vista Dining Center and the Town and Gown. Also being replaced are the patios outside President Robert Silverman’s office and board room, and the balcony outside the Vista Dining Room. The patios are being replaced because of leakage that occurred in the classrooms below. When the decaying concrete was ripped up, another problem was discovered: c oncrete eroding underneath the window walls. The cost of replacing the patios went from $150,000 to $340,000.

“There’s no good alternative. We can’t leave it,” said Wallace.

The extra $190,000 had to come from the regular maintenance budget, resulting in the shelving of other planned maintenance projects.

“We were planning on repaving the parking lot and replacing the light poles and lights,” said Wallace. The school was already receiving bids on the parking lot project when the problem with the windows was discovered.

The maintenance budget had between $500,000 and $750,000 set aside for the parking lot.