COLLEGE LEVY WOULD FULFILL WISH LISTS.

Byline: Mary Beth Alexander Daily News Staff Writer

While taxpayers fume over a community college plan to finance new recreational facilities with a $12-a-year assessment per home, administrators on San Fernando Valley campuses are dreaming of new facilities and plusher grounds.

The three Valley campuses in the Los Angeles Community College District have created wish lists that include new gymnasiums, bigger swimming pools, more trees and better lighting.

``Nobody likes to be taxed - and I know that,'' said Jack Fujimoto, interim president for Pierce College in Woodland Hills.

``But at the same time, this is a public facility,'' he said. ``Nobody wants this place to become an eyesore, and it is very quickly becoming one. This lighting assessment district plan will really help us spruce up the campus.''

Community college district officials want to levy $12 on single-family parcels, $9.36 per unit for apartments and condos, and $66 per acre for improved commercial property, which would raise $21.2 million the first year.

Over the assessment district's 30-year life span, it would collect more than $235 million from property owners.

Only a fraction of the levy - $3.5 million - would cover maintenance on landscaping and lighting. The rest would pay off the 30-year debt on bonds that would be sold to finance the campus improvements.

The $235 million in assessments over 30 years is more than half of the $401 million the district plans to spend on its nine campuses to improve a wide array of facilities, most of them recreational, that would be available to the surrounding communities.

But no matter how nice the campuses might become, opponents say they're taxed enough for the college district's needs.

``If you really need something, people are not hard-hearted. People just don't want to give big government more than it needs,'' said Stuart Adler of Mission Hills.

Adler said he will herd protesters to two scheduled public meetings on the issue, and hopes to provide each one with a flag that reads, ``Don't Tread on Me.''

The first meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday in Monarch Hall at Valley College, 5800 Fulton Ave. A public hearing will be held at 7 p.m. June 12 in the Grand Theater at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, 400 E. Washington Blvd.

The assessment district can be blocked if half the owners of the 1.1 million properties to be levied protest in writing.

The Valley campuses have prepared lists of projects that must be approved by the district and the Board of Trustees, to be funded with landscape and lighting funds.

Valley College in Van Nuys has submitted the most costly list of projects, at $30.3 million. Among the proposed improvements are $1.53 million in landscaping and $4.61 million for lighting installation in parking lots, campus walkways, athletic fields and tennis courts.

``Lighting is a big issue for us,'' said Valley College President Tyree Wieder. ``Lighting for safety has always been an issue. We are an open campus.''

The list also includes projects such as a $1.97 million competition-size swimming pool, a $6.7 million youth gymnastics center and a $4.6 million weight training facility.

Pierce officials originally gave the district office a wish list that totaled $58 million, including a $23.1 million expansion of the school stadium and construction of a $6.87 million equestrian complex.

Since then, Fujimoto said, the request has been scaled back to $28 million. But Pierce officials were unable to provide the new list last week.

Mission College in Sylmar, the third district campus in the Valley, has a list of nearly $15 million in proposed projects, including an $8.3 million recreational and educational facility, and a $3 million land purchase for expansion.

The rest would be used for lighting improvements, paving projects, an emergency power generator and a nature trail.

Acting Mission College President Bill Norlund said his priorities are expanding the campus and building a multiuse gymnasium.