Chemeketa Community College

Chemeketa Community College sold $50 million in bonds Friday, Oct. 24.

The sale is the first resulting from the passing of a $92 million bond measure in May 2008. The measure was approved by voters. The sale was also a breakthrough for the college, which had planned to offer the bonds last month just as the municipal bond market began to freeze.

Sale of the bonds also puts the college on track to keep the commitments made to the community when it asked voters for approval, said Craig Smith, a vice president at Chemeketa, and it’s chief financial officer.

“Supporting the construction of new facilities at community colleges is one of the most immediate ways to pump good-paying jobs into the economy as construction gets underway,” said Smith. “On the back end, the college will have increased capacity for more students who will graduate from the college prepared for highly-skilled work.”

Smith and consultants with the college have been monitoring municipal bond markets on a daily basis for the past month. By biding its time, the college succeeded in finding buyers who had pulled money from the stock market and were searching for a place to put it.

The bond measure will fund the construction of a health sciences building and additional classroom space on the Chemeketa Salem campus; an emergency response building, for the training of EMTs, firefighters, and police officers, in Brooks; and a new McMinnville campus to replace the existing modular facility.