Now the drama is playing out on the fog-belt campus of S.F. City College -- and in San Francisco Superior Court, where student government officers are suing the administration and the elected board of trustees, alleging that they are trying to illegally take over the bookstore and its tempting stream of annual revenues.
This is no quixotic homework assignment in student activism, either. The students are represented, at no charge, by the Death Star of San Francisco law firms, Pillsbury Madison & Sutro.
At issue in court is a simple question: Who is the legal owner of the bookstore? But the fight has become complex and political, calling for interpretation of a 47-year-old law and dragging in various friends of Willie Brown to act in various roles.
The student government says state law gives it ownership of the City College bookstore, and that the college administration has unlawfully siphoned $3.9 million from the store's accounts. Students say that money -- money that came from student pockets -- was spent not on a new bookstore, as promised, but on faculty and staff salaries.
Moreover, the students claim, the administration illegally set up a nonprofit corporation last year to wrest control of the bookstore purse from the student government. The nonprofit, named the City College Bookstore Auxiliary, is run by a board containing a majority of administration representatives.
So far, however, court rulings have gone against the students. Badly. First, judges declined to impanel a jury, as the plaintiffs wanted. Then, the same judges threw out $2.5 million of damages sought by the students' lawsuit on statute of limitation grounds. And the judges said the students could not amend their lawsuit to include another $1.4 million in alleged damages, ruling that the time for such a legal change had passed.
Student government leaders and their lawyers are pondering whether to file a new lawsuit over that $1.4 million.
What remains of the original lawsuit focuses on the ownership of the college bookstore. The students point out that the 1950 state education code, under which the bookstore was founded, says only student governments can own state college bookstores.
Peter Goldstein, the chief operating officer for the college district, says the students are being dishonest in portraying the struggle for the bookstore.
"They are trying to portray this as good and evil, and it's vastly more complicated than that," he says.
Goldstein points out that the money the administration took from bookstore accounts was used to augment student services during the worst financial crisis in the history of the college. The college, he says, is still planning on building a new bookstore; there are six sites under consideration, and, Goldstein says, an architect has been hired.
And, he says, students had ample opportunity to comment on the transfer of funds from bookstore accounts, a process that began in 1992. "It was discussed and voted on in a public meeting with an agenda that had been posted in accordance with the law," he says. "Students were at the meeting, and not one said a word."
Last year, when the administration set up the nonprofit auxiliary, which vested even more bookstore control with the administration, students chose to demonstrate and shut down the trustee meeting.
Ever since, students have refused to take their seats on the nonprofit auxiliary's board.
In recent months, the suit seems to have developed an odd gravitational pull for members of Mayor Willie Brown's inner circle.
First, the lawsuit landed in the courtroom of Judge John Dearman, Brown's former law partner. Dearman took one look at the list of witnesses offered by City College, announced that they were all friends, and recused himself from the case.
Then the mayor decided that a public fight involving college trustees he had either appointed or endorsed in the last election was not to his liking. (One trustee is the brother of state Sen. John Burton, Brown's oldest political ally; another trustee, Andrea Shorter, is a Brown protege.)
So the mayor enlisted the talents of his informal adviser, Calvin Welch, a longtime political activist and nonprofit housing specialist. Welch intervened in settlement negotiations between the administration and the students.
During talks on Valentine's Day, students agreed that the nonprofit corporation the administration set up in 1995 to control the bookstore could remain in place, with the proviso that more students sit on the board of directors. The students also agreed not to seek repayment of the $3.9 million transferred from bookstore accounts if the administration spent a like amount on the construction of a new bookstore.
But settlement talks fell apart over the price of books.
Students wanted the bookstore to lower its prices and run at cost, rather than pursue a pricing strategy that would turn a $200,000-per-year profit that would go to student government. The administration opposed the no-profit strategy, according to Mario Magallon, the student body president. "We didn't think it was right for the store to be turning a profit on the backs of students," says Magallon.
Indeed, bookstore pricing -- always a source of irritation on campuses -- is the central issue driving the lawsuit.
Students complain that prices are far too high. The student newspaper, The Guardsman, found that prices at Stacey's on Market Street and Borders Books are on average almost 20 percent lower than those at the college bookstore. Of course, those prices involve general-interest books and not the specialized texts required for many college courses.
Administration plans to buy the independent bookstore across the street from the college store -- the only book outlet in the area with lower prices than the on-campus store -- are only fueling pricing fears. If the administration buys the competition across Phelan Avenue, it's reasonable to assume that book prices in the City College area will soar.
Even Goldstein admits it's hard to keep the prices down at the on-campus store. "If students can get a better price at Stacey's and Borders, I encourage them to shop there," he says.
