By Marc Beja

Nearly three years ago, in a span of just nine months, the North Harris Montgomery Community College District lost a bond referendum and its chancellor. Nine months later, the Houston-area district had a new leader, a new name, and a victorious bond issue. And this May —a year after the successful bond vote —the college bought an office complex totaling 1.2-million square feet to accommodate its rapidly growing enrollment.

To pull those feats off so quickly, the college improved its marketing, better focused its spending, and made some new friends —even with old enemies. The changes show what can happen when a college board makes an effort to get its local community to support a budget from the beginning, instead of trying to sway public opinion after it is too late.

The first bond vote seemed doomed from the start. It was originally scheduled for May 2006, but the college's leaders were forced to postpone it after complaints were filed with the U.S. Department of Justice. The League of United Latin American Citizens had accused the community college of limiting opportunities for minorities to vote by using only 12 polling stations in the two counties, all on the college's property. When North Harris realized it couldn't hire and train enough people to staff dozens of extra sites in the time the department required, the vote was canceled.

The college district tried again in November. As that vote neared, several of the district's critics requested public records of college administrators' spending, alleged budget misuse, and waste, and spoke out against the bond.

Fred T. Blanton, a local entrepreneur who was running for a seat on the district's Board of Trustees, says he sent mailings and postcards encouraging people to vote against the bond because it might increase taxes and included wasteful spending.

The college's then-chancellor, John E. Pickelman, says he was surprised to see the $249-million bond fail —the previous three similar referendums had been passed with relative ease. He didn't anticipate the strong opposition in 2006, and he credits Mr. Blanton's mailings with a great deal of the damage.

"We sent out an information piece to people to say that the information was not true, but it just couldn't resonate because there wasn't enough time to make one's case," Mr. Pickelman says. "The requests for ballots were already in before you could send any kind of information to offset it."

But after the vote, administrators didn't sit around. They wanted to know exactly what went wrong, and to make sure it didn't happen again.

What they found first was that the district's name was confusing. According to surveys the district did, 70 percent of the community thought the name North Harris Montgomery Community College District was too long, too confusing, or too hard to remember. With the college having branches in CyFair, Kingwood, Montgomery, North Harris, and Tomball, some residents didn't realize that their local branch was part of a larger system.

"Our enrollment was about as much as we could keep up with, so we didn't really put a whole lot of resources into how we were branding the district," says Ray Laughter, vice chancellor for external affairs. "People knew Kingwood College and knew North Harris College, but the polls showed that only half the people knew that they were part of this North Harris Montgomery Community College District."

The wording of the bond proposal also hadn't helped, making reference to only North Harris and Montgomery but not the other campuses. It also used the phrase "levying of tax."

"As things played out, there was some real antitax sentiment," Mr. Pickelman says. "In hindsight, we could have done a better job of preparing for that kind of environment."

Take 2

Mr. Pickelman retired later that year, and Richard Carpenter took over as chancellor in August 2007. With enrollment still expanding, and classroom space and resources dwindling, Mr. Carpenter realized that the college needed to get a new bond referendum to pass —and quickly.

College officials had been considering a name change for several years and, in the fall of that year, settled on a new one: Lone Star College, a reference to Texas' flag, which was designed in Montgomery County.

Since the district needed to inform the community of the name change, administrators decided to combine advertising for the new name and a new bond referendum.

An advertising campaign of approximately $500,000 began shortly thereafter. Billboards lined the side of highways, commercials played before movies and during radio programs, and fliers were posted at popular locations. As part of their motto —that Lone Star could "open doors" —the district also placed 50 bright-red doors, plastered with facts about the community colleges, in hospitals, malls, and other public places.

Next, Mr. Carpenter sat down with local businessmen, hospital and police officials, and political leaders to introduce himself and try to persuade them to help get the bond passed.

"I could say, 'I don't know anything about the past, I'm the new guy here, we would like to visit and learn what's on your mind,'" he says. "And people opened their doors to me."

To try to win back minority voters who were still annoyed by the first postponed bond vote, Mr. Carpenter met with local Hispanic leaders, including State Sen. Mario Gallegos Jr., who recommended neighborhoods where he thought Lone Star College would get favorable votes.

"There was definitely a general sense of voter mistrust, and an impression there had been insensitivity toward the minority communities," says Senator Gallegos, who represents Texas' Sixth District. "Their reaching out for help really was a turnaround for them."

Mr. Carpenter sought to combat the college district's critics head-on by meeting with them. Mr. Blanton, who had battled the last referendum, was impressed with the new chancellor. Mr. Blanton says he did not have confidence in the previous administration but felt he could trust Mr. Carpenter. Although he still thought the district was wasting some money, Mr. Blanton did not campaign against the new bond.

When it came time for a second attempt at the bond referendum, the proposal —which had grown to $420-million —was met with little resistance, winning by a vote of nearly two-to-one.

Looking Ahead

Using money from the bond referendum, there is construction at each of the college's five branches, and at a new site in Harris County. Although the new site was originally offered to the college by the Hewlett-Packard Company for close to $140-million, the downturn in real-estate sales allowed the college to purchase the property, which had previously been used as office buildings for the Compaq Computer Corporation, for just over $42-million in May. According to Real Capital Analytics, a New York-based real-estate-research firm, the deal for 1.2 million square feet is the third-largest land purchase by an American college so far this year.

The new facility, scheduled to open at the former HP site later this year, will be used for academic programs and administrative offices, and as a university center, where four-year colleges can offer bachelor's degrees. The university center is already affiliated with six Texas four-year colleges.

But Mr. Carpenter wants to add three or four more college affiliates to that list. And how will he do it? By picking up the phone and trying to make more new friends.