WHITTIER -- After suffering a stinging disappointment when voters narrowly rejected a $194 million campus improvement bond measure last year, Rio Hondo College officials are gearing up to put a similar measure on the ballot, possibly as early as next spring.

And this time around, they've got an unlikely ally in their corner.

Carpenters Pension Trust officials, which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a campaign to defeat Rio Hondo's Measure R on last fall's ballot, say this time they will not oppose Rio Hondo's attempt to pass a bond measure.

"We certainly have no opposition to a college bond measure or their plans to expand on their campus,' said Ron Azad of CBRE Investors, investment manager for CPT, which owns the strawberry fields across the street from the college.

"We have had several positive discussions with the college president to explore methods for them to expand, and we will continue to work with them in this way,' Azad added.

Last year, CPT officials launched an attack against Measure R, accusing college officials of secretly planning to take their strawberry-fields property through eminent domain. CPT officials claimed the college planned to turn over part of the property to the county Sanitation Districts for a trash facility.

At the time, college officials denied the accusations and said the bond had nothing to do with the CPT property.

Apparently, CPT officials now feel the same way.

"Basically, we have patched things up, so they no longer fear the growth of the college,' said Andy Howard, Rio Hondo's dean of planning and development. "We will not interfere with their project at all and they have agreed to support us in the bond.'

At tonight's board meeting, trustees will vote on whether to hire consultants and conduct a public opinion survey to determine community support for a possible bond measure on the March 2004 ballot.

The survey would cost about $30,000, which would be reimbursed if a bond measure is passed. It would poll about 600 registered voters sometime in October or November, and would take about two weeks.

The bond consultants the same one used for the Measure R campaign will cost between $200,000 and $300,000 and will be paid only if the bond measure passes, officials said.

Howard said officials are preparing the groundwork and trying to give board members enough information to help them decide the proper course for the college.

The board must decide in November whether to pursue the bond, the amount of which has not been determined, Howard said. Officials are also taking a few extra steps in preparing for a bond, including updating the college's Facilities Master Plan, conducting a land-use survey and hiring a master plan architect to "develop a vision that will unify the campus.'

"Our plan is to have all the data available for the board to make a decision one way or the other,' Howard said.