The Palomar College Board of Trustees must call a cease-fire in its civil war and show some unity and maturity, or it will kill its hope for a multimillion-dollar bond the college district needs.

The board is preparing to ask voters to approve a bond in the range of half a billion dollars to buy land and construct buildings for 15,000 new students in North County. A master plan describing the need for the campus expansions is expected at the end of this month.

Clearly, the fast-growing college needs to expand. The San Marcos campus serves about 20,000 of Palomar's 30,000 full-time and part-time students, and parking problems make it difficult or impossible for that campus to grow. Tentative plans include a new campus to serve 10,000 students north of Escondido and a center for 5,000 students in Poway.

Details of the bond measure will not be released until the master plan is completed. The college must decide by December whether to put a bond measure on the March 2004 ballot, and how big such a bond might be. But regardless of the need for such a bond ---- and the need is great ---- voters are not likely to support it if college trustees do not start treating one another with more respect, or at least civility.

The board is split 3 to 2 between its officers, President Darrell McMullen, Vice President Ralph Jensen and Secretary Michele Nelson, and new trustees Mark Evilsizer and Nancy Chadwick, who are friendlier to the wishes of the Palomar Faculty Federation. The long-running contract negotiations with the union have poisoned relations on the board and on campus, and so have faculty votes of no-confidence in college President Sherrill Amador.

It would be nice if the college could complete its contract negotiations. A contract would go a long way to restoring amity on campus. But regardless of the progress of negotiations, trustees must grow up.

The no-confidence vote was a counterproductive ploy in the middle of a labor negotiation. On the other side, Jensen was out of line at last Saturday's board meeting to say that Evilsizer and Chadwick have "conflicts of interest" because they accepted campaign donations from the faculty union. And it was simply childish of him to hold up a makeshift placard on which he had scrawled "TANSTAAFL" and to say, "Do you know what this means? It means, 'There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.'"

That's kid stuff. Voters are not likely to trust such a board with half a billion dollars.

We support Palomar College. We think the voters of North County do too, and we know the Board of Trustees does. Trustees can build support for the bond by treating one another civilly. They will hurt their own cause if they do not.

Palomar College board wants $275 million bond for classrooms at two new campuses, one Sites for the campuses, which are expected to come to about 150 acres, have not yet been chosen. A task force has estimated it will cost at least $275 million to buy the land and build the facilities. Total number of students is around 30,000.

Board members Darrell McMullen, president, Ralph Jensen, VP, Michele Nelson, secretary. Mark Evilsizer and Nancy Chadwick are friendlier to faculty and Palomar Faculty Federation.