The former Watts Skills Center, established in 1966, was named for Waters in 1989 while she was in the state Legislature. The facility serves about 9,000 people annually, with enrollment expected to increase dramatically in the upcoming school year because of the economic downturn, according to the school district.
Principal Janet Cook said she was working as a teacher at the center -- which offers vocational education in areas such as nursing, banking and auto mechanics -- when it was named for Waters. "The people wanted to honor her because she was one of them," Cook said. "She had done so much work in the area."
Today, a portrait of the lawmaker hangs in the center's main office.
Cook said all the center's programs would suffer if the funding was denied. "We have beautiful buildings, but we need money for programs," Cook said. "The people here need it and they deserve it."
A spokesman for Rep. Jerry Lewis of Redlands -- who has sent so much federal money home that his name is on a community center and educational facility, as well as the swim center -- said the congressman would not be seeking any earmarks for projects bearing his name.
But spokesman Jim Specht said Lewis, top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, was "certainly disappointed that we've reached the point where something that's as trivial as having something named after a particular person means you can't consider the merits of whether that project is any good or not."
Jesse Jacobs, a Byrd spokesman, said the Democratic senator "makes his project requests based on the needs of West Virginia and his discussions with people all across the state, and not on what project may or may not bear his name."
After Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) drew criticism for steering federal money to the Doyle Center for Manufacturing Technology, he asked that his name be dropped from it.
But Waters said that even if her name was removed from the vocational center, there was no guarantee it would receive federal money.
She added, "It would cost money to change the name."
--
richard.simon@latimes.com
kate.linthicum@latimes.com
