The following corrections to the story were made on Wednesday, October 1, 2025 at 8:05 p.m. to clarify the title of Chris Rodriguez, the assistant director of audio and visual services at Mt. SAC.
What is an “ajor?” Pop-in with the who? What’s a lost and found “oruction?”
As of Sep. 28, the minitron has been mostly restored to working order after many months of operating in a dysfunctional state. Previously, the garbled messaging of Mt SAC’s corner marquee, or the minitron, as some have come to know it, left many in the community wondering what it was trying to communicate.
According to assistant director of audio and visual services at Mt. SAC, Chris Rodriguez, contracting and negotiation issues delayed the needed repairs.
“We just have to make sure we have contract language for doing work on campus, and we have to negotiate with the contractor,” said Rodriguez. The negotiating and contracting can be quite time consuming requiring multiple revisions of the agreement. These revisions cause delays, hence the reason it took so long to get the minitron fixed.
In a horticultural twist, the shrubbery surrounding the minitron needed to be cut back to allow safe access. Rodriguez worked with Mt. SAC facilities management, “to get on their calendar, basically to cut back the shrub edge.”
However, repairs to the minitron still face some challenges.
The displays at the corner of Grand and Temple have a finite lifespan and cost $101,844 in late 2017 to install according to Rodriguez. At the time, it was a significant reconstructive process. The sign had to be taken down and integrated into the minitron construction.
Rodriguez said “their useful life is probably around seven years, you know? I mean, you’re starting to see the effects of age. And this thing is outside, right? It’s exposed to the sun.”
It should be significantly cheaper to keep it functional because you’re simply replacing spent components, but it is not.
According to Rodriguez, “the cost of inflation since covid, has far outpaced anything we could have ever predicted.”
Rodriguez also said, “It makes it very difficult for institutions like ours to provide modern technology, because the cost of technology is outpacing funding.”
When asked if he had anything to add, Rodriguez said, “we’re not taking it lightly, and that we’ve, we’ve considered alternate methods for getting support to the corner marquee in a much quicker fashion.”
While not obvious, global forces have an impact on how we live our everyday lives. The Mt SAC minitron makes the unseen become seen. Inflating tariffs and the ripples of covid have far-reaching effects on the simple maintenance of school infrastructure.
