There’s no shortage of challengers running for four seats on the board of trustees for the Los Angeles Community College District. There’s just a shortage of highly qualified ones, which is the result of an undemocratic system that elects candidates at large and provides no runoffs so a candidate can win without a majority of votes.
Despite the frustrating nature of the LACCD elections, it’s important for voters to pay attention. The board of trustees oversees the largest community college district in California. Voters — who can cast ballots in all four races — should pick the four incumbents. They haven’t done a perfect job, but they are on top of the issues and speak intelligently about where the board has succeeded and what it still needs to do — including changing how its elections are held. Many of their opponents have never even watched a board meeting.
The Los Angeles Community College District, with about 200,000 students, has made some good strides over the past few years but it has been a disappointment in key areas. It has long struggled to help students who enter planning to transfer to four-year schools. The transfer rate has increased by several percentage points — but it’s still less than 15%, which is simply unacceptable.
The nine colleges within the district have brought on 900 more full-time, tenure-track faculty during the past several years and diversified their workforce. More than half the students are low income and the district has set up programs to provide homeless students with food, clothing, healthcare and other support. The community colleges provide a wide array of courses, from short-term vocational certificates to nursing degrees, to students from many backgrounds who have very different educational goals.
At the same time, not all is going well at the top tiers of the district. In a surprise move, its chancellor for the last decade, Francisco Rodriguez, resigned in early August. Meanwhile, the deputy chancellor position had been open for a year, and two more of the district’s highest-level jobs were empty.
A well-managed district shouldn’t encounter a leadership gap like this.
The district has also been under scrutiny for how it handles harassment complaints after a jury awarded $10 million to a female professor who accused a high-ranking administrator of sexual misconduct.
In other words, there is plenty of room for improvement. Unfortunately, voters won’t find that improvement in the challengers, which is why they should reelect the incumbents:
Seat 1: Andra Hoffman. As director of career services and job placement at Glendale Community College, Hoffman helps students with transfers to four-year schools and with finding careers in their chosen field. She also teaches as an adjunct professor of political science at the college. She is a past president of the National Women’s Political Caucus of the San Fernando Valley and mentors girls and young women.
Seat 3: David Vela. Vela worked as a senior advisor to the state Employment Development Department, as a legislative aide to former Assemblymember Jackie Goldberg and as senior deputy to the late Gloria Molina when she was an L.A. County supervisor. He runs his own consulting firm.
Seat 5: Nichelle Henderson. As the faculty advisor and clinical field supervisor with the Cal State TEACH teacher preparation program, Henderson instructs and mentors teachers in training. She also is active in the California Faculty Assn., where she is chapter vice president as well as chair of the political action committee.
Seat 7: Kelsey Iino. Iino has worked as a community college counselor for more than 15 years. She currently works with students who are involved in the fields of health science, athletics, creative arts and MANA (an Asian American Pacific Islander grant program) at El Camino College in Torrance. She holds the position of president of the El Camino College Federation of Teachers-AFT1388.
The other candidates failed to impress. Most of them admitted that they hadn’t watched board meetings, which are viewable online. This is the minimum a candidate should do to learn about the job. The challengers often couldn’t explain what the role of a trustee entailed and sometimes couldn’t articulate why they were running for the board or challenging a particular incumbent.
Voters should be aware that they are casting ballots for all four open seats; elections are not held by district as they are for the Los Angeles City Council or the Los Angeles Unified School District board.
And that’s one of two possible reasons why voters aren’t seeing more viable challengers. Unlike most public bodies covering an area and population as large as the L.A. district, these elections are held at-large. This means that students and residents in different parts of the district have no single trustee to turn to who represents their interests and concerns. It also means that running for one of these seats is an expensive proposition because it requires reaching voters over a vast area. Without an interest group to back challengers, they face a hard climb unseating incumbents.
There are no primary elections for the board, as there are for council, school board and pretty much every other election. There is only a general election, which can include several candidates facing off for the same seat, making it possible for a candidate to win a seat with less than a majority of the votes.
LACCD is the only community college district in California given Legislative authority to skip the primary. Combined with at-large elections, this is a system that favors incumbents. In a sea of unfamiliar candidates, voters are more likely to go for the ones with the best name recognition and the best-sounding title after their names. That usually means the person already in the job, and that discourages other qualified candidates from running.
This time, the incumbents are indeed the most qualified — but they might not be if the board
changed policies to create fairer elections. It should be at the top of the trustees’ agenda over the next year. Some incumbents said it would be too expensive to hold primary elections. True democracy is more important than money and more important than holding on to an elected seat.
