Community College Board, Its Spotlight Gone, Attracts Fewer Politicians

It would be difficult to think of a political label, or a room even, that could happily contain former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner and Assemblywoman Marian La Follette (R-Northridge).

But they did sit in the same room once, as political novices who were elected to the Board of Trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District.

In 1969, the community college district split off from the Los Angeles Unified School District, and local politicians jumped at the chance to fill the new seats on the board. It was a turbulent era for the growing two-year colleges, one that virtually assured lots of publicity for local board members.

That first board produced a governor in Brown and state legislators in La Follette, Antonovich and Robert C. Cline. One member, Kenneth Washington, was appointed vice-chancellor of the college district, a position he holds today. Meanwhile, Reiner was elected to the board in 1971 and was followed in 1975 by Gwen Moore, now a Democratic assemblywoman from Los Angeles.

Times have changed though. Proposition 13 of 1978 took away the board’s power to raise revenue, and it also helped to take away the spotlight. As with the public schools, many of the crucial decisions about the nine Los Angeles community colleges are now made in Sacramento, not Los Angeles.

College Financing Lags

Moreover, college financing has not kept pace with inflation since 1978, leaving board members the unpleasant duty of finding ways to cut spending. That task has grown more urgent recently as enrollment has plummeted, from a high of 136,000 in 1981 to an estimated low this spring of 91,000.

Possibly as a result, fewer and fewer local politicians are seeking spots on the community college board, and none of the incumbents has used it of late as a springboard to higher office.

“It’s much more difficult to manage in a period of decline. You need a leaner, and sometimes meaner, operation,” said current board President Arthur Bronson, who along with incumbents Wallace Albertson and Lindsay Conner, is seeking reelection this spring.

The only organization that has taken a real interest in the board races in recent years is the American Federation of Teachers Guild, the faculty union, which has endorsed the three incumbents.

“The incumbents supported our raise (of 6%) this year. They’ve also avoided the cancellation of classes,” said union President Hal Fox.

All seven current members of the board are backed by the union. Despite a huge enrollment decline, the board has never voted to lay off faculty members.

Of the three incumbents, Bronson has the only relatively well-known opponent--former Los Angeles school board member Richard Ferraro.

Ferraro, a conservative who led the fight against mandatory busing in Los Angeles, said he is coming out of political retirement because he is disturbed about the decline of the community colleges, in particular, Trade-Tech College where he taught for seven years.

“The union owns that board--all seven of them--but they wouldn’t own me,” said Ferraro, who was defeated in 1983 after 14 years on the school board. “I think the faculty needs good salaries and working conditions, but this board isn’t concerned enough about the students and the quality of the colleges.”

Bronson Dismisses Opponent

Bronson, a retired oil industry executive who has been on the board since 1971, dismissed Ferraro as “someone who has the distinction of being censured by the last board he served on.” He said Ferraro’s biggest advantage may be that Los Angeles Councilman John Ferraro, no relation, is running for mayor.

“That Ferraro’s advertising will probably help him,” he said of Richard Ferraro. Bronson is also opposed by Howard Watts, a gadfly who appears regularly at a variety of board meetings in Los Angeles, and community activist Sandy Blixton. Nevertheless, Bronson predicted that he would win easily in the April primary.

Lindsay Conner, the youngest board member, who was first elected in 1981, appears to be in the most danger of being forced into a runoff because six candidates are on the ballot opposing him.

“I think that’s the result of my being only a four-year veteran,” said Conner, a Los Angeles attorney.

Conner said he has worked on the board “to improve quality without additional funding,” citing his support for more required writing in the colleges and new testing and placement programs for incoming students.

“I’m also very pleased to have the faculty’s endorsement,” he said. “We have always had good relations with the faculty, and I regard that as a strength.”

Last week, Conner went to court in Los Angeles to force his most active opponent, former Valley College administrator Kenneth Palmer, to change his designation on the ballot. Palmer, who is retired and works with a senior citizens group, said he wanted to be listed as a “senior citizens representative.” Conner succeeded Thursday in getting the court to change that to “senior citizens adviser.”

Designation Called Misleading

“We felt that designation (as a “representative”) would mislead the voters, and we were successful,” Conner said of the incident.

Not surprisingly, Palmer viewed it differently. “He must be frightened about his support. He must think he needs every advantage he can get,” said Palmer, who said he was unfazed by the ballot change.

Palmer also said he is running because he is disturbed about the downward spiral among the Los Angeles colleges.

“When you have students deserting this district like they are to go to Santa Monica or El Camino or the College of the Canyons, then something is radically wrong,” said Palmer, 61, who worked for 36 years in the college system.

He blamed the current board and the district for much of the enrollment decline.

The financial aid system has been “so screwed up that students are still waiting for their money and they are dropping out.” Moreover, the cost of the district’s downtown office now “exceeds $15 million a year, more than five of the colleges. That’s a sore spot among the faculty, and I think I’ll get a lot of support from them,” Palmer said.

Conner’s other opponents include Jack Ballas, an assistant city attorney in Inglewood; Jerry Zerg, a community leader and teacher; Kendra M. Cole, a technical instructor; Joseph Kehoe, an education writer, and Clydell Hill, who listed no occupation on his filing forms.

Wallace Albertson, a board member since 1971 and a Democratic Party activist, has only one opponent, Julia Wrigley, an education instructor at UCLA. Albertson, a liberal who has been vice president of the community college board, is also serving as president of the Board of Trustees of the California State University system.