One College District Incumbent Escapes Runoff; Other Close

Veteran Los Angeles Community College District Trustee Arthur Bronson was clinging to a tiny edge today in his battle to avoid a June runoff against challengers who have attacked the trustees for ignoring the steady deterioration of the two-year colleges. Trustee Lindsay Conner narrowly escaped a June contest.

Meanwhile, in the West San Fernando Valley, a June runoff election will be needed to pick a new representative on the Los Angeles Board of Education. Conservative professor David Armor will face high school history teacher Elizabeth Ginsburg in a race to decide who will fill the seat being vacated by conservative Tom Bartman.

The two school board incumbents--Roberta Weintraub in the East Valley and Alan Gershman in West Los Angeles--won easy victories against relatively unknown challengers.

With several thousand absentee ballots still to count, College Trustee Bronson, 68, was a fraction over the simple majority needed to avoid a runoff against Richard Ferraro, a former Los Angeles school board member and longtime foe of school busing.

‘They Want a Change’

“The students are really fed up with this board. They want a change,” said Ferraro, a conservative who served 14 years on the Los Angeles school board.

Since 1981, the nine Los Angeles colleges have lost about one-third of their students.

College board incumbent Conner, 29, managed to avoid a runoff election to gain his second term on the board.

The third incumbent--Wallace Albertson--won easily over her only foe, UCLA education professor Julia Wrigley.

Variety of Troubles

The Los Angeles area’s nine-campus community college system has been plagued with a variety of troubles over the past three years--a new student fee, plunging enrollment, cutbacks in classes and a fouled-up financial aid system.

The board of trustees has blamed most of the problems on the state, which since 1978 has essentially controlled the funding of the two-year colleges. In 1983, the Legislature, after a prolonged and bitter debate, imposed the first mandatory fee of $50 per semester.

The trustees aligned themselves with the Democratic leadership in opposition to the fee. They also have complained that the state has not given the community colleges a fair financing increase, when compared to the four-year universities and secondary schools.

Back-to-Basics Approach

But despite the colleges’ troubles, Ferraro, 60, was the only well-known local politician to enter the race. During his 14 years on the Los Angeles Board of Education, Ferraro was a staunch foe of mandatory busing and advocated a back-to-basics approach to education.

Ferraro and the other challengers won applause at several college forums by denouncing the board for its “business-as-usual” approach during a period of crisis. The Los Angeles Collegiate Council, a forum of college leaders, endorsed Ferraro and Wrigley against two of the incumbents.

By contrast, the Los Angeles school board has been trouble-free of late. Thanks to the state school reform law of 1983, the city school district’s budget has risen from $1.8 billion to $2.4 billion over the last two years, leaving enough to raise teachers’ salaries and to restore a sixth period of instruction in the high schools.

Pushes for Penalties

Weintraub, 49, has pushed for harsher penalties for students who bring drugs or weapons to school. She had also joined with Bartman to resist school closings in the San Fernando Valley, a campaign that met success only recently when the district revealed that it expected to gain an extra 70,000 students over the next five years.

Gershman, 45, has been a low-key member of the board during his first term, but one who often held a swing vote on controversial motions. He disappointed the board’s liberal faction by voting against several school closings and by opposing a move to change the district’s integration formula.

Although some Westside teacher activists had expressed irritation with Gershman in recent years, neither they nor the United Teachers of Los Angeles fielded a candidate to oppose him.