LOCAL ELECTIONS: COLLEGE BOARD OF TRUSTEES : Candidates Pull No Low Blows in Low-Key Race : Education: The five candidates running for four open seats aren’t spending a lot of money. But they are spending time praising each other.

Complimenting each other as they go, five candidates are running--but not very vigorously--for four seats on the Santa Monica College Board of Trustees.

No mudslinging or jockeying here. One would be hard-pressed to find a lawn sign or a hot controversy. The candidates figure that since there’s room for almost everybody, there’s no need to act pushy or spend lots of money.

“We shouldn’t have to have as rigorous a campaign as the school board people have and the City Council people have,” said incumbent Colin C. Petrie. “It is very, very, low key,”

Petrie and Carole Lundgren Currey, billing themselves as “Experienced College Trustees,” are running for reelection. Two other board members are seeking other political offices: James Bambrick is running for Municipal Court judge in Santa Monica, and Fred Beteta is the Republican challenger to Democrat Tom Hayden for the 44th Assembly District seat.

At a recent candidates’ forum and in interviews, several of the candidates praised their competitors. “All four of them, are all excellent,” George Hickey said. “The people cannot go wrong.”

In general, no one seems bent on rocking the boat. They are pleased with college President Richard Moore, the faculty, the Emeritus College that caters to senior citizens, the Center for Humanities and the new design school. They note that Santa Monica College leads all state community colleges in the percentage of students who transfer to the University of California system.

The college does have some problems, the candidates say, but they are problems stemming from its success: Lack of space and facilities to serve a growing student population, and traffic congestion and parking problems that cause friction with neighbors.

“Our community college suffers from excellent leadership, classes, teachers and a beach,” Hickey said.

Growth is limited in part by state funding. Enrollment now is about 25,000, including part-time students. In January, the board approved a five-year, $25.7-million construction plan that includes expanding the library, Technology Building, automotive repair area, and building two parking structures.

The parking structures are scheduled for completion in June, 1991, and will hold about 1,200 vehicles. The structures, plus ride-sharing and the current systems of permit parking for residents, off-campus lots, shuttle buses and the use of satellite campuses will handle the parking problem, the candidates say. For the long term, the college has to work with other governmental bodies on developing mass transportation, they say.

All of the candidates say the college should funnel students to West Los Angeles College, which has “both classroom and parking space,” as Petrie said. He said that in the past, a Santa Monica College real estate program was moved to West Los Angeles, and this could be done with other programs.

Petrie and candidate Alfred T. Quinn say the college should stay at its present size. “There comes a point where we have to say, ‘Try another community college,’ ” Quinn said at a recent forum.

Incumbent Currey and candidate Ralph R. Villani say they are concerned about turning students away. “Our obligation is to provide education for those who require it or want it,” said Currey, adding that, “I think we’re good neighbors, but we don’t have control over everything.”

Villani said the college should explore ways of offering more classes via television and computer so students would not have to come to campus as often. Hickey favors “freezing (growth), maybe even decreasing it over time.”

He said the college should put limits on students who “perennially take classes without passing them because the classes are so cheap. . . . They are not serious students” and they tie up classroom space, he said.

Most of the candidates agree that the college should make efforts to improve communication with the community.

Hickey said, for example, that neighbors were informed too late of the college’s opening its Center for Humanities in a former elementary school on Arizona Avenue. The college began hosting public meetings on its plans in August, a month before school started, even though it had been been negotiating a lease with the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District for more than a year.

Villani said residents should expect that some of the parking and traffic hassles come with the territory. “When you move into an area where there’s a high school or community college, you can’t just say, ‘I wish it’d move away.’ ”

Incumbents Petrie and Currey say they share many ideas and have sent out some joint campaign literature. Petrie reported raising $1,235 as of Sept. 30 and Currey $1,360.

Currey said she aims to spend about $2,000. In prior elections when there were more candidates and fewer seats, she spent about $4,000, she said.

Quinn leads in fund-raising, reporting $5,227 raised as of Oct. 4.

Villani said he plans to spend less than $1,000, and only from his own funds.

Hickey said he doesn’t plan to spend more than $100 of his own money.

Here are brief sketches of the candidates and their positions. The candidates are listed in the order they will appear on the ballot.

Carole Lundgren Currey, a bank secretary, has been on the board since 1979. She is on the legislative committee of the California Community College Trustees Assn., which reviews and makes recommendations on bills. Her children attended SMC.

“I want to continue the good work that’s going on at the college,” she said.

She is endorsed by the Santa Monica College Classified Forum, the board of directors of the non-teaching employees; by Concerned Homeowners of Santa Monica, and by City Council candidates Christine Reed, Donna Alvarez and Robert Holbrook.

George Hickey is a clinical engineer who advises hospitals on high-technology equipment. Hickey wants the college to increase its emphasis on remedial education to reach “the kids that may have dropped out of high school and . . . probably are in gangs.”

Saying Santa Monica residents are being turned away from classes at times, he said the college needs to ensure that “as much emphasis is given to registering people locally as outside the area.”

Hickey is on the Virginia Park Advisory board. He is endorsed by the New Deal Democratic Club, Americans for Democratic Action, Concerned Homeowners of Santa Monica, and council candidates Reed, Alvarez and Holbrook.

Ralph R. Villani, assistant superintendent for personnel at the Culver City Unified School District, says it is unfair that UC Berkeley and UCLA have raised their entrance requirements for transfer students. He says he will fight to get that policy reversed.

He wants to clamp down on students who abuse the preferential parking spots for car-poolers at the college. He said security on campus must remain a high priority because Santa Monica High School and other schools have had problems with trespassers.

He says he has no endorsements and is running as an independent. He attended Pasadena City College.

Alfred T. Quinn has been a professor, counselor, affirmative action officer and dean of student services at SMC. When he retired in 1988, some of his former students established scholarships in his name at the college.

The college must adapt to the “changing demographics in the ‘90s,” including increasing numbers of diverse ethnic groups, immigrants and single parents, he says. It should give “as much priority to the vocational programs as we do to the academic program,” and offer courses for people who are trying to retrain for another job.

Quinn has chaired the Santa Monica Housing and Parks and Recreation commissions. He is endorsed by the Santa Monica Democratic Club, the New Deal Democratic Club and the college’s Classified Forum.

Colin C. Petrie taught mathematics at the college from 1955 to 1974. He has been on the board since 1977, except for 1981-83, when he did not run for a term. His daughter attended SMC before transferring to a four-year college.

The college, he says, should continue active recruitment in the high schools of “minority students who . . . are hesitant about coming because they don’t think they’ve got the qualifications (or) the finances to do it.”

He said he is pleased with the automotive, nursing and other vocational programs and says that the college’s main mission is to transfer as many people to higher education as possible.

He is endorsed by the Santa Monica College Classified Forum, the board of directors of the non-teaching employees; by Concerned Homeowners of Santa Monica, and by City Council candidates Christine Reed, Donna Alvarez and Robert Holbrook.