Top Candidate for Chancellor Goes Elsewhere : Education: The search will now focus on two other finalists to head the county’s three community colleges.

The hunt for a new chancellor to head Ventura County’s three community colleges stalled Tuesday after the leading candidate took a job elsewhere in the state.

Robert Jensen accepted a $120,000-a-year job to head Contra Costa Community College District near San Francisco, saying he preferred that job over the Ventura County position because he is from the area and his mother still lives there.

After a seven-month search, Ventura County Community College District officials had zeroed in on Jensen, chancellor of Rancho Santiago Community College District in Orange County, as the top choice to head the district.

Now the search focuses on two Los Angeles community college presidents who were among four finalists for the job. The search could be expanded to include other candidates, officials said.

The two candidates among the first group of finalists who are still in the running are Mary Lee, head of Los Angeles Valley College, and Thomas Lakin, head of Los Angeles Southwest College.

A fourth candidate, Coastline Community College President William Vega, has withdrawn his name.

The Ventura County Community College District board will meet Thursday to discuss the chancellor position, which will be vacated at the end of June when Chancellor Barbara Derryberry retires.

“We’ll discuss whether to make a specific offer to the remaining candidates, whether to conduct further follow-up or whether to see people we have not

interviewed,” said Timothy Hirschberg, board president.

Derryberry makes $112,000 a year. Hirschberg said the district would consider paying more than that to a successor if necessary.

An 18-member selection committee composed of faculty, students, administrators and members of the community narrowed the field from 60 applicants to the four finalists.

Hirschberg said it is now possible that the board might consider applicants from the original list in addition to Lee and Lakin, but added that he considers both of them viable candidates.

“I’d be happy with either one of them,” he said.

Lee has served as president of Los Angeles Valley College since 1981. Before that, she was the college’s dean of administrative services for three years. She was hired at the Van Nuys-based campus after working as a dean of college development and acting dean of instruction at Pierce College in Woodland Hills.

Lakin was inaugurated as president at Los Angeles Southwest College in 1988, after serving as acting president since 1986. He has been credited with reviving the predominantly black college after years of falling enrollment and poor morale. Before that, he was vice president at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College.

Jensen said there was nothing negative about the Ventura job that was involved in his decision, although he noted that the district will have a challenge in operating with shrinking state funds. Money was not an issue, and, in fact, was not discussed in his interviews with the Ventura district, he said.

“I’m going home to my roots,” he said. He was raised in Martinez, where the Contra Costa college district is headquartered.