COUNTYWIDE : At Least 9 Apply for College Board Spot

At least nine people--including the owner of a large car dealership and a minister at a church in Oxnard--have applied for an open seat on the Ventura County Community College District Board of Trustees.

According to district officials, the people who have applied for the open seat, vacated by former trustee Gregory Kampf, include:

Karen Boone, 35, a Ventura housewife; Paul Olmstead, an Oxnard College economics instructor; John Masterson, owner of Masterson Motors in Ventura; Mary Geb, a school counselor; Bill Purdom, 61, a retired administrator from the Ojai school district; Fawn Parish, 35, free-lance writer; the Rev. Johnie Carlisle Jr. of Oxnard’s Bethel AME Church; Chris Rodrigues, an agriculture instructor at Ventura College; and Robert Seecof, a physician in Oxnard.

Members of the college board will interview the candidates in an open session at the district office on May 26. The board’s top choice will succeed Kampf, who recently stepped down to take an administrative position in a school district in Northern California.

Kampf represented Area 1, which included Ventura, north Oxnard, Saticoy, Montalvo and Oxnard’s Channel Islands area. His replacement would fill out the remainder of Kampf’s term, which expires in November, 1994.

Board President Pete Tafoya said district officials considered allowing the public to decide on Kampf’s replacement in the November election. But he said it is important that the open position be filled quickly.

“We are faced with an awful lot of decisions,” Tafoya said. Among the issues the board must tackle is how to restructure the budget to slim down district costs, he said.

“We are looking for leadership skills, knowledge in the community and things like that,” Tafoya said.

The board of trustees sets policy for the county’s three community colleges in Ventura, Moorpark and Oxnard.