LOCAL ELECTIONS / COMMUNITY COLLEGE : 2 New Trustees Increase Clout of Teachers Guild

By choosing union-backed candidates Tuesday for two seats on the board governing the financially squeezed Los Angeles Community College District, voters also produced a husband-and-wife team--a rare, if not unique, phenomenon among the state’s 7,000 local boards.

With her 55%-to-45% defeat of Trustee Patrick Owens for Office No. 2, labor attorney Elizabeth Jo Garfield will join husband and law partner, Wallace Knox, on the seven-member Board of Trustees. Knox is the board’s president.

In the race for Office No. 6, Trustee Althea Baker fended off a challenge from accountant Peter C. Halt, who, like Owens, was unable to come close to the political and fund-raising organization of his opponent. Baker won nearly 60% of the vote to Halt’s 40%.

By Election Day, Garfield reported raising about $120,000, county records show, while Owens had collected about $27,000, mostly in loans from himself or family members. Baker reported raising about $90,000 to Halt’s $4,300. Much of the winners’ funding came from American Federation of Teachers College Guild or its members.

The results enhanced the strength of the guild, which represents the district’s teachers, clerical and technical workers, and police officers. All but one member of the board has drawn campaign support from the guild.

During a heated campaign, Owens tried to make an issue of Garfield’s marriage to Knox, repeatedly referring to her as “Wally’s wife” and implying that it was improper for two members of the same family to occupy seats on a board that needs only four votes to make policy and award contracts.

But Garfield, with an array of professional and civic accomplishments and a long list of endorsements, said she was far better qualified than Owens and resented insinuations that she would not act independently.

Leon Marzillier, guild president, acknowledged early in the campaign that his group had had some concerns that voters might not like the idea of two family members on the same board. But it quickly backed Garfield because “she is such an outstanding candidate in every way--she has a good grasp of the issues, good contacts in the political world and a good understanding of labor issues.”

A city elections official said he can recall no other instance of a person seeking election to a local board while a spouse was a member. Both county and state elections officials said they do not know if similar situations exist elsewhere in California.

Owens struck a conciliatory tone Wednesday, offering congratulations to Garfield after thanking his supporters. He told a reporter that he planned to stay involved in fund-raising and public relations efforts on behalf of the district, adding that he hoped he could return to teaching college auto shop classes, a position he had to relinquish when he was elected in 1989.

Halt, whose contest with Baker was notable for its polite tone (she even invited him to the guild’s Election Night victory party), said he believes that “we will see some change (in district financial operations), based on some of the things I’ve said in the campaign.” He had called for clearer budgeting methods and a shift of more resources from central administration to the campuses, which the board had begun to do.

Most issues in the election revolved around district finances, battered in recent years by shrinking state funding and fee increases. On Wednesday, only a few hours after the ballot count was completed, officials issued a sober assessment of the district’s financial future and offered proposals they said could save the district up to $33 million.

Chancellor Donald Phelps said he and the presidents of the district’s nine colleges recommended that savings realized from the proposals be spent, in order of priority, on adding classes, giving employees their first pay raises in more than three years and undertaking long-delayed campus maintenance projects.

He said savings could be realized in several ways, including imposing a hiring freeze, overhauling employee benefits, further cutting district office spending and reducing staffing in such areas as summer school, child development, libraries and counseling offices.