18 Seek 4 Seats on Community College Board

District finances, student enrollment and outreach with other institutions are among the key issues in the April 13 election for the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees.

The 16 challengers and two incumbents in contention for four open seats say there are serious problems confronting the district. The incumbents, Georgia Mercer and Julia Wu, say the district is on the road to recovery, however.

“Our latest fiscal report shows there is an $11-million surplus,” Wu said. The district had projected a $13-million deficit in August.

Almost all the challengers, however, voiced disappointment with district finances and urged better links between the community colleges and their surrounding communities, businesses, feeder high schools and four-year universities.

And while praising a recent board decision to give campuses more autonomy, several candidates said they did not trust the existing board to properly implement the decentralization plan.

The trustees are paid $24,000 annually for four-year terms to oversee a nine-campus community college district--the nation’s largest--that is beset by declining enrollment, administrative instability and financial difficulties.

Unions dominate the system, critics say, stifling efforts to streamline its work force and rein in salaries and benefits. As in previous elections, labor has been generous during the current campaign, contributing nearly $100,000 to candidates thus far.

More than half the candidates--10--are running for the District 1 seat vacated by Gloria Romero. When the race began, that was the only open seat.

Since then, incumbent David Lopez-Lee dropped out of the race for the District 7 seat.

All seven seats on the college district board are elected at large: Candidates can choose the race in which they want to compete without having to live in a specific district.

In the District 1 race, three candidates have raised substantial campaign funds. They are Cal State Los Angeles professor Sylvia Scott-Hayes, Evelyn Metoyer-Williams, a principal with the Los Angeles Unified School District, and Peter Ford, a Beverly Hills businessman and former local talk show personality.

As of Friday, Scott-Haynes had raised about $20,000 for her campaign and Metoyer-Williams had raised $42,000, most of it her own money. Ford had raised more than $30,000.

Scott-Hayes has been endorsed by Romero and the influential American Federation of Teachers College Guild, which represents the district’s faculty. Scott-Hayes said the board would benefit from her long experience with higher education.

Metoyer-Williams said she wants to build more bridges between the community colleges and other educational institutions.

Ford, who was endorsed by the community college district’s administrators union, said he would focus on district finances and touted his entrepreneurial background.

Other candidates for District 1 include Nancy Pearlman, Richard Groper, Marilyn Grunwald, Addie Miller, Gilbert Carrasco, Sesar A. Carreno and Maria “Lou” Calanche.

In the District 3 race, Wu faces two well-financed challengers--the Rev. Jules Bagneris, the minister of Walker African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, and Glendale Community College instructor Mona Field, who is president of the Glendale faculty union.

Field said that raising morale, repairing shoddy campus buildings and building positive relationships between labor and management will be the first order of business if she is elected. Field, who has raised $30,000 for her campaign, is backed by the teachers union.

Bagneris is a community activist who has advocated enterprise zones in Pacomia, East Los Angeles and Watts. He said he would like to “put the word ‘community’ back into community colleges.”

He called Field a faculty union “operative whose hands are tied and whose voice is muffled.”

Bagneris, however, received campaign contributions totaling $24,000 from the college administrators union. Even so, he said “he would . . . [be] on the side of the public interest.”

Wu has the advantage of incumbency and strong backing in the Asian American community, which has helped her raise $35,000. A librarian, Wu said she helped institute the district’s automated library system and a nonresident fee. If reelected, Wu said, raising money for the district would be her main concern.

The only trustee from the San Fernando Valley, Georgia Mercer of Tarzana, is defending her seat against Valley homeowner advocate Gordon Murley and Jonathan Leonard, a fire commissioner.

Mercer was appointed by the board after the death of Trustee Kenneth Washington.

Mercer, who ran unsuccessfully for Los Angeles City Council in 1997, said she solicited contributions from her previous supporters and has raised $70,000 thus far. She has been endorsed by the faculty union and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Mercer said she wants to build confidence in state legislators who have, in the past, been reluctant to allocate more money to the Los Angeles district.

Murley, a homeowner activist, has raised $4,000 and Leonard has raised less than $1,000.

Favored in the race for Lopez-Lee’s seat is Warren T. Furutani, who has raised $47,000 and has American Federation of Teachers support. Furutani, a Gardena businessman and former district board member, is a senior member of the staff of state Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles). Furutani said he would like to put the district’s financial affairs in order and prepare the system for “Tidal Wave II”--a baby boomlet expected to dramatically increase college enrollment by 2005.

Mark Isler, a former public school teacher and business owner, said he would “be a cheerleader” for the district if elected. “No one understands what a great resource we have out there.”