Little attention paid to race for 2 seats on L.A. Community College board

Swamped by unemployed workers and students shut or priced out of four-year institutions, the Los Angeles Community College District experienced an 11% jump in enrollment this academic year, to 135,000 students.

But increased interest in the nine campuses of the district, which stretches from Sylmar to San Pedro, has not translated into buzz about the May 19 elections for two seats on the Board of Trustees. Classic runoff contests between incumbents and little-known challengers, the races and the issues they’ve raised -- including sustainable construction, fiscal oversight and student performance -- have slid by largely unnoticed.

For Office 6, incumbent Nancy Pearlman is being challenged by intellectual property and employment attorney Robert Nakahiro. Pearlman, a longtime environmentalist who produces nonprofit radio and TV programming, is running largely on what she describes as her leadership in pushing green construction in the district’s $5.6-billion bond program.

“I helped define the issues” of environmental sustainability at the district, said Pearlman, 61, of L.A.’s Crestview neighborhood, a former part-time instructor at Harbor and West Los Angeles colleges who was elected to the board in 2001.

Nakahiro, 47, of Montecito Heights, said his interest in community college stems from his undergraduate days at USC. Credits he picked up at East Los Angeles College helped him graduate in four years, he said.

Nakahiro said he thinks Pearlman has focused too much on environmental issues. He would shift the spotlight to finding money to expand classroom space and broadening course offerings, he said.

“We need leadership to go against the grain and overhaul the whole state budget process,” he said.

Attorney Angela Reddock of Westchester, the Office 2 incumbent, faces auditor Tina Park, who in 2004 moved to Los Angeles from New York.

Appointed to the board in 2007, Reddock, 39, said she has aggressively tackled student performance issues. Calculating transfer rates is controversial, but even by the district’s measure, only 42% of its students who prepare themselves for a four-year college degree achieve their goal.

“Our numbers are not where they should be,” said Reddock, who ran unsuccessfully in 2005 for Los Angeles City Council. “But with the programs that are being put in place, we’ll see far better numbers by next year.”

Reddock, who practices employment and labor law, said she also is working to bring course quality up to the level of a Cal State or UC school. “That’s mostly the case, but we still have some work to do about that,” she said.

Park, 33, a former New York Stock Exchange auditor, said she started her college career at community college before transferring to Hofstra University, where she earned a degree in accounting.

She said that the district’s internal auditing is not up to industry standards and that she would beef up vocational classes, sports programs and music courses.

The trustees are elected at large to the seven-member board for four-year terms beginning July 1. They earn $2,000 a month if they attend meetings regularly.

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gale.holland@latimes.com