College Trustees Divided on Regional Voting Plan

Trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District are divided on legislation that would have them run for election in regions, rather than the current at-large system. Both sides are lobbying the governor this week.

Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) said his bill, which passed the Assembly in June and the Senate this week, would make it easier for minorities to win seats on the college board. In addition, more than $700,000 in election costs could be saved each election year by eliminating districtwide runoffs starting in 1991, Polanco said.

However, four of the seven college trustees, including board President Lindsay Conner, oppose the measure. They say the proposed change would make trustees into parochial representatives of certain colleges and end their ability to take a wider view of the whole nine-campus system.

Gov. George Deukmejian is leaning toward a veto because he fears that the college board would “break down into ward politics,� Peter Mehas, the governor’s education adviser, said Wednesday. But the governor will study the bill further because of an appeal from Polanco, Mehas said.

Opponents of the Polanco measure stress that recent at-large elections have brought minorities to the college board: a Latino, David Lopez-Lee; an Asian, Julia Wu, and a black, Althea Baker, in addition to four Anglos, Wallace Knox, Harold Garvin, Patrick Owens and Conner.

Dividing the seats into regions could backfire, they claim, by forcing Baker into a risky race in the overwhelmingly white Woodland Hills area where she lives and by not creating any strongly Asian region.

Polanco dismisses such objections as “really off the wall� and as shallow covers for trustees’ political fears of facing neighborhood-based challengers. He said the lower campaign costs in regional elections would lessen the influence of the teachers’ union and encourage political novices.

The assemblyman cited a U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this year which found that at-large elections in Watsonville in Northern California unconstitutionally diluted the voting strength of Latinos. He also stressed that the Los Angeles City Council and the Los Angeles Unified School District Board are divided by election regions.

Lopez-Lee said he supports the bill because trustees elected by area would be able to take more sharply definded stands on issues and be more responsive to a smaller group of constituents. Garvin said he supports it because of the projected cost-savings on elections.

According to Lopez-Lee, some trustees oppose the measure because it could limit their options to run for higher office. Under the current at-large system, a trustee can move his residence into a more desirable legislative district without appearing to be a carpetbagger, he explained.

Trustees Conner, Wu, Baker and Owens are against the change.