LOCAL ELECTIONS / COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD : Money, Power and Education at Issue in Races for 3 Seats

In the spring of 1989, auto repair teacher Patrick Owens upset a union-backed aide to Mayor Tom Bradley to win a seat on the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees.

Four years later, the maverick Owens is fighting for political survival in the April 20 municipal primary. Leading the pack of seven challengers are a labor lawyer who is married to the board president, and a Latino businessman with strong support in the San Fernando Valley.

The crowded field makes the battle for Owens’ seat the liveliest of the races for three slots on the seven-member board. The two other incumbents seeking reelection, Lindsay Conner and Althea Baker, have drawn fewer opponents and are endorsed by the American Federation of Teachers College Guild and a host of local political leaders.

With Gov. Pete Wilson proposing to triple fees and cut funding to the state’s 107 two-year colleges by about 11%, budget and spending questions are dogging the races. The board’s recent 4-3 decision to sell a district-owned building and lease another for administrative headquarters also has become a major campaign issue.

The traditionally low voter turnout for community college district races heightens the influence of the college union’s endorsement. The guild can marshal its members--district teachers, clerical workers and police officers--to get out the vote and pay for political mailers to voters who are likely to be sympathetic to its cause and candidates.

Campaigning through the mail is expensive but important because of the district’s huge size. The 115,000-student district includes 27 cities, besides Los Angeles, as well as portions of several other communities.

Trustees are elected at large from throughout the nine-campus district. If no candidate in each of the three races wins a majority, the top two vote-getters will meet in a runoff June 8.

When Owens, 58, bucked the guild last time around to win Office No. 2, he had strong backing from fellow faculty members at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. His campaign is reminiscent of his 1989 race, with its underdog-vs.-Establishment theme.

Toting a red, white and blue motorcycle helmet and a black bag plastered with a campaign slogan, Owens strikes a populist pose. At candidate forums, he refers to challenger Elizabeth Garfield as “the person chosen to knock me off the board,” a reference to Garfield’s union backing.

“The guild wants my butt, let’s make no mistake about it,” Owens said at a recent forum.

Owens is often at odds with most of the other board members and with district administrators. He draws support from a small cadre of citizen gadflies who attend most meetings. He has devoted much of his time to trying to develop a network of alumni clubs to promote the colleges.

According to campaign finance statements for the period ending March 6, Owens had received $747 in cash contributions. Most of his money came from $13,609 in loans. He also gave his campaign three motorcycles worth $1,000 as prizes in a fund-raiser.

Garfield, 40, a labor relations lawyer who teaches at Trade-Tech and at UCLA, is endorsed by several local labor groups and many Democratic elected officials. She said she decided to run after the governor proposed a state budget that included heavy cuts for community colleges just as the state is struggling to overhaul its economy and Los Angeles is attempting to recover from last year’s riots.

She said she expects her marriage to Wallace Knox, president of the college board, to be “a non-issue.”

“I believe any woman who is running for public office should be judged on her own merits, Garfield said. “Anyone who knows me knows I have a mind of my own and tremendous accomplishments in my own right.”

Even Garfield’s supporters, however, worry privately that her relationship to Knox could be used against her, especially if she gets into a runoff.

“Beth is highly qualified, and she would be a very effective fighter for the district. But there is a concern that voters may not like the idea that two of the seven board seats would be occupied by members of the same family,” said one supporter, who asked not to be identified.

Records show that Garfield has raised $6,650, including $5,000 she lent her campaign and a $100 contribution from her husband.

Joseph Ortiz, 51, who owns a public relations firm in North Hollywood, has support from several local Democratic and Latino organizations. State Sens. Diane Watson and Art Torres, both Los Angeles Democrats, are honorary co-chairs of his campaign.

A high school dropout who resumed his education in the military, Ortiz attended two district colleges, East Los Angeles and Valley, and has taught vocational education courses at several institutions.

Ortiz said he has dedicated his life to opening doors for society’s disadvantaged. He called for the community colleges, with their low fees and open admissions policies, “to be more assertive in developing innovative methods, materials and systems to prepare the community colleges to meet the educational demands of the 21st Century.”

He reported receiving about $2,200 in contributions, ranging from $100 to $500 each.

Also on the ballot are three students, all of whom are calling for greater student involvement in board decision-making. They are Josh Addison Arce, 17, a senior at Chatsworth High School; Gabriel A. Orosco, 21, a USC accounting major, and Ronald R. Williams, 39, a business major at Cal State L.A.

The other two candidates are Maria Escalante, 50, admissions director at a technical school, who proposed additional taxes for community colleges, and Eric C. Jacobson, 38, who would beef up vocational education and seek funding from alumni and the business community.

In the race for Office No. 4, three-term incumbent Conner is facing a noisy challenge from Xavier Hermosillo, a Latino activist who helped spearhead the costly, unsuccessful attempt to bring the Raiders football team to Irwindale.

Hermosillo, 42, endorsed by Los Angeles Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores and other Republican officials, has castigated the district for its decision to switch headquarters sites. He said the district has acted illegally and wasted money on the switch, accusations which have been vehemently rebutted by district legal and business officials.

At an East Los Angeles College candidates forum, Hermosillo said the predominantly Latino campus has been shortchanged by the board. Conner disagreed, noting that in the latest round of proposed budget cuts East Los Angeles stands to lose 5.7% of its annual spending package, while Pierce College in the Valley is targeted for an 11.6% cut. The average reduction among all nine campuses is 7%. Campus budgets are determined using a board-approved formula based partly on enrollment.

Conner, 37, an attorney and the board’s longest-serving incumbent, said he has helped pare district administrative costs by nearly 50% while finding ways to protect campus courses and other services from the effects of cuts in state funding. He recently won board approval for his proposal to cut administrative budgets even further to more closely match the latest proposed reductions for the colleges.

Conner said his role as president of the California Community College Trustees Assn. gives the district a chance to help shape statewide policy during a crucial period of scarce funding and changing roles for the two-year institutions.

He reported adding $965 in contributions to the $5,777 campaign fund he had on hand previously.

Neither Hermosillo nor the third candidate for the office, Casey Peters, had filed a financial report by the deadline. Peters, 40, is a UCLA library administrative assistant.

For Office No. 6, Baker, a former Mission College counselor and guild negotiator who was elected to the board four years ago, has drawn four challengers. The size of the field, which includes an administrator at Southwest College, makes it unlikely the contest will be settled in the primary.

Stanley Camilla Benson Viltz, 48, dean of academic affairs at Southwest, is running an aggressive campaign, presenting herself as a knowledgeable yet independent insider who will “rid the district of deadlock and drift.” Viltz has often criticized Baker’s guild ties and has a wide network of contacts in the African-American community, including charter membership in Delta Sigma Theta, a national public service sorority. She reported raising $2,319.

Baker, 43, one of two African-Americans on the board, said she is proud of her record of helping foster a spirit of districtwide cooperation to absorb state funding cuts with as little disruption to the colleges as possible.

“We don’t have layoffs, we do have labor peace . . . I feel we must have done something right,” said Baker.

Baker holds degrees in psychology and practices law part time. She reported raising $3,757, nearly all of it from district faculty members and union officials.

Also running are Alice Hilda Lane, 44, a community political consultant; Peter C. Halt, 32, an accountant who was California treasurer of Ross Perot’s presidential campaign, and Fernando del Rio, 61, communications manager for the Southern California Assn. of Governments.