Past change, he seeks four more years

Andrew Edwards

The longest-serving school board member in Huntington Beach wants

another four years on the job.

Armando Ruiz has represented Surf City on the Coast Community

College District Board of Trustees since 1983, and he looks back on

his two decades with the college district, which includes Golden West

College in Huntington Beach, as a time of continual improvement.

“From 1983 to 2004, if I could say there has been a change,

there’s been a 1,000% change, and it’s positive.”

Ruiz said when he joined the district, the colleges were in

turmoil, teachers and staffers were being laid off and enrollments

were down.

Though community colleges, like public schools across the state,

have had to weather the difficulties posed by the state’s fiscal

problems, Ruiz maintains an upbeat mood for the colleges’ future, and

often points to the 2002 passage of Measure C, a $370-million bond

for facilities improvements at the colleges, as a sign of local

confidence in the colleges.

“We’re financially stable, and we have the trust of the community

again,” he said.

During his run for reelection, Ruiz has faced criticism over

speculation that he will retire from his trusteeship and counselor’s

post at Irvine Valley College on the same day, allowing him to take

advantage of a loophole in state law that would double his pension to

about $120,000 per year. Ruiz has not revealed his plans, and said

when he will retire is between himself and his financial advisor. If

he chooses to retire, he said, the Orange County Registrar of Voters

has allowed him to run as an incumbent, and since absentee voters are

already casting ballots, he is not misleading voters.

“I’m an incumbent right now, people are voting right now,” he

said.

Ruiz hails from El Paso, Texas, where as a high school student he

lettered in football, basketball and baseball in addition to singing

in choir and serving in student government. He stayed in his hometown

to go to college at the University of Texas, El Paso before moving to

California in 1967. His first post-college job was teaching special

education classes for the Orange Unified School District, and he went

back home during summers to earn his master’s degree, which he

obtained in 1969.

In 1974, he became a counselor at El Camino College in Torrance,

and eventually returned to Orange County to advise students at

Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges. As a counselor, he said he is

inspired by his active youth to encourage students to live lives that

they can always look forward to.

“One of the things that I’ve always told my students, when you get

up in the morning, you want to go to school, when you go to work, you

want to work,” he said.

Ruiz also served on the California Community College Trustees

board of directors from 1989 to 1999, and he said while on that body,

he opposed charging tuition at community colleges. Now, he wants to

keep fees at the colleges as low as possible.

“My philosophy is, it’s a right of each individual to attain any

level of education,” Ruiz said. “It’s not a privilege, it’s a right.”

Ruiz’s efforts to keep fees down, while keeping student access and

diversity up, were significant achievements, said David Viar,

executive director of the Community College League of California.

“He kept the focus on students and keeping the programs’

accessible,” Viar said. “His fight for keeping fees low is a big

accomplishment.”