College Boards

The union representing instructors at Ventura County's three community colleges has announced its endorsements for the November election. The local chapter of the American Federation of Teachers is recommending that its members support two challengers and an unopposed incumbent for the governing board of the Ventura County Community College District. In Area 1, where appointed incumbent Karen M.

Pete Tafoya, an outspoken board member of the Ventura County Community College District, has announced his bid for reelection. A former community college student and community college instructor, Tafoya, 45, said his objective for a second term as a trustee is to better manage the district's increasingly strained financial resources. "One of the most critical things we have to do is to keep whatever resources we do have directed toward the classroom," Tafoya said Monday.

A meeting to discuss construction projects at the Ventura County Community College District has been postponed until 11 a.m. Thursday at Camarillo Airport. Among other topics, trustees Norman Nagel and Bob Gonzales, who sit on the college board's construction subcommittee, will discuss awarding paving and construction contracts to build math and science complexes at Ventura and Moorpark colleges. Trustees will meet at the airport's Administration Building, 555 Airport Way.

Barbara G. Hammerman, who was recently reelected to a third term on the North Orange County Community College District Board of Trustees, was elected board president at the annual organizational meeting. The seven-member board governs and determines budgets for Fullerton and Cypress colleges. It also oversees four adult education centers in Anaheim, Yorba Linda, Fullerton and Cypress. Students may also study for their high school diplomas at the adult education centers.

The Ventura County Community College District board has approved a tentative $62.5-million operating budget, reflecting about $1.8 million in cuts, most of them in maintenance and supplies. The tentative 1993-94 fiscal budget, approved unanimously late Tuesday, is based on a district estimate that tax revenues allocated from the state will be reduced by 2.2% compared to the last fiscal year, officials said.

The Ventura County Community College District board will vote next week on a contract that was ratified this week by secretaries, maintenance workers and other employees. The proposed three-year contract, ratified by a 4-to-1 margin of the Service Employees International Union Local 535 membership, covers more than 400 district employees who have been working without a contract since July 1, union field representative Gregory Cross said.

Gov. Pete Wilson has appointed a Ventura College business instructor to serve on the policy board for the state's 107 community colleges. Yvonne Gallegos Bodle will join the 15-member Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges for a two-year term. She fills one of two faculty positions. The board, which meets once a month, appoints the community college system chancellor and distributes state general fund money to California's two-year campuses.

More than 20 people have expressed interest in being appointed as a trustee on the Cerritos Community College District board to fill a portion of the term left vacant by board President Barbara J. Hayden, who was recently elected to the Downey City Council. The Cerritos College board voted last week to appoint a trustee to fill 15 months of Hayden's remaining 3 1/2-year term. The balance of the term will be filled in the November, 1989, election.

The Glendale Community College Board of Trustees has elected Kenneth Sweetnam president for the second time in five years. Sweetnam, a trustee since 1981, was unanimously voted president of the five-member board, replacing Robert Holmes, who headed the board for two consecutive years. A retired professor of telecommunications at UCLA, Sweetnam lives in La Crescenta.

Trustees of the Ventura County Community College District failed to meet a Dec. 3 deadline for filling a vacancy on their board, thus forcing a June 6 special election. The four trustees had been deadlocked after several 2-2 votes in a bitter battle over who should fill the seat, which was vacated by trustee Fernando Elizondo on Oct. 4. Under state law, trustees had 60 days from the time of the resignation to fill the position.