Update: Grossmont-Cuyamaca College Board OKs Elections by District; Garrett Still President

Updated at 11:50 a.m. Thursday

Incumbent board members Mary Kay Rosinski and Bill Garrett will be the first to face election by districts in the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District as a result of unanimous board action taken Tuesday night.

Beginning in 2012, all five trustees will be selected by voters in their own districts instead of districtwide, the board voted in El Cajon. The vote is the latest by school districts statewide to avert potential lawsuits.

Anne Krueger, a district spokeswoman, said Wednesday that no such lawsuits have been filed or threatened against Grossmont-Cuyamaca.

The five trustee areas are:

• District 1: Santee, Winter Gardens and Lakeside (incumbent Edwin Hiel)
• District 2: La Mesa, Mt. Helix, Casa de Oro and Rancho San Diego (incumbent Debbie Justeson)
• District 3: El Cajon (incumbent Garrett)
• District 4: rural East County, including Alpine and most of Jamul, all the way to the Imperial County line (incumbent Rosinski)
• District 5: Lemon Grove, La Presa, Rancho San Diego, Spring Valley and a small portion of Jamul (incumbent Greg Barr)

No member of the public commented on the new election process at either of two hearings, Krueger said. The board made no comment either Tuesday night, she said.

Trustees had been elected at-large by voters in the district that stretches from El Cajon, La Mesa, Lemon Grove and Santee to the Imperial County line.

District elections in the more than 1,100-square-mile East County district will begin with the June 2012 primary—when Rosinski and Garrett are the first to see their terms up.

If no candidate receives a majority of the votes cast, the top two vote-getters in the primary will face each other in the November 2012 general election.

Krueger said the college district is one of many public agencies revising their elections process to comply with the California Voting Rights Act of 2001.

District elections help ensure that minority populations are equitably represented at the voting booth, she said.

“The college district hired consultants from National Demographics Corp. to draw up the maps creating five trustee areas with approximately equal populations,” she said.

Meanwhile, the governing board unanimously selected Garrett to serve a fifth term as president, while Rosinski and Hiel were elected to serve as fellow board officers for 2012.

Garrett has served since 2008 as board president for the East County district, with about 30,000 students at Grossmont and Cuyamaca colleges. Rosinski was elected board vice president and Hiel was selected as board clerk at Tuesday’s board meeting.

Praising what he called a mutually supportive relationship developed over the years with administration, faculty and staff, Garrett said cohesiveness in the district is critical in these times of economic duress.

 “The outlook for the state budget remains grim this coming year and we are not likely to see any relief as students contend with higher fees and reduced course offerings, and employees do their best to maintain the same level of service, despite fewer resources,” Garrett said.

“But even today, as the governor confirmed our worst projections for debilitating midyear funding cuts, this board and this district are committed to maintaining a solid educational program. Our first priority remains to provide the classes and services our students need.”

Almost 465,000 people live in the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District, with about 90 percent of them living west of Alpine.

According to the 2010 census, the district is 60 percent white, 25 percent Hispanic, 7 percent African-American, 5 percent Asian and 3 percent other.

In drawing the boundary lines, the consultants considered factors including already established communities such as the East County cities, natural boundaries such as canyons or highways, and creating trustee areas with compact, contiguous territory as much as possible.

Former Assemblyman Rod Pacheco, once a district attorney for Riverside County, explained the reasons for the change in a Union-Tribune op-ed column in March.

“The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, a San Francisco-based advocacy group, has been aggressively seeking city and district compliance with the California Voting Rights Act, a 2002 law that makes it illegal to disenfranchise minority groups from the electoral process,” Pacheco wrote.

The law stems from claims that "at-large" elections allowed non-minority voting blocs to dominate the process, he wrote, continuing:

The lawyers group has filed at least five lawsuits challenging local election processes, they say, effectively block Latinos from being elected. The group's efforts have been aided by Supreme Court decisions upholding the voters' rights law.

Boosted by the successful challenge of the Madera Unified School District's board election in 2008 and threats of additional lawsuits, school districts statewide have been spurred to examine ways to reform their election processes.