Three seats on the Santa Barbara City College board of trustees will be on the ballot for the November general election.
As part of Noozhawk’s Nov. 3 election coverage, we are publishing Q&As with board candidates for some special districts and education districts, including the SBCC board of trustees.
Candidate answers may have been lightly edited for spelling and formatting, but are otherwise presented as they were submitted.
In Area No. 2 representing Goleta, incumbent Robert Miller will compete for the seat against Ronald J. Liechti.
In Area No. 3 representing areas of Santa Barbara, incumbent Veronica Gallardo will face off against Erin Guereña.
In Area No. 4 representing areas of Santa Barbara, Anna Everett and Celeste Barber are vying to fill the seat held by current trustee Craig Nielsen, who is not seeking re-election.
The trustees represent the residents of the seven SBCC districts on Santa Barbara County’s South Coast — from Goleta to Carpinteria — in determining policies and making decisions governing the total operations of the entire district and the college.
The members are elected by voters in the individual districts, and serve 4-year terms.
The SBCC campus is located at 721 Cliff Drive.
Hosted by the SBCC Foundation, candidates for the Santa Barbara City College board of trustees will participate in an virtual forum at 4 p.m. on Thursday.
The public is welcome to attend the online forum by registering in advance. Click here for more information.
SBCC Board of Trustee Area No 2
Ronald J. Liechti
Noozhawk: Why are you running?
Liechti: I’ve lived in our Santa Barbara community for 30 years. My family attends SBCC. Our son earned three degrees there, and our daughter plans to engage in the Dual Enrollment program.
We care about the school. I care so much I want to be on the team that guides SBCC in navigating the challenges it faces. My skill set and career experience will benefit SBCC. I bring the qualities that SBCC needs in a public servant: a sense of civic duty, servant leadership, a desire to help others, and an ability to engage on tough areas.
Like my neighbors, colleagues, and friends in this community, I believe in public education. I am successful today thanks to the public education I received from kindergarten through the university. I’m grateful for the opportunities I gained from public education, and I want to make sure public education is there for current and future generations in our beautiful city.
When parents and friends saw the current incumbent was in the race unopposed, they asked me to run. I believe our democracy is better served when the voters are given choice. My sense of civic duty compels me to cross the line from concerned citizen to candidate.
Noozhawk: What personal and/or work experience would you bring to the organization?
Liechti: I believe that I bring the expert skills, professional experience and temperament to serve as a successful member of the board of trustees.
I have experience serving on executive boards, steering committees and volunteer organizations.
I’m past president of the Administrative Fire Services Section of the California Fire Chiefs Association, having recently served on its executive board for three years, and currently membership committee coordinator.
I also serve as a member of the Santa Barbara Unified School District’s Citizen Bond Oversight Committee. I volunteer my time to serve because this committee position is a great fit for my budget and financial experience.
I’m a degreed accountant, earned my CPA (certified public accountant) certificate, and have worked a 35-year professional career. I’m still working.
I’ve been a Santa Barbara City official for over 20 years.
My expertise spans government, finance, public safety, and management.
I’ve been an effective leader in these areas:
» In creating and monitoring complex $30 million budgets.
» In financial reporting, analysis and presentation.
» In having spending authority and making large purchasing decisions.
» In strategic planning and policy implementation.
» In office and administration management.
» In emergency preparedness and response.
» In writing grant proposals that obtained funding for projects in excess of $1 million.
» In personnel and hiring.
All this demonstrates that I’ve already maintained a long record of fiduciary responsibility to the public. I’ve been in charge of public funds for many years, and have an impeccable record of accountability, performance and success.
Noozhawk: What do you see as the top issue facing the district right now, and how would you address it?
Liechti: The top issue is the structurally unbalanced budget. SBCC will continue to have annual fiscal convulsions until it is placed in sound financial condition.
There are plenty of important unknowns at the present time that have a direct impact on the budget. For example, COVID-19 has affected enrollment unfavorably. Also, SBCC is dependent on the state of California’s allocations, and these haven’t been enacted yet.
I would favor enhancing revenues and controlling costs until the budget deficit is successfully eliminated.
Click here for more information on Liechti.
Robert K. Miller
Noozhawk: Why are you running?
Miller: I seek re-election to represent Goleta on the SBCC board of trustees because community colleges perform a critical role in reversing the widening equity, wage and achievement gaps in this country. And I want to help SBCC do its part.
SBCC welcomes all students, no matter their background. SBCC aims to help every student succeed, especially students from disadvantaged, marginalized and unrepresented backgrounds, many of whom represent the first generation in their family to attend college.
I also seek re-election because SBCC is a tremendous resource to our community, and I want it to remain so.
SBCC provides a skilled work force for our local economy. It provides opportunities for affordable, quality education and training to everyone in our community, whether seeking an associate in arts certificate, pursuing a path to a four-year college, improving vocational opportunities, enhancing life skills or seeking a GED (general educational development).
Every local high school graduate can pursue their education goals at SBCC at no cost for fees, books or supplies, thanks to the SBCC Foundation’s Promise Program.
Noozhawk: What personal and/or work experience would you bring to the organization?
Miller: I serve as a volunteer legal mediator for the Santa Barbara Superior Court. I retired in 2015 from a national law firm, where I practiced civil litigation for 31 years. I tried cases in many federal and state courts across the country.
The strengths I bring to my position as a trustee derive primarily from my background in public service and the law. During my years as a successful trial lawyer, I developed the skills necessary to absorb and analyze complex factual and legal matters in order present them to juries in a coherent fashion.
At the same time, I was very involved in the management of my law firm as it grew from 14 lawyers and two offices to over 200 lawyers in 13 offices across the country.
I have been actively involved in community activities in Goleta and Santa Barbara County. In 2015, I formed the Westside Goleta Coalition to oppose construction of a new California Highway Patrol facility in our neighborhood.
I have actively supported candidates for political office in Goleta and Santa Barbara County. I served on the Goleta Planning Commission from January 2017 until July 2020. I resigned in order to devote more time to my responsibilities at SBCC.
I participated in and/or led several activities to protect our environment, including efforts to end Venoco’s operation of its Ellwood Onshore Facility, close down NRG’s power plant in western Goleta, prohibit oil trains through Santa Barbara County, obtain better protection from H2S releases in western Goleta, and establish community choice energy programs.
I was elected the first president of my 101-unit homeowners’ association. I served on the HOA board from March 2016 until July 2020.
Prior to law school, I served in the Peace Corps, worked as a congressional assistant, managed a U.S. Senate campaign, and served as deputy assistant secretary of refugee affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Noozhawk: What do you see as the top issue facing the district right now, and how would you address it?
Miller: The unprecedented financial challenges resulting from COVID-19 present the most important issues facing SBCC. Washington has mismanaged the fight against COVID-19 and failed to provide sufficient funds to local and state governments to make up for the massive tax revenue losses directly attributable to the sudden economic decline in business and employment.
The state of California now faces more than a $50 billion deficit instead of a $4 billion surplus as originally budgeted. Most of our projected $4.9 million deficit in the 2020-21 budget can be attributed to the decline in state funding. The significant loss in tuition from the decline in out of state and international students can also be attributed to COVID-19 and Washington’s failure to respond appropriately.
No one can predict with any certainty when life will return to normal. Some estimate it will take years for the economy to return it pre-pandemic condition. Thus, the budget challenges we now face may very well be with us for many years to come, and we must act accordingly.
On Oct. 8, 2020, the board adopted SBCC’s 2020-21 budget, which forecasts deficit of $4.9 million. I voted in favor of the budget. At the same meeting, the board asked the administration to balance the budget in two years while maintaining prudent reserves. I also supported these requests.
At the Oct. 8 meeting, Dr. (Utpal) Goswami presented the administration’s strategy to achieve these goals. As 90% of the budget is personnel related, the challenges are significant and cost cutting decisions will not be easy or pain free.
The strategy includes “anticipated budget stabilization actions,” such as greater instructional efficiencies, increased class sizes, reductions in operating costs, and most likely the elimination of some staff and administration positions. It may also be necessary to eliminate some programs.
On the revenue side, we will seek to restore the loss of nonresident enrollment, which has steadily declined in recent years, and most dramatically this year as a direct result of COVID-19. We are also facing demographic changes, which predict a further negative impact on total enrollment.
I support the administration’s strategy to balance the budget in two years. I also support that administrations goal to make cuts in a strategic way. But unless and until state funding and enrollment numbers return to pre-pandemic levels, we will continue to face these financial challenges.
Click here for more information on Miller.
SBCC Board of Trustee Area No. 3
Erin Guereña
Noozhawk: Why are you running?
Guereña: I am a lifelong resident of Santa Barbara, a SBCC alum, and a small business owner. As a stilled barber and entrepreneur, I am excited to bring that perspective to the board focused on tangible job skills and the trades to strengthen our local economy.
SBCC is an invaluable community resource and I am committed to improving programs and services that enable student achievement and equitable access. I want to ensure that SBCC provides programs that meet the needs of local residents and our local business community.
Noozhawk: What personal and/or work experience would you bring to the organization?
Guereña: I am a former SBCC student, and I own and operate Haven Barber and Shop in town with my husband. I decided to forgo the university route and pursue a skilled trade and entrepreneurship. I have an intimate knowledge of vocational training programs in the region, and I bring a valuable vocational perspective to the board.
Managing my own small business, I understand budget, staffing and resource/time allocation. I am interested in learning and listening to community members, students, faculty and staff. I also volunteer with Padres Unidos, a local nonprofit that advocates for equity in education.
Noozhawk: What do you see as the top issue facing the district right now, and how would you address it?
Guereña: Declining enrollment and its impact on the budget is the top issue facing the district. It means that as a college, we are not serving the needs of our community correctly; either by not being innovative enough providing programs relevant to local residents and businesses, or not be effective in our marketing, or not providing the right resources for our students to enroll in meaningful programs and graduate.
The solution is not to continue to cut the budget, but to reorganize and invest in programs that students want and need to obtain transfer credits to a four-year school, or vocational training and job skills for today’s economy.
Historically, during an economic downturn such as we are experiencing in the wake of the pandemic, people turn to educational institutions like SBCC to help with job training and retraining.
We need to provide those vocational programs, and make sure they are relevant to our local economy. One area to improve is our automotive technology program to address the changing need for cars of the future, and to create a cannabis certification program in collaboration with the local industry, to create better trained individuals who will then get better paying jobs.
Veronica Gallardo
Noozhawk: Why are you running?
Gallardo: I envision that SBCC can support our students and community members to become financially independent, provide the upward mobility to lift families out of poverty, support entrepreneurship and innovation, as well as support families and their children attain certificates, degrees, and transfer to four-year institutions.
Noozhawk: What personal and/or work experience would you bring to the organization?
Gallardo: I’ve worked in public education institutions for two decades. I hold a master of science in literacy and reading, a bachelor of arts in English literature, a California multiple subject teaching credential, a California reading specialist credential, an administrative credential, and associate in arts degrees in English, Spanish, and liberal arts.
I am committed to improving the educational trajectory of students to reach their full potential. I have worked as a teacher in our local public first grade and kindergarten classrooms for over a decade. In order to further support students, families, and the entire educational community in Santa Barbara, I recently started my own business that offers literacy services.
I am the third oldest of seven children, and I moved to Santa Barbara upon graduation from high school to attend SBCC. That’s where I met my husband. I have been a resident and now homeowner in this beautiful community for over 20 years. I love Santa Barbara and always have.
Noozhawk: What do you see as the top issue facing the district right now, and how would you address it?
Gallardo: We will have to reduce college spending by $3.5 million in the next two years in order to support our programs that award certificates, degrees, and help students transfer. We have a very focused and intelligent college president who is committed to equity and student success, and I am running to serve another term on this board to support those efforts.
I am prepared to work alongside our college president to address budgets given COVID-19. I just completed a five session series, NALEO Virtual Policy Institute for School Board Members: Sustaining School Districts Through a Financial Crises, hosted through Georgetown University.
Click here for more information on Gallardo.
SBCC Board of Trustee Area No. 4
Anna Everett
Noozhawk: Why are you running?
Everett: I am a first-generation college student whose higher education journey began at a community college, and my bachelor of arts and master of arts degrees are from two of California’s excellent public universities.
I returned to my public school roots after getting a PhD, and became an award-winning professor of media studies at UC Santa Barbara. I retired in July 2019 after 22 years.
All my professional successes are due to my start at a community college. Thus, I can be an effective role model for city college students who come from low-income backgrounds and might see themselves in my example.
Additionally, my higher education experiences as a faculty member, an administrator in diversity and inclusion, and as a center director are what I bring to SBCC’s board of trustees. My background, training, and skills prepare me for SBCC’s profound challenges at this particular moment of societal reckoning with systemic racism and criminal justice reform, and the devastations of COVID-19.
Noozhawk: What personal and/or work experience would you bring to the organization?
Everett: First, I am an educator, and a proud product of the California public education system. And as a SBCC trustee, I will bring my 22 years of experience at UC Santa Barbara as a professor and successful administrator.
In addition to being a UC President’s fellow and a UCSB outstanding teacher, I won awards and honors from the Fulbright Senior Scholars, the Ford and McArthur Foundations, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
Also, I am deeply involved in our community as a commissioner and former chair of the Santa Barbara County Commission for Women, a participant in the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, the Karpeles Manuscript Museum, Girls, Inc., The Public Square Organization, the Santa Barbara Women’s March, the Her Festival, and more.
I will bring all this experience, commitment, and connections to City College.
Noozhawk: What do you see as the top issue facing the district right now, and how would you address it?
Everett: Critical now is addressing the matter of transforming the campus climate and culture, beginning at the top, whereby the superintendent/president, the trustees and the upper administration are clear that the students, faculty and staff grievances and concerns around diversity and inclusion are heard and honored with concrete action, including living up to SBCC’s resolution 18, and the 2019 summary report on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
My goal is producing tangible outcomes such as fair job opportunities, pay equity, collective bargaining, anti-racist behavioral codes, etc. I will draw on my management experiences with confronting issues of racial, gender, sexual identity, ageism, ableism, and class discrimination, which grows out of my work history and scholarship as UCSB’s interim associate vice chancellor for diversity, equity and academic policy.
I mean to be a vocal champion for SBCC’s LGBTQ+ community’s equal and respectful treatment. Unisex and transgender bathrooms must be part of the campus accommodations.
I support SBCC’s compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) mandating access to buildings, computer programs and other services for the campus’differently abled community.
Click here for more information on Everett.
Celeste Barber
Noozhawk: Why are you running?
Barber: I am running because I want the focus of this college restored to education, and not politics. The point of American education is to draw people together: not to divide us.
The glory of the American public school, including colleges and universities, is to break down cultural barriers. In fact, SBCC was honored as Aspen’s top community college nationally precisely because this school’s mission has always been student success, especially for students with great challenges. Their achievement is our achievement.
Noozhawk: What personal and/or work experience would you bring to the organization?
Barber: I taught in the English department for 20 years (1995-2015). Early on, I learned of a nationally recognized program developed at Wilbur Wright College, Chicago: the Great Books Curriculum.
The program introduces students to the classical works of Western and world cultures through theme-based courses. The GBC is especially designed for students who may never have been exposed to the core readings.
I was given permission to develop a GBC program here, and served as its coordinator until I retired. Eventually, I received a wonderful grant from the Apgar Foundation, which allowed me to expand the program to include Middle College and Santa Barbara high students through the fall semester “Great Read” series of events, including an essay contest.
I recall the time when the distinguished scholar, Stanley Lombardo, read passages of his translation of Homer’s Odyssey to an audience gathered in the Santa Barbara Art Museum’s beautiful atrium.
In 2014, the faculty selected me for city college’s nomination for the Hayward Award for Excellence in Education.
Noozhawk: What do you see as the top issue facing the district right now, and how would you address it?
Barber: I would have to say it’s racism, specifically as it affects black Americans. There is no issue more pressing, both on our own campus and in the community, as well as across the nation.
The greatest double-threat to minority communities is poverty and educational inequity. The way out of poverty has historically been through our country’s commitment to public education.
Every year, city college is recognized as a top, or the top, city college in our state. Yet, our local public schools have abysmal statistics year after year after year. And, a high percentage of our local community lives in deep poverty, just a mile or two from some of the most affluent neighborhoods in the country.
This is reflected in the seemingly intractable achievement gap. McKinley School is directly across the street from City College. The school’s most recent assessment scores tested out at 29% language arts proficiency and 9.5% math.
I would like to see a greater connection of the college to our local schools. We need to be there, in the classrooms as partners. Get our local students in the college mindset years before they enter high school.
High School graduation becomes not the end, but a stepping stone: to that transfer degree, CTE (career and technical education), or vocational program.
Click here for more information on Barber.
Click here to read more stories in the Noozhawk Election 2020 section.
— Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at bholland@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
