Trustees

Gabriel Buelna is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 6.

(Gabriel Buelna)

Name: Gabriel Buelna

Age: 54

Occupation that appears on the ballot: member of the board of trustees, Los Angeles Community College District, Seat 6

Website: https://www.buelna4laccd.com/

Experience: Buelna serves on the board. He also is an attorney and teaches history and political science at Cal State Northridge. He previously led Plaza Community Services, a nonprofit that provides education, health and other services to children and families.

“I bring an unusual combination of personal, professional and governing experience,” he said. “I understand higher education from several perspectives — as an educator, a policymaker and someone who has spent much of his career working with families facing economic and social barriers.”

District challenges: “Our biggest challenge is not simply getting students through the door. It is making sure they can afford to remain enrolled, complete their education and translate that education into economic opportunity.” Among the barriers Buelna cited were the high cost of housing, food insecurity and child care.

Buelna said the board also must conduct strong fiscal oversight of the billions in voter-approved bond funds. “The board has a responsibility to ensure those resources are spent transparently, responsibly and in ways that produce measurable benefits for students,” he said.

Priorities: Buelna said his priorities include addressing student affordability, better connecting education to economic opportunity and “removing barriers to access and completion.”

He said the district needs to “move aggressively to implement” its commitment of up to $500 million for affordable student and staff housing and “strengthening food assistance, mental-health services and other basic-needs programs.” Buelna said the district also needs to expand career technical education and paid internships, while “strengthening transfer pathways for students seeking four-year degrees.”

In addition, he wants to expand multilingual education and support for working adults and students with families while “protecting immigrant and undocumented students.”

Budget: Buelna would continue to advocate for state and federal funds as well as community partnerships that bring additional resources to the colleges. He said the district also must scrutinize its own spending, including ensuring “major construction and capital projects are completed responsibly.”

“LACCD must be both an advocate for greater investment in community colleges and a responsible steward of the resources taxpayers have already provided,” he said.

Student enrollment and success: “We need to design our colleges around the students we actually serve rather than expecting students to adapt to unnecessary institutional barriers,” he said.

“LACCD students include recent high school graduates, working adults, immigrants, parents, first-generation college students and people returning to school for new skills. Their barriers are different, so our solutions must be flexible.”

Tonia Arey is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 6.

(Tonia Arey)

Name: Tonia Arey

Age: 56

Occupation that appears on the ballot: realtor

Website: https://toniaarey.com/

Experience: In June, Arey ran unsuccessfully to represent District 3 on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, a campaign that allowed her to travel throughout the district to hear the concerns of constituents. “My experience in real estate, public advocacy and community engagement has taught me how to listen, solve problems, manage complex transactions, and hold people accountable,” she said. As a realtor, she said she handles contracts, budgets, negotiations, legal requirements and competing interests — helpful skills in a trustee role.

District challenges: “The biggest challenges facing the Los Angeles Community College District are campus safety, student success and career readiness, and accountability to students, employees, and taxpayers,” she said.

Arey would work to implement campus safety plans, support additional academic advising and career education and more “closely examine spending, contracts, program outcomes and administrative costs to ensure resources reach classrooms and directly support students.”

“Although LACCD is a four-year term, there are no term limits and current trustees can no longer be trusted,” she said.

Priorities: She cited campus safety, student success and career readiness, accountability and respect for employees.

Budget: Arey would review the district’s budget to “identify waste, duplication and spending that does not directly improve student outcomes” and said “cost reductions should begin with unnecessary administrative expenses, not classroom instruction, campus safety, counseling or essential student services.”

She‘d work to strengthen the competitive bidding process for contracts and work to ensure the district’s construction bond program is effectively managed. On the revenue side, she’d work to pursue government grants, raise money from donors and “explore responsible uses of underutilized district property.” She‘d also look at ways to boost enrollment, since state funding is tied to the number of students served.

Student enrollment and success: Arey would work to make “enrollment simpler, faster, and easier to navigate” and do more to help students who enter the classroom.

That includes flexible class offerings, basic needs assistance, robust counseling and the use of data to understand where students are falling through the cracks.

Randall Winston is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 6.

(Randall Winston)

Name: Randall Winston

Age: 44

Occupation that appears on the ballot: architect

Website: https://www.randalljwinston.com/

Experience: Winston, a licensed architect and attorney, serves as Los Angeles’ deputy mayor of infrastructure and climate resilience under Mayor Karen Bass. This fall he is teaching a class in public sector leadership skills at West Los Angeles College and said he’s also lectured at UCLA and mentored graduate students.

Under former Gov. Jerry Brown, Winston ran the California Strategic Growth Council, which helps fund sustainable development.

District challenges: Winston listed enrollment and the inability of students to afford basic needs as major challenges. Citing the district’s $5.3-billion bond-funded construction program he said: “Every dollar lost to delays, litigation or fraud is a dollar not reaching students and the faculty and staff who serve them.”

Priorities: Winston’s priorities for the district include ensuring colleges are a pathway to opportunity and good jobs, students can afford basic needs and people historically shut out of higher education are let in.

All colleges should partner with labor and employers to offer apprenticeships and “family-sustaining union careers,” he said, and the district should expand dual enrollment to allow more high school students to earn college credit. He also cited a need to provide more support to groups like veterans and first-generation students.

Budget: Winston said boosting enrollment to increase state funding is the “most direct” way to increase revenue. He‘d also pursue other government funding as well as employer and philanthropic partnerships. There also needs to be “rigorous” oversight of the district’s construction program, he said.

“What I won’t do is balance budgets on instruction or on the people who deliver it,” he said. “Classrooms, faculty and staff come first.”

Student enrollment and success: Winston said most barriers to enrollment and student success are “logistical, not academic.” He‘d push to “invest in simplified onboarding, proactive advising and better counselor ratios.”

“Students who connect with a counselor early are far more likely to finish, and our counselors are stretched too thin to reach everyone who needs them,” he said.

Name: Roberto David LaCarra

Occupation that appears on the ballot: community college professor

Did not reply.

Nancy Pearlman is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.

(Nancy Pearlman)

Name: Nancy Pearlman

Age: 78

Website: https://www.nancypearlman.net/

Occupation that appears on the ballot: environmentalist/anthropologist/educator

Experience: Pearlman says she served on the board of trustees from 2001 to 2017 and taught part-time at all nine colleges before and after her time on the board.

“I know the needs of part-time faculty, I know what staff wants, and I know what students want and need because I have been involved with the LACCD since I attended City College in 1968,” she said.

District challenges: Pearlman said low enrollment is the biggest challenge, followed by ensuring students are given the necessary support and resources to succeed. She also cited the need make sure faculty receive equal pay and that the district’s construction program remains environmentally sustainable and within budget.

Priorities: Her priorities would be addressing the challenges the district faces and “keeping the chancellor and presidents accountable and working for the community college district mission,” which she described as the main responsibility of the board.

Budget: “Excess spending must be stopped with analysis of how much administration makes versus faculty and staff,” she said. Pearlman supports campus efforts to create foundations for scholarships and lobbying Sacramento and Washington to keep funding, including student aid, at necessary levels.

Student success: Faculty members need to communicate with their students to determine what the student needs to pass their classes, whether it is additional tutoring, “advising them how to be a better student” or giving them textbooks, “which I did from my own pocket when they couldn’t afford them,” she said.

Darryn Harris is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.

(Gloria Mesa)

Name: Darryn Harris

Age: 42

Website: https://darrynharris.com/

Occupation that appears on the ballot: community college educator.

Experience: Harris works as a government and community affairs officer for St. John’s Community Health and recently started teaching a class on student skills at Santa Monica College, which is not an LACCD campus. He also worked at UCLA and in the halls of Congress as an aide to U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles) and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, when she served in the House of Representatives.

“I’ve spent most of my career in public service,” Harris said. “I know how government works, how budgets and policy decisions get made, and how to bring people together when they don’t always agree.”

He wants to hear from students, faculty and staff before big decisions get made — not after. “One of the biggest things I’ve learned is to listen to the people closest to the work,” he said.

District challenges: The high cost of living in L.A. County makes it hard for students to stay in school and more needs to be done to “help more students finish and make sure their education leads somewhere,” he said.

Priorities: Harris wants to tackle the affordability crisis blocking student achievement by building more low-cost housing on district land and making it “easier for students to get help with food, transportation, child care, and other basic needs.” Harris also wants to boost student success through better counseling, transfer support and career training, including partnerships with employers and labor.

Budget: The district needs to “be aggressive” in securing additional partnerships and government funds that “can bring more resources into our colleges,” he said. Prior to cutting classes and student services, he would want to look for savings in “administrative costs, consultants, outside contracts, open positions, and construction spending.”

“We have to look at both sides,” he said. “I want to know what we are spending, why we are spending it, and whether students are actually benefiting from it.”

Student success: Harris would push to make the enrollment process easier and do more to help students finish, including through better counseling and basic needs support. “Then we need to pay attention when someone starts struggling … Reach out early with counseling, tutoring, mentoring, or whatever support they need,” he said.

Adam Bruno is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.

(Adam Bruno)

Name: Adam Bruno

Age: 42

Occupation that appears on the ballot: No listing

Experience: Bruno said he attended community college and as a therapist has counseled children, adults and families. This experience gives him “valuable insight” to understand student needs.

“I know what it’s like to feel neglected by an overburdened system, and I know how difficult transitioning to adult life and seeking higher education can be,” he said. Often high school graduates with learning needs can “feel too intimidated and overwhelmed to apply for college” and others, including adults, “may be unaware that community college is even an option.”

District challenges: The primary challenge is overcoming low enrollment, which Bruno said stems from financial challenges facing students. “It is very hard to focus on school when you’re just trying to survive from one day to the next,” he said.

Priorities: “My top three priorities: increase enrollment, increase accessibility to education for students and help educators feel appropriately supported and compensated.” Bruno said he’d explore student stipends as a way to enable more people to attend community college successfully.

Budget: Bruno would look for additional funding sources through donations and other measures and attempt to use the extra revenue to address financial needs of students.

Student enrollment and success: Both can be improved through additional outreach, counseling and efforts to make college more affordable, he said, so that students can “focus on education rather than being overwhelmed with day-to-day survival.”

Elaine Alaniz is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.

(Elaine Alaniz)

Name: Elaine Alaniz

Age: 45

Website: elainereadytoserve.com

Occupation that appears on the ballot: healthcare workforce specialist

Experience: Alaniz has worked in a number of fields, including healthcare, workforce development, disaster recovery, public administration and film production. She said she received associates’ degrees in film production and fire technology from Los Angeles City College and Los Angeles Valley College and currently serves as a public affairs specialist with the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Disaster Recovery and Resilience.

“Rather than following one narrow professional track, transferable skills have allowed me to adapt across industries and remain employable as circumstances and opportunities changed,” Alaniz said. “That is what I want our students to have.” She recalled that her college professors “who taught me technical and academic skills helped make my own career possible.”

District challenges: Alaniz cited the need to ensure classroom instruction “keeps pace with a rapidly changing workforce” in the age of artificial intelligence and other technologies. She said the district needs to teach those technologies and also give students “the technical, occupational, communication and human skills employers will continue to need.”

“I would expand programs that combine academics with industry-recognized credentials, apprenticeships and hands-on training in healthcare, skilled trades, technology, public safety, logistics, advanced manufacturing, media and other growing sectors … LACCD has an opportunity to become an even stronger bridge between education and employment.”

Priorities: Alaniz wants the district to do more to ensure students are ready for the workforce. Other priorities would be more flexible class schedules and online courses for working adults and parents, and “expanding digital access to required course materials and coursework at little or no additional cost to students wherever feasible.”

“Students who prefer physical textbooks should absolutely retain the option to purchase them, but students who cannot afford a printed book should have another way to access the materials they need to succeed,” she said.

Budget: Alaniz would examine district spending, including on administration and programs with weak enrollment, to identify what works and what does not. “Before asking students or taxpayers for more money, the district should demonstrate that existing resources are producing measurable results,” she said. At the same time, Alaniz said, “LACCD should aggressively pursue appropriate state and federal grants.”

Student enrollment and success: To help students, Alaniz said it’s important to recognize that LACCD serves a diversity of students, including recent high school grads, parents and people changing careers. “I do not believe students should always have to reorganize their entire lives around the institution,” she said. “Sometimes the institution needs to become more responsive to the student.”

The enrollment process needs to be examined, she said, to ensure students are not “being lost between application, financial aid, counseling, registration and their first day of class.”

Name: Isidro J. Armenta
Occupation that appears on the ballot: Fire Department employee

Did not reply. .

Priscilla Umana is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.

(Priscilla Umana)

Name: Priscilla Umana

Age: 43

Occupation that appears on the ballot: American Sign Language educational interpreter

Experience: Umana said her work as an “ASL interpreter in diverse educational environments has given me a firsthand understanding of how different circumstances affect students, faculty, and staff. Through this work, I have developed a deep passion for quality education and for the future of our students.”

District challenges: “One of the biggest challenges facing our community college district is the high percentage of students experiencing housing insecurity, homelessness, and food insecurity. These challenges not only affect students’ quality of life, but also their ability to succeed academically and complete their programs.”

Priorities: Umana said her top three priorities would be affordability, accessibility and community. She would work with the district to expand affordable housing, work-study opportunities and food aid and seek to remove language and disability barriers to make college more accessible. “Education cannot be separated from the basic needs that allow students to participate in it,” she said. “To help students enroll, persist, and graduate, we must provide the stability and support they need.”

She also wants to “build stronger connections between students, faculty and staff” and learn from them how to better foster community. “My goal is to help create community colleges where every student feels supported, included, and empowered to succeed,” she said.

Budget: Umana would review the district’s budget to identify “opportunities to reduce waste while improving services.” This would include examining courses with low enrollment and deciding whether participation can be increased or if money should be redirected to where it’s more needed. She’d also work to raise additional revenue by “partnering with local businesses, nonprofits and entertainment organizations to host campus events, build community partnerships and share proceeds.”

Student enrollment and success: She would work to prioritize “basic needs, accessibility, and clear educational pathways.” She’d do so in part by advocating for expanded financial aid and proactive check-ins with students. “Our goal should be simple: make success easier to navigate and support every step of the way,” she said.

Darryn Harris is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.

(Calabasas Cyber Mine LLC)

Name: Jason R. Aula

Age: 41

Website: www.jasonaula.com

Occupation that appears on the ballot: Business owner/journalist

Experience: Aula said he has worked as a political campaign consultant and has “nearly 10 years experience as a businessman in technology and small share ownerships” in tech firms that use mobile apps for deliveries and transportation, experience that “has given me an understanding of the world today that few have.” Aula also said he has worked with LACCD labor unions “through business” but did not elaborate.

District challenges: Aula alleged one of the biggest issues facing the district is “financial fraud,” and in his answers referenced cases in which fraudsters posed as community college students to steal financial aid. He proposed a moratorium on noncitizens attending LACCD.

Priorities: Aula wanted to address the basic needs of students “in the interests of U.S.A citizens.” He would “increase the diversity of curriculum” to “authentically represent the United States of America citizens and interests.” He would include “protecting athletics funding, football in particular, making new partnerships with Navy to serve the district’s needs, and growing the partnership with law enforcement.”

He also said he wants to “confront pandemic learning loss.”

Budget: Aula said he would make financial deals only “that are in the interests or benefits of U.S.A. citizens.”

Editor’s note: The Times declined to publish much of Aula’s written questionnaire responses, which contained comments, proposals and unsubstantiated accusations dealing with suspected terrorists, the Chinese Communist Party, the Palestinian militant group Hamas and cannibalism.

Steven Veres, 46, is vying to maintain his seat on the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees.

(Courtesy of Steven Veres)

Name: Steven F. Veres

Age: 50

Website: www.steveveres.com

Occupation that appears on the ballot: Los Angeles Community College District, member of the board of trustees

Experience: Veres cited his role as trustee and previous work as a teacher as key experience for another four-year term. Veres also has worked as a state politics adviser, including for Sen. María Elena Durazo. As trustee, he said his work has included strengthening job training programs, improving graduation rates and addressing basic student needs.

“Successful colleges depend on students, faculty, and staff having a meaningful voice in decisions” while the board should “listen, set clear priorities, protect public resources, and give our colleges the support necessary to help students succeed,” he said.

District challenges: The district’s greatest challenge is helping students finish their education, given how many are forced to juggle school with “jobs, housing costs, food insecurity, transportation, and family responsibilities … We need to remove those barriers while making the academic experience easier to navigate,” he said.

Priorities: “First, make college truly affordable. Tuition is only part of the cost. Housing, food, transportation, textbooks and childcare can determine whether a student stays enrolled.

“Second, improve completion and transfer rates. Students deserve clear academic pathways, accessible counseling and course schedules that allow them to earn a degree, certificate or transfer without unnecessary delays. Third, connect education to careers. I want to dramatically expand paid internships, apprenticeships and partnerships with employers and organized labor.

“These priorities reinforce each other: Students are more likely to finish when college is affordable, the path to completion is clear, and they can see the economic value of their education.”

Budget: “Our first responsibility is to use taxpayer dollars efficiently while protecting instruction and student services,” he said. In addition, Veres said that because state funding is based on enrollment, boosting it can be a path to financial stability, along with eliminating unnecessary, duplicative spending across the nine colleges and investing in energy efficiency to cut costs.

“Fiscal responsibility is not simply cutting spending,” he said. “It means directing limited resources toward what produces the greatest value for students and taxpayers.”

Student success: Veres would address barriers to student success and enrollment by pushing to make the application process easier and providing more flexible class schedules — including more evening, weekend, online and hybrid options — for working adults, parents and others. “Our job should not end when a student enrolls. It ends when that student reaches their educational goal,” he said.

Robert Payne is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 2.

(Robert Payne)

Name: Robert Payne

Age: 77

Website: http://payneforlaccd.info/

Occupation that appears on the ballot: researcher/writer/environmentalist

Experience: Payne said he has taught at L.A. Mission College. His education at L.A. Valley College and Cal State Northridge helped prepare him for a career as a writer. He said he has worked on movie crews and ran an import business, among other jobs. Growing up in Pacoima helped him understand the needs of immigrants and “those of diverse backgrounds with limited resources.”

“I went through the [community college] system,” he said. “I know the difficulties. All my ideas come from my direct experience.”

District challenges: Payne cited low enrollment growth as the main challenge. Students also need to see a quicker return on their investment. “Life costs money,” he said. “If students could see immediate advantages to college, the colleges would attract more enrollments.”

He reflected on his own experience when discussing the importance of a quick payback. “I graduated from Cal State Northridge. Nothing I learned at L.A. Valley or Cal State paid off immediately,” he said. “I worked as a janitor, security guard, construction site cleaner. I lucked into a union tech job and I earned my way through graduate school. Years later, the master’s degree finally helped me get work as a ‘professor.’ ”

Priorities: Payne wants to make community colleges “cheaper, faster, better” in part by offering students more training for specific jobs and less expensive online textbooks. He also would support ending student debt.

Budget: He does not support cutting “student opportunities” and said if “the colleges can demonstrate success for the students, enrollment will justify the expense of maintaining the expense of the faculty, the staff, the facilities.”

Student success: Payne wants college to do more to offer “immediate perceived value,” including teaching résumé building, interview skills and how to apply to jobs. He said hiring adjuncts with industry experience could enhance student success.

Kristina Irwin is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 6.

(Yolando Mitchell Brown)

Name: Kristina Irwin

Age: 50

Website: https://kristinairwin.com/

Occupation that appears on the ballot: parent/business owner.

Experience: As a former community college student, Irwin has firsthand knowledge of the L.A. community college student experience.

She serves on the general advisory board at Santa Monica College and said she also served on the board of trustees at her children’s school, Palisades Charter High School, during the Palisades fire. She said she holds a Public Engagement & Civic Leadership Certificate from the Davenport Institute at Pepperdine School of Public Policy.

District challenges: Irwin said the main challenge is preparing young people to advance in college when their earlier schooling failed to give them the tools to succeed.

Priorities: Irwin wants to establish “preentry” programs in every local high school that would prepare students for community college and do more to give educators the resources they need to craft classes that “fit the needs and life limitations of the students.”

Budget: Irwin said alternative streams could be identified to fund “classroom student resources.” She said that as “responsible stewards” of district resources, trustee actions “are often under scrutiny either formally or informally.”

Student success: Irwin wants to address barriers to student success and enrollment by doing more to demonstrate how a community college education can give them the tools necessary to succeed in their chosen career.

Name: Roy Payan

Payan told the Times he suspended his campaign.

Adriana Cabrera is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 2.

(John McCoy/For Los Angeles Times en Espanol)

Name: Adriana Cabrera

Age: 34

Website: https://adrianaforlaccd.com/

Occupation that appears on the ballot: educator

Experience: Cabrera said she attended community college and went on to earn bachelor’s degrees in Chicana/o studies and political science and a master’s in education from Cal State Northridge. She said she also served as president of the Central Alameda Neighborhood Council and co-founded Empowering Youth in South Central, a “grassroots collective of students and educators” that “has supported thousands of first-generation students with college, career, financial-aid, and leadership support.”

“I am not coming into this role to learn higher education after I am elected,” she said. “I have studied it, worked in it, navigated it as a student, built programs within it, worked inside public institutions, and organized communities around it.”

District challenges: Cabrera said student services are too difficult to navigate, too many students struggle to afford basic needs such as housing, and clearer pathways are needed to economic mobility, She said budget decisions also can feel “disconnected” from the staff and students those decisions effect.

Priorities: “My first priority is invest in students first,” she said. Cabrera would do that by making student services easier to navigate and strengthening financial aid and other support, including for food, housing, child care and mental health.

Secondly, Cabrera wants to better connect education to economic mobility through good paying jobs. Lastly, Cabrera would give students, faculty, staff, labor organizations and community members “a meaningful voice before major budget priorities are finalized.”

Budget: Cabrera would review the district’s spending “to make sure existing dollars are being used efficiently” and “identify responsible ways to generate additional revenue without shifting costs onto students.” For instance, renting out underutilized facilities.

Student success: Cabrera would take steps to ensure student services are more readily available and the public has better visibility and say in trustee decisions. “The overall standard I would bring to the board is simple,” she said. “Can students enter LACCD, understand their options, find the support they need, complete their goal, and leave with more opportunity than when they arrived?”