Fifteen people are vying for trustee seats on the Hartnell and MPC community college boards.

It’s a time of uncertainty for Monterey County’s two community colleges. Both are in search of permanent superintendents and are in the midst of a possible change-making election for their boards. The Hartnell Community College District has nine candidates seeking four seats. The Monterey Peninsula College District has six candidates running for three seats, with one incumbent facing a challenger.

The situation at Hartnell has been especially fraught with uncertainty in the last couple of years. After less than a year on the job, former superintendent Patricia Hsieh left abruptly in June; the board then hired Raúl Rodriguez as interim, and in September extended his contract for three years and gave him a pay raise to $310,000, setting his salary higher the president of CSU Monterey Bay.

“It’s ridiculous that this board has offered the president of a community college that kind of money,” says Schileen Potter, who is challenging current Hartnell board chair Aurelio Salazar, Jr. in Area 2.

Salazar defends the pay increase, saying the board tallied the cost of hiring another consultant and finding a new interim, and reasoned it was worth keeping Rodriguez until 2023.

Potter’s other criticisms of Salazar and the board fall in line with union complaints that the board is not responsive to faculty or staff concerns. Potter is married to the faculty union president, but says she is her own person who makes her own decisions.

Salazar claims he’s been responsive: “I don’t set up barriers,” he says. If pulled aside by faculty or staff, “I give them my undivided attention.”

The Hartnell College Faculty Association has endorsed Potter, as well as other challengers seeking to unseat incumbents: Alejandra Gonzalez, facing incumbent Manuel Osorio in Area 1, and Grant Joel Hill challenging Irma Cibrian Lopez in Area 4. Newcomers Margaret D’Arrigo, Jeanne Hori-Garcia and Kari Valdéz are facing off in Area 3.

Meanwhile Monterey Peninsula College has had an interim superintendent/president since July of 2019, and the board is angling to make a permanent hire before Election Day.

MPC’s biggest challenge is the state funding formula that means less money for the school, says incumbent Loren Steck, who has served on the board since 2003. He says he’s running for re-election to continue progress he’s made at the state level to get the funding formula changed to one more favorable to MPC.

His challenger for Area 5, Marlene Martin, is a former MPC English teacher and department head. She says Steck been arrogant toward faculty, and criticizes a proposal he made to require training in order to serve in leadership roles on the board at the same time two women of color were elected in 2018. (Steck says he wasn’t targeting anyone specific with the policy.)

Two MPC trustees, Marilynn Gustafson and Rick Johnson, are retiring. Running to fill their seats are Colleen Courtney and Libby Downey in Area 3, and Debbie Anthony and Celia Barberena in Area 4.

MPC is also asking voters to approve Measure V, a $230 million bond for infrastructure improvements.