By Carla Salazar
Pulse Staff Reporter
Three seats on the Alamo College Board of Trustees attracted eight candidates seeking six-year terms. The election will take place on Saturday, May 10, and early voting began April 28 and will run through May 6.
Alamo Colleges Trustees are elected from geographically based single-member districts in Bexar County. Districts 4 (southwest), 8 (north) and 9 (northeast) are up for election. To find out if you live in one of these three districts, type in your zip code here.
The Board of Trustees, which is made up of nine members, gets together twice a month for meetings where they discuss new business, academic accountability and student success. They also approve courses and curriculum, oversee a $300 million annual budget, and manage facilities and personnel. In addition, they bear the legal responsibility for all aspects of the operation of the district, which consists of five colleges that serve more than 62,000 students: Northeast Lakeview College, Northwest Vista College, Palo Alto College, San Antonio College and St. Philip’s College.
“Trustee positions are for staggered 6-year terms; therefore, only three of nine Trustees are up for re-election in any 2-year cycle. Three Trustee positions are involved in the May 2014 election. In District 4, the current Trustee is not seeking reelection, so there will be a new District 4 Trustee selected by the voters from among three candidates. In Districts 8 and 9, the current Trustees are seeking re-election but have opponents, so the outcome in those Districts will depend on the will of the voters,” wrote Diane E. Snyder, vice chancellor for Finance and Administration.
The Alamo Colleges Student District Council organized a Trustee Candidate Forum for students to ask potential policy makers questions on Wednesday, April 30, at 3 p.m. in the McAllister Auditorium at San Antonio College. The following is a list of the candidates and a quote from the forum:
| Degree | School | Quote | |
| District 4 | |||
| Albert R. Herrera | High School Diploma | Herrera did not attended the Forum. | |
| Enedina “Exon” Kikuyu | GED | “I do not like the chancellor…The accreditation is up to us…If he is not going to do it, he needs to be out, period.” | |
| Lorena “Lorraine” Pulido | Doctorate in Business and Leadership Studies | Our Lady of the Lake University | “Add accountability measures.” |
| District 8 | |||
| Gary Beitzel (Incumbent) | Masters’s in Business Administration | University of Colorado-Boulder | “Maybe this is the time to consider single accreditation for the entire district.” |
| Steve Gonzales | Master’s of Engineering | University of Texas at Austin | “He (the chancellor) put the Alamo Colleges in a very difficult situation.” |
| Clint Kingsbery | Bachelor’s in Math | University of Texas at San Antonio | “Commitment to accreditation in every school..I want to ensure that whatever procedures needs to be followed or addressed, we are given the necessary tools to solve these problems.” |
| District 9 | |||
| Felix Grieder | Master’s in Government and Master’s in National Security Policy | Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and U.S. Naval War College | “We need to maintain accreditations for all five colleges.” |
| James Rindfuss (Incumbent) | Doctorate of Jurisprudence (law degree) | University of Houston | “The Board has the right to proceed.” |
The Board of Trustees helps students by maintaining low tuition rates, providing administrative support to its affiliated Alamo Colleges Foundation that awards scholarships, and assisting those students who wish to apply for Federal Financial Aid.
The college district’s service area includes Bexar County along with Atascosa, Bandera, Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Kerr and Wilson counties.
“All elected Board of Trustees are allowed to vote for/against/abstain on an action item/recommendation. It is a verbal vote,” wrote Sandra T. Mora, Alamo Colleges Board liaison.
After each meeting, results are posted on the Alamo Colleges’ website with every topic that was discussed and the changes that were approved.
See all early voting locations here. May 10 is Election Day. Not sure which district you live in? Type in your zip code here.
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