Following the election of Roberto Uranga to the 7th District City Council seat, the LBCC Board of Trustees face the rare process of appointing someone to fill Uranga’s Area 2 Trustee seat, a position that is normally filled via election.

Given Uranga’s official resignation from the Board on July 15 (to take on his role as councilmember), the current trustees are legally given 60 days to find a replacement for the Area 2 seat. A special election could have been held, however, due to the cost and time (a special election would not have been held until March of next year), the Board opted to go with the option of appointing a trustee to fill the seat.

Due to the as-of-yet unknown number of possible applicants, an ad hoc committee has been formed which will see if the applications meet minimum requirements. The committee will be led by LBCC Superintendent-President Eloy Ortiz Oakley and include the student Trustee and the Academic Senate President, in addition to two people appointed by Board President Jeffrey Kellogg (a governing board member and a community member).

Area 3 Trustee Sunny Zia was the lone dissenting vote in the resolution to appoint the seat via the ad hoc committee structure. She was concerned that the appointment was being limited to a “high-ranking body” rather than being an overall, publicly-inclusive process.

“I think it is rather unusual to have an ad hoc advisory committee—especially one that would rank applicants,” Zia said. “I really think we don’t have an inclusive committee with this structure… It gives the appearance that a sub-group is influencing the decision of this Board and I will not support.”

Zia went on to say that all meetings in regard to the appointment should be held after 5PM to help add transparency and public accessibility of the process. While the Board ultimately agreed that the committee shouldn’t rank, the committee will still review applications to “ensure that candidates will meet minimum requirements and then pass the applications onto the Board,” according to LBCC spokesperson Stacey Toda.

September 9 will mark the day when 15-minute interviews will be conducted. On that same day, the Board will publicly announce their selection. The newly-appointed Trustee will serve until the next Board election in April of 2016.

Residents who are interested in being appointed as the interim Board of Trustee Member must be a registered voter and live within Area 2 of the Long Beach Community College District. Applications must be received no later than August 22, 2014 by 12PM.

Editor’s note: this story originally stated that the ad hoc committee will ultimately rank the applicants; that was ultimately abandoned in favor of the committee simply reviewing the requirements of applicants.