This guide was produced in partnership between the LAist and Long Beach Post newsrooms. See all our guides at LBPost.com/elections.
Did this guide help you? Consider donating to support our nonprofit newsroom.
What’s at stake in this race
Long Beach City College serves nearly 40,000 students, according to data from the 2024-25 academic year. LBCC is the only institution overseen by the Long Beach Community College District Board of Trustees. This election, three seats on that five-person governing board are up for election. While two incumbents are running unopposed (Uduak-Joe Ntuk in District 1 and Sunny Zia in District 3), the departure of longtime board member Virginia Baxter leaves one race wide open.
Two candidates have entered the race for the seat in District 5 — which covers much of East Long Beach north of the 405 as well as parts of Lakewood and California Heights. Susana Gonzalez Edmond is experienced in higher education and has the weight of Long Beach’s democratic establishment behind her. Huy “Henry” Nguyen, an administrator in Los Angeles Unified, has gathered endorsements from many labor organizations and the current president of the board of trustees.
What does the Long Beach Community College District Board of Trustees do?
- Employs and evaluates the superintendent-president, who oversees LBCC.
- Adopts the budget and develops spending priorities, including overseeing bonds that fund campus construction.
- Approves courses and academic programs.
- Develops and adopts board policies, which govern everything from personnel to student services to academic affairs to facilities.
- Sets the direction for the college. This board has prioritized equity and student success as well as access and affordability.
You might know the board of trustees from
Changes to academic offerings
- In recent years, trustees approved changes in LBCC’s academic offerings, including expanding accelerated 8-week courses and soon offering the college’s first bachelor’s degree.
Campus development
- Trustees must approve any new construction on campus, from the sparkling $102 million Jenni Rivera Performing Arts Center to the construction of a 431-bed student housing facility to a revamped Veterans Memorial Stadium. If you’ve witnessed construction at LBCC, know that the board of trustees was involved.
Lawsuit settlements
- In February, the board of trustees agreed to pay $18 million to more than 1,450 part-time professors to settle a class action lawsuit over uncompensated work time.
Here are some things the board of trustees doesn’t do
- Board members don’t oversee day-to-day operations on campuses. That’s the job of professors and lecturers, administrators and college staff.
- While the board sets the vision and focus of the college, how those priorities are executed is overseen by the superintendent-president, who was named to the position in Dec. 2021.
Fast facts about the Long Beach Community College District Board of Trustees
- Board of trustees members serve four-year terms and have no term limits. Some candidates, including Sunny Zia and Uduak-Joe Ntuk, who are up for re-election and running unopposed, have already served multiple consecutive terms.
- Trustees run as nonpartisan candidates, though the board has historically tilted liberal, based on policies and voting records.
- In 2022 (the most recent year of available data submitted to the controller’s office), each trustee received between $4,400 and $5,160, not including benefits, according to the state controller’s database of government compensation.
What’s on the agenda for next term
Long Beach City College is currently undergoing significant facilities and academic changes. The college recently broke ground on a 431-bed student housing facility, part of a broad effort to make affordable housing available to city residents and students. The college is also building a massive student support center on the liberal arts campus, slated to open in fall 2027. Trustees will oversee the spending on these projects, which are funded by bonds.
The trustees will also supervise the launch of the college’s first bachelor’s degree, in library and information science, set for fall 2027. They will update and monitor the college’s strategic plan, which emphasizes equitable student success, support, innovation and inclusion.
What it takes to win
Whoever receives more votes in the Nov. 3 election will be declared the winner.
The candidates for Long Beach Community College District Board of Trustees, District 5
Susana Gonzalez Edmond, businesswoman and education consultant
Susana Gonzalez Edmond began at community college and now has more than two decades of higher education experience, including leading the Cal State Student Association.
If elected, she said she will make student success her “number one priority” and ensure there is a path for every student at the college and that everyone is supported at every step from admission through transfer or completion.
She said she would also prioritize bond transparency so that voters have clear communication about exactly how money is being used to fund new construction.
Gonzalez Edmond said she sees community engagement as essential to the success of the college, and as a trustee, she would strengthen partnerships between the college and employers in the region — from small businesses to Long Beach’s growing aerospace sector — so that students have clear vocational pathways integrated into their education.
She acknowledged that students still experience many barriers to degree completion and transfer, and she said she would closely examine why students may drop out and implement supports (from counseling to study coaching) to help them complete their programs.
She said that as a trustee, she would lean on her passion for education and her experience managing public budgets as a former city commissioner and PTA president to ensure working families benefit from the economic mobility community college can afford.
Many democratic leaders representing Long Beach have endorsed Gonzalez Edmond: Mayor Rex Richardson, much of the Long Beach City Council, Long Beach Congressman Robert Garcia, California State Senator Lena Gonzalez and California State Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, to name a few. The LBCC trustees, aside from Uduak-Joe Ntuk, have also endorsed her.
Huy ‘Henry’ Nguyen, K-12 administrator
Huy “Henry” Nguyen is an administrator in the Los Angeles Unified School District and has worked in public service for close to 20 years, including in the U.S. Air Force.
If elected, Nguyen said he plans to expand and promote dual-enrollment options to reduce educational costs and barriers, especially for working families. He suggested boosting student success by promoting the college’s shorter 8-week courses, which have shown promise, especially for students balancing work, family and life obligations.
He said he also plans to prioritize basic needs at LBCC and leverage his experience overseeing millions of dollars in food service operations in LAUSD. As a military veteran himself, Nguyen said he wants to be an advocate for veterans in the community and ensure they are aware of resources available to them, from mental health support to education.
He sees community college as a direct path to access affordable education, and he said he’d like to expand educational opportunities and events geared toward seniors.
Nguyen has collected endorsements from the Long Beach City College Faculty Association, the California Teachers Association and many labor unions. He’s also received endorsements from sitting trustees Uduak-Joe Ntuk and Ennette Morton and Long Beach City Councilmember Tunua Thrash-Ntuk.