{"id":481580,"date":"2026-10-01T12:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T12:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/481580\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T12:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T12:46:12","slug":"l-a-community-college-board-of-trustees-seat-6-election-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/481580\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A. Community College Board of Trustees Seat 6 election guide"},"content":{"rendered":"

p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text”> \"Gabriel <\/p>\n

Gabriel Buelna is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 6.<\/p>\n

(Gabriel Buelna)<\/p>\n

Name: Gabriel Buelna<\/p>\n

Age: 54<\/p>\n

Occupation that appears on the ballot: member of the board of trustees, Los Angeles Community College District, Seat 6<\/p>\n

Website: https:\/\/www.buelna4laccd.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI bring an unusual combination of personal, professional and governing experience,\u201d he said. \u201cI understand higher education from several perspectives \u2014 as an educator, a policymaker and someone who has spent much of his career working with families facing economic and social barriers.\u201d<\/p>\n

District challenges: \u201cOur 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.\u201d Among the barriers Buelna cited were the high cost of housing, food insecurity and child care.<\/p>\n

Buelna said the board also must conduct strong fiscal oversight of the billions in voter-approved bond funds. \u201cThe board has a responsibility to ensure those resources are spent transparently, responsibly and in ways that produce measurable benefits for students,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Priorities: Buelna said his priorities include addressing student affordability, better connecting education to economic opportunity and \u201cremoving barriers to access and completion.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the district needs to \u201cmove aggressively to implement\u201d its commitment of up to $500 million for affordable student and staff housing and \u201cstrengthening food assistance, mental-health services and other basic-needs programs.\u201d Buelna said the district also needs to expand career technical education and paid internships, while \u201cstrengthening transfer pathways for students seeking four-year degrees.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, he wants to expand multilingual education and support for working adults and students with families while \u201cprotecting immigrant and undocumented students.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u201cmajor construction and capital projects are completed responsibly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLACCD must be both an advocate for greater investment in community colleges and a responsible steward of the resources taxpayers have already provided,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Student enrollment and success: \u201cWe need to design our colleges around the students we actually serve rather than expecting students to adapt to unnecessary institutional barriers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLACCD 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tonia <\/p>\n

Tonia Arey is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 6.<\/p>\n

(Tonia Arey)<\/p>\n

Name: Tonia Arey<\/p>\n

Age: 56<\/p>\n

Occupation that appears on the ballot: realtor<\/p>\n

Website: https:\/\/toniaarey.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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. \u201cMy experience in real estate, public advocacy and community engagement has taught me how to listen, solve problems, manage complex transactions, and hold people accountable,\u201d she said. As a realtor, she said she handles contracts, budgets, negotiations, legal requirements and competing interests \u2014 helpful skills in a trustee role.<\/p>\n

District challenges: \u201cThe biggest challenges facing the Los Angeles Community College District are campus safety, student success and career readiness, and accountability to students, employees, and taxpayers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Arey would work to implement campus safety plans, support additional academic advising and career education and more \u201cclosely examine spending, contracts, program outcomes and administrative costs to ensure resources reach classrooms and directly support students.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough LACCD is a four-year term, there are no term limits and current trustees can no longer be trusted,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Priorities: She cited campus safety, student success and career readiness, accountability and respect for employees.<\/p>\n

Budget: Arey would review the district\u2019s budget to \u201cidentify waste, duplication and spending that does not directly improve student outcomes\u201d and said \u201ccost reductions should begin with unnecessary administrative expenses, not classroom instruction, campus safety, counseling or essential student services.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2018d work to strengthen the competitive bidding process for contracts and work to ensure the district\u2019s construction bond program is effectively managed. On the revenue side, she\u2019d work to pursue government grants, raise money from donors and \u201cexplore responsible uses of underutilized district property.\u201d She\u2018d also look at ways to boost enrollment, since state funding is tied to the number of students served.<\/p>\n

Student enrollment and success: Arey would work to make \u201cenrollment simpler, faster, and easier to navigate\u201d and do more to help students who enter the classroom.<\/p>\n

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

\"Randall <\/p>\n

Randall Winston is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 6.<\/p>\n

(Randall Winston)<\/p>\n

Name: Randall Winston<\/p>\n

Age: 44<\/p>\n

Occupation that appears on the ballot: architect<\/p>\n

Website: https:\/\/www.randalljwinston.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Experience: Winston, a licensed architect and attorney, serves as Los Angeles\u2019 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\u2019s also lectured at UCLA and mentored graduate students.<\/p>\n

Under former Gov. Jerry Brown, Winston ran the California Strategic Growth Council, which helps fund sustainable development.<\/p>\n

District challenges: Winston listed enrollment and the inability of students to afford basic needs as major challenges. Citing the district\u2019s $5.3-billion bond-funded construction program he said: \u201cEvery dollar lost to delays, litigation or fraud is a dollar not reaching students and the faculty and staff who serve them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Priorities: Winston\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

All colleges should partner with labor and employers to offer apprenticeships and \u201cfamily-sustaining union careers,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Budget: Winston said boosting enrollment to increase state funding is the \u201cmost direct\u201d way to increase revenue. He\u2018d also pursue other government funding as well as employer and philanthropic partnerships. There also needs to be \u201crigorous\u201d oversight of the district\u2019s construction program, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I won\u2019t do is balance budgets on instruction or on the people who deliver it,\u201d he said. \u201cClassrooms, faculty and staff come first.\u201d<\/p>\n

Student enrollment and success: Winston said most barriers to enrollment and student success are \u201clogistical, not academic.\u201d He\u2018d push to \u201cinvest in simplified onboarding, proactive advising and better counselor ratios.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Name: Roberto David LaCarra<\/p>\n

Occupation that appears on the ballot: community college professor<\/p>\n

Did not reply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text”> Gabriel Buelna is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 6. (Gabriel Buelna) Name:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[380,7166,20865,124644,17358,4579,1493,124642,48,52,51,47,50,49,35342,592,2211,124643,51114,688,124641],"class_list":["post-481580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-affordable-housing","tag-ballots","tag-candidates","tag-century-city-law-firm","tag-city-attorney","tag-district","tag-homelessness","tag-kuehl","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-officers","tag-people","tag-race","tag-use-attorney","tag-yaroslavsky","tag-years","tag-yebri"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}