Like MHUSD, college moving from at-large to by-district voting
Published in the Sept. 16-29, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Jonathan Brusco
Jonathan Brusco
Redistricting is nothing new for Morgan Hill these days, and the Morgan Hill Unified School District isn’t the only one facing some tough choices. Gavilan Community College has chosen to redraw a map that has remained roughly unchanged for more than 50 years.
Since its foundation, Gavilan College trustees have been elected through an at-large methodology, meaning that each member is elected by the entire college district, with further residency requirements stating that three members must live in San Benito County, two in Gilroy, and two in Morgan Hill. Recently, demographic and population changes have led to a re-assessment of our extremely large district, which stretches from the southernmost tip of San Benito County, near King City, to San Jose’s Coyote Valley. These rapid population increases in Morgan Hill and Gilroy, combined with potential legal concerns related to the California Voting Rights Act, have driven the change to a by-trustee area approach, thereby dividing the district into seven smaller geographic communities. Only one trustee can live in each district and he or she will be elected only by the residents of that district.
Since 2012, I have served the constituents of Gavilan College as one of its two Morgan Hill board members. I can definitively say that the decisions I’ve made during this redistricting process have weighed heavily on me, both as a board member and a resident of Morgan Hill. The initial decision to switch to district-based elections was a challenging one to make, mainly because our current system has served our college very well, and has created a seven-member board that is truly devoted to the college.
Some of these members, including myself, might potentially be driven off the board as a result of these redistricting changes. However, I understand and appreciate the need for greater diversity on our board, and recognize that a district-based approach may lead to a greater Hispanic representation on our board. Furthermore, the recent population increases in Morgan Hill and Gilroy have created an at-large representation that underserves these two communities. A switch to district-based elections will result in an additional member in the northern part of the district, but also a loss of a member in San Benito county.
Since deciding to make the switch, our demographer has produced three draft maps, and a community organization has produced a fourth map. We’ve held four community meetings to discuss map designs. We’ve received some very positive feedback from members of the San Benito County and Gilroy communities. Unfortunately, our first meeting in Morgan Hill had no attendees, so we requested a second, and while better attended, it still represented a limited number of community members.
As a trustee, one of my main goals is to address the fact that graduates of Morgan Hill high schools disproportionately attend other community colleges, typically in San Jose. Over the past few years, our board has made major investments in better serving the Morgan Hill community, including the use of bond money to purchase land in Coyote Valley, near the intersection of Bailey and Santa Teresa avenues. During our August board meeting we took the first major step toward making this campus a reality and approved a $6.5 million bid for the first phase of construction. By 2017 we will be offering a number of evening courses at this new site, and in the years following, build it into a full campus of its own. This new campus will be transformative for the graduates of Morgan Hill high schools, and provide them with a local full service college education, offering comprehensive transfer degree and career programs. In addition to this, we have also approved the construction of new facilities at the San Martin Airport. These new classroom buildings, once completed in late 2016, will enable one of our most popular and successful programs, aviation maintenance, to double in size of the number of students we can serve.
These new district maps will determine the local representation that will serve Morgan Hill for years to come, and their shapes are not insignificant. Many of our initial maps take differing approaches to the local community. One map splits the community into east and west areas, another takes an urban versus rural approach that combines the distant rural areas of Coyote Valley with rural San Benito County. These distinctions pose important questions to us all. For example, with the addition of a Coyote Valley campus, does a north/south division of Morgan Hill make more sense? Furthermore, is it fair to group an estate home off of Oak Glen in the same district as a farm near King City? The local community’s responses to these types of questions will help the board to make an informed decision that serves our constituents best, not one dictated by attorneys, special interest groups, or individual bias. Your opinions matter. Make your voices heard.
Our proposed new district maps can be found at our website www.gavilan.edu. Send your comments to Nancy Bailey at [email protected].
Jonathan Brusco is a local middle school teacher and Gavilan College board member. He wrote this column for Morgan Hill Life. He can be reached at [email protected].
