Two of the three Gavilan College trustee positions that represent the San Benito County area are up for re-election this November and one of the incumbents has decided not to seek a second term.
Current Trustee Tony Ruiz – one of three trustees who represents the San Benito County area – announced he will not run for re-election. The other potential incumbent, Kent Child, did not return emails by deadline asking if he was running for re-election.
To run for one of the board’s seven trustee positions, candidates must be nominated by one of the district’s three trustee areas but they are voted into office by the entire district.
Signing up to run for office doesn’t cost money, but counties charge candidates for the costs of printing optional candidate statements on the ballot. The cost for putting a candidate statement on the ballot in San Benito County is $450. The cost for putting a statement on the ballot in Santa Clara County is $2,400.
San Benito County is represented by trustee area three. The trustee area includes 22,984 active registered voters from San Benito County and 74 active registered voters from Santa Clara County, said Angela Curro, the assistant county clerk-recorder for the San Benito County’s registrar of voters.
The Gavilan Joint Community College District consists of about 2,700 square miles in southern Santa Clara County and all of San Benito County, according to background information in the Final Budget for the 2013-14 fiscal year. It serves residents of the Gilroy Unified, Morgan Hill Unified, Aromas-San Juan Unified, and San Benito High School districts. The Gavilan district is one of 72 in the state that serves 112 community colleges across California.
Trustees are elected to four-year terms and receive monthly stipends of $252 if they attend all the board meetings scheduled each month.
The deadline to file for candidacy as a trustee is 5 p.m. Aug. 8. San Benito County residents wishing to run for trustee area three should call San Benito County’s Office of the County Registrar of Voters at (831) 636-4016. Candidates who wish to run for the same position but live in the small part of trustee area three that falls in Santa Clara County should call the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters at (408) 299-8683.
