The four applicants — three as of Thursday — for the vacant Board of Trustees position were announced on Monday at the monthly board meeting. An open forum will be held Tuesday for the public to meet the candidates.
“Personally, I can’t speak for the board, but I’m okay with four people,” said Armine Hacopian, president of the Board of Trustees, referring to the fact that only four people applied for the vacant position.
Armond Aghakhanian, Rebecca Delfino and Tony Tartaglia are the three who will be answering questions and introducing themselves to the Glendale community at the open forum at 1 p.m. in the Auditorium on Tuesday.
The forum will be similar to the one held in April during the search for the new college superintendent/president.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for [GCC],” said Jim Walker, the search consultant from Community College Search Services, who worked with GCC during the search for Superintendent/President Audre Levy, referring to the way the board is handling the appointment. He also added that he is honored to be working with the college again.
Walker has been working with the paper screening committee, which is made up of seven college constituencies, Mike Allen from the Guild; Paul Vera from the Senate; Robyn Fea, the California School Employees Association; Ron Harlan, Administration Management; Karen Holden, the Garfield Campus; and from Classified Management (Public Safety) Nidal Kobaissi. The student body representative is David Arakelyan, president of the ASGCC.
During the board meeting, Victor King expressed his happiness about the process the board is using. “It’s just magnificent that we’ve laid out, in unbelievable detail, how we’re going to pick the next trustee,” King said.
“[The process the board is going through] sends a message,” said Walker. “We want to be fair, impartial and open to all the candidates.”
After the open forum, there will be an special open board meeting at 5 p.m. in the Student Center for the final interviews.
Other items that were covered at the Monday board meeting include the Fall 2007 parking permit cost increase from the current $50 to $65 due to the college having to borrow $3 million for the parking structure.
“The student government has come forward and is talking to us about trying to underwrite a portion of that increase for a few years so that we can more gradually increase the rate,” said Larry Serot, executive vice president of administrative services, at the board meeting. “But unfortunately, the need to borrow $3 million is forcing us to go to that higher rate, which actually is less then what is being charged at Pasadena City College and Santa Monica College. So we are still far more [expensive for parking] than most community colleges, but it’s the circumstances that we find ourselves in.”
Because of this, Levy has requested that the Director of Public Works of Glendale explore the possibility of adding more Beeline services to the college for the first three weeks of school, according to Serot.
Four change orders to the construction contract were passed for the Allied Health/Lab Project, which will cost an estimated $52,600 more, and the parking structure/elevator tower and bridge project had a change order passed, which will increase that cost by $31,352.
The board also agreed to three contracts for the Garfield Campus expansion project: Spencer/Hoskins Associated for planning services, Construction Controls Groups for planning services and Barbara L Hall, and PE Inc for civil engineering services.
Two new courses of study will be added to the official course offerings: Geography 103, World Regional Geography and Psychology 150: Educational Psychology.
There were also two presentations, one on the Child Development Center given by child development instructor Linda Manzano-Larsen and Child Development Center Director Jeanette Tashiro. The other was given by Sid Kolpas, math professor, on the new National Science Foundation MASTER grant.