Our Voice

Written by Press Editorial Board
Tuesday, 05 August 2008

It's not too late for concerned citizens to take on the too-long-unchallenged San Joaquin Delta College trustees in this November's election.

We aren’t done ranting about Delta — neither the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and its detractors, nor the San Joaquin Delta College Board of Trustees and its debacles.

Today we’ll focus on the college, as the deadline to file for a seat on the board is just two days away. When Election Day comes around in November, all of us who vote in San Joaquin County will be asked to choose four people to serve on this seven-member board that oversees our community college.

In years past, it’s really been no contest. Incumbents who are unopposed for their four-year terms are merely appointed to office. In both 2000 and 2004, no votes were cast, because there were no challengers.

Greg McCreary, who has represented Tracy since 1996, has never, in 12 years, had an opponent. And so far, only five challengers have thrown in their hats, but none of them are for McCreary’s Tracy seat. If no one steps forward, he will be unopposed once again and will move up to be president of the board.

We have no qualms about McCreary, who has said he wants to serve one more term, but we would like to hear him defend what’s happened under his watch and try to convince voters that he can help resolve the mess. We’d also like to have choices, because that’s the democratic way.

This is a board that manages our taxpayer dollars — $250 million of them in the Measure L bond — hires the college president, oversees the budget and crafts policy that affects thousands of citizens who want to extend their education past high school.

This is also a board that has been widely criticized — from the civil grand jury to a regional accreditation commission to a teacher-led political action committee — for mismanagement, misspending and infighting.

There appears to be little confidence in this board’s ability to lead, and that’s a very big deal.

Of the $250 million bond that voters passed in 2004, only $64 million is left for the college’s Lodi, Manteca and Mountain House campuses. The Mountain House project alone is budgeted for $94.2 million, and ground has yet to be broken.

We hope the board will consider whether it would be cheaper to build that south-county campus in Tracy. After all, three years ago, the city of Tracy offered to give the college 108 acres at Chrisman Road and 11th Street and promised to cover the costs for fees and roads, in exchange for scrapping the plans in Mountain House.

This isn’t the last time we’ll devote this space to Delta College. But this is our last plea for candidates — the only antidote for a ho-hum trustee election in 2008.

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