Oscar de la Torre loses bid for leadership seat
SMC — Now the women really are in charge.
Educator Carole Currey was elected chairwoman of the local college board Monday night. The appointment establishes that Santa Monica’s three major governing bodies are headed by women.
Pam O’Connor was elected mayor of Santa Monica last week and Emily Bloomfield was named president of the local school board earlier this month. Each of the three women was elected by popular vote and appointed to their leadership post by fellow board members.
Currey, 68, said she looked forward to easing strained relations between faculty, staff and administrators at Santa Monica College, as well as overseeing the search for a new college president. Dr. Piedad F. Robertson will resign in January.
“I think our role this year, as a board, is to work to see if we can’t bring the college community together,” said Currey, referring to the fallout between faculty and administrators over how to handle deep budget cuts from the state last year. “Funding will still be a problem. We hope we won’t have to go through any of that in the future, but that is still a major issue on the state level.”
Also important, Currey said, will be strengthening SMC’s relations with City Hall. The two institutions have had a rocky relationship in the past, partly because of the college’s constant growth in the city. The issue is particularly sensitive now, because of a $135 million bond approved by voters Nov. 2 and dedicated to new facilities in Santa Monica.
College officials have pledged to spend part of the bond money in partnership projects with City Hall, but no formal agreement has been reached. However, buying open space for athletic fields and developing an early childhood education facility have been named as goals.
“I think it should be a better relationship,” said Currey, who added she was encouraged that some of the current SMC trustees personally know council members. What’s more, Currey pointed to the work being done by a liaison committee between officials at City Hall and SMC.
Trustees Rob Rader and Herb Roney were picked to serve on the liaison committee at the Monday meeting. Trustee Nancy Greenstein was chosen to serve as vice chair.
First elected in 1979 and serving as chair for the fifth time, Currey succeeds trustee Margaret Quiñones as chair. Currey is a former board member of the joint Santa Monica-Malibu school district and has long been involved in a range of community and education groups.
Currey was elected five times to the board of directors for California Community College, which oversees colleges throughout the state, and served as its president in 2001-02, according to SMC spokesman Bruce Smith. Currey also is on the board of the Community College Leadership Development Initiative Foundation and the board of appeals for the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. A member of the Santa Monica Historical Society Museum board of directors, Currey also serves on the advisory board of Family Service of Santa Monica. She currently teaches current affairs, history and high school diploma courses in Culver City.
O’Connor, a 56-year-old preservation consultant, was elected m.ayor of Santa Monica by a 4-3 vote at the Dec. 14 meeting of the City Council. At the time, she named as her top priority overseeing an update to the city’s antiquated development codes, an estimated 30-month task currently underway. City Councilman Herb Katz was picked to serve as O’Connor’s mayor pro tempore.
Bloomfield was unanimously elected president of the Santa Monica-Malibu school district at a Dec. 9 meeting. Fellow board member Julia Brownley was elected vice president by a vote of 5-2, beating out board member Oscar de la Torre, the only elected official in Santa Monica who is from the crime-plagued Pico neighborhood in eastern Santa Monica. As such, de la Torre unsuccessfully attempted to persuade his colleagues to install him as vice president, saying it would send an important message to the community.
Some would argue having women head the city’s top three governing bodies also sends an important message. Currey, however, disagrees.
“I don’t see it as any particular significance,” she said Tuesday. “Frankly, we have some men that would be just as capable and some women that would probably not be. I think it’s the person that matters. I don’t look at the gender that much... It’s not my big issue.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 22, 2004. Read the original PDF.