Guest Opinion | By David Coher: PCC Deserves a Candidate Forum

Pasadena City College matters enormously to our community.

For more than a century, PCC has provided an affordable pathway to higher education, university transfer, career training, and economic opportunity. Today, the college serves more than 27,000 students each semester and offers more than 150 associate degree programs and 125 certificate programs.

Its impact reaches far beyond the students enrolled in its classrooms. PCC trains nurses, technicians, and skilled workers. It prepares students to transfer to four-year universities. It provides opportunities for adults seeking new careers or new skills. And it is an important economic institution in its own right. A PCC-commissioned economic impact study, using 2018-19 data, estimated that the college, its students, and its alumni generated more than $600 million in annual economic activity within the Pasadena Area Community College District. [See https://www.google.com/url?q=https://pasadena.edu/institutional-effectiveness/research/docs/career-education-metrics/emsi_economic_value_fact_sheet.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1791284447289000&sa=E]

I am running for the Pasadena City College Board of Trustees because I believe an institution this important deserves our attention, and because I believe PCC can and should continue striving to do even better. But this election is about much more than one candidate or one trustee area.

Four of the seven seats on the PCC Board of Trustees are up this election cycle. Seven candidates, including me, are running for those four positions. That means this election will decide a majority of the Board – shaping PCC for the next four years. Without a single debate; without a single community forum.

That should matter to everyone who cares about PCC. The Board of Trustees is not supposed to run the college day to day. But its responsibilities are substantial. The Board sets policy, adopts the District’s annual budget, approves the expenditure of District funds, oversees major property decisions, and has important responsibilities for college leadership and personnel.

Those are significant responsibilities, and PCC faces significant questions about finances, facilities, governance, and the institution’s future direction. I have views on those issues. So do the other candidates. But I am not going to use this forum to lay out my campaign platform or argue why voters should agree with me. There is a better setting for that: a candidate debate or community forum where all of us can be asked the same questions, respond to one another’s ideas, and give voters the opportunity to make their own judgments.

The problem is that, so far, no such public forum appears to have been scheduled for the PCC Board races.

That absence is particularly striking because our community is doing exactly this for other local elections.

Multiple forums have been organized for Pasadena Unified School District candidates, including an October 3 forum sponsored by United Teachers of Pasadena and an October 5 forum moderated by the League of Women Voters Pasadena Area and co-sponsored by several community organizations. The League is also conducting forums for other races around the San Gabriel Valley, including an October 19 forum for the Altadena Library District Trustee Area 3 election. [See https://www.google.com/url?q=https://pasadenanow.com/main/pasadena-teachers-union-to-host-pusd-board-candidate-forum-oct-3&source=gmail&ust=1791284447290000&sa=E]

PCC deserves the same level of public attention. It is, after all, an institution serving tens of thousands of students, supported by taxpayers throughout a large and diverse district, governed by seven elected trustees. With four trustee positions turning over or beginning new terms this year, voters should have an opportunity to hear directly from the people seeking those offices.

So here is my invitation. I will gladly participate in a publicly sponsored PCC candidate forum. I will attend. I will answer questions. I will discuss the issues and my positions, and I welcome the opportunity for the other candidates to do the same. What we need is a community organization willing to bring us together.

Perhaps it will be a neighborhood association. A student organization. A parent or education group. A civic organization. A local nonprofit. Or several organizations working together, as they have done for the Pasadena Unified forum.

The format does not have to be complicated. Invite the candidates. Choose a neutral moderator. Solicit questions from the community. Give each candidate equal time. Livestream it if possible so voters throughout the district can watch.

PCC is too important for its Board elections to take place without voters hearing directly from the candidates. Voters deserve a conversation.

I am ready to participate. I hope someone in our community will step forward and make it happen.

David Coher is a candidate for Pasadena City College Trustee Area 3 and a current member of the Pasadena Rental Housing Board and Board Chair of the Arroyos & Foothills Conservancy (both for identification purposes only).