CARDENAS' BILL PASSES PANEL; MEASURE WOULD REPLACE AT-LARGE COLLEGE BOARD SEATS WITH DISTRICTS.

Byline: Paul Hefner Daily News Sacramento Bureau

Assemblyman Tony Cardenas managed to push his bill to create geographic districts for community college board members through a key committee Tuesday without help from several other San Fernando Valley lawmakers.

The Assembly's Higher Education Committee voted 8-5 to endorse the measure, which would force the Los Angeles Community College District to scrap its at-large system for electing board members.

At an afternoon hearing, Cardenas, D-Panorama City, displayed a map that showed the district's seven board members all live within a few miles of each other west of downtown.

``I'm looking for fairness,'' Cardenas said. ``I'm not here to say the San Fernando Valley needs all of the representatives or even the majority of the representatives. I'm saying every area needs representation.''

But Cardenas got no support from three committee members whose districts include parts of the Valley. Jack Scott, D-Pasadena, and Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Sheila Kuehl, D-Encino, both voted against the bill. Assemblyman Wally Knox, D-Los Angeles, spoke against it but did not vote.

Scott said he didn't want the state to dictate an election system for just one district. Kuehl said she didn't believe Cardenas had proved that colleges with no local representation had suffered under the at-large system.

Knox is a former member of the district's board. His wife, Beth Garfield, who now holds a board seat, warned that creating districts would pit representatives of different areas against one another in budget fights.

``The last things we need in the district are turf wars,'' Garfield said.

She said that because each board member represents the entire nine-college district, the panel considers the best interests of all the campuses, including those in the Valley.

``If the board had been elected by district, Mission College would never have been built,'' Garfield said.

But Cardenas dismissed her claim that an at-large board was a boon to the campus in his district.

``That makes me laugh,'' he said. ``What she failed to mention was, Mission College spent about 30 years trying to get a campus.''

It took a round of last-minute lobbying to get the bill through the committee. Cardenas initially fell two votes short, though he later lined up the bare minimum needed to keep the bill alive. He will have until Jan. 31 to win Assembly approval for the measure.

Cardenas said he's not sure whether he can convince a majority in the Legislature to support his bill, which also would expand the board to nine members and move their elections to even-numbered years.

``Honestly, I think it's going to be an uphill battle all the way through,'' he said.