LCC Zone 2: McCown.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Anthony "Tony" McCown entered the race for Position 2 on the Lane Community College Board with an advantage: He was student body president at LCC in 2004-05. Even McCown's opponent, Stefan Ostrach, acknowledges the benefits of having someone on the board not far removed from student life. Young candidates, however, are often eclipsed by other contenders who bring stronger records of public service to their races.

At age 24, however, McCown has already compiled an impressive resume. He's a member of the Lane County Budget Committee. He's on the Eugene Planning Commission. He serves on the Lane County Human Rights Commission. He's vice-president of the Oregon Student Assistance Commission, a statewide body that administers financial aid programs.

McCown is also working toward a degree in planning, public policy and management at the University of Oregon, has a job with a local engineering company and is the father of a young child, with another on the way. He clearly has uncommon energy and dedication - indeed, a primary concern is whether he'd have time to join the LCC board. But McCown will soon be stepping down from the student assistance commission, and his detailed knowledge of LCC's operations relieves worries that he might be spreading himself too thin.

Ostrach, 60, would ordinarily be considered the obvious choice in Zone 2, which covers north Eugene, Junction City and a sliver of southern Linn County. Ostrach is the voice of organized labor in Lane County, having worked as the union representative for Teamsters Local 206 for 25 years. His earlier professional background is in the field of work force development - a good fit for service on the LCC board. What's more, Ostrach has solidly prepared himself for board service by winning an appointment to the college's Budget Committee a year ago.

Ostrach would undoubtedly be an effective board member - but he would also bring to the board assets that it already has in abundance, including age and a connection to labor. The board would benefit from gaining the informed perspective of a consumer of LCC's services, someone who has been on the receiving end of tuition increases and has been affected by cutbacks in programs and staff.

McCown can provide that perspective. McCown can identify few substantive areas of disagreement with Ostrach, and both are strong supporters of LCC and community colleges in general. But McCown's connection to the school is deeper. "Lane is where I found myself in terms of my direction in life," he says. He's familiar with LCC's academic and administrative culture - as student body president he was an ex-officio member of the LCC board, and helped draft and implement the college's system of shared governance that empowers students, faculty and staff at the college.

Neither Ostrach nor McCown can offer a single solution to a budget crisis that ranks as the worst in LCC's history. That indicates that both understand the complexity and severity of the problem. McCown puts more emphasis than Ostrach on the idea that tuition increases have reached their limit, and on the notion that added courses in high-demand programs could more than pay for themselves.

McCown's ability to articulate students' interests in the budgetary decisions to come, coupled with his impressive record of civic involvement, make him a superior choice. Voters in Zone 2 should elect Tony McCown.