Editorial: District elections for College of Marin board make sense

When it comes to converting to district elections, the College of Marin Board of Trustees has been a likely candidate for years.

At one time, most of the board’s elected members lived within five minutes of the Kentfield campus. In addition, for many years, the board had no trustee from Novato, the home of the Indian Valley campus, which has long been cause for criticism because its enrollment fell far short of its 1972 projections.

The board has already started to hold public hearings with a demographer who will help draw the seven districts.

While the lines will be approved by trustees, the board should consider establishing a community task force to draw one or more recommendations in order to provide a level of political firewall from what is essentially a political decision.

There is a built-in political conflict of interest. Board members’ incumbencies on the panel could depend on where the boundaries are drawn.

The overall goal is not only to bolster representation, but to reduce the scope and cost of campaigning facing interested candidates.

There’s a big difference between having to campaign for the votes of 208,000 residents as compared to around 30,000.

While COM races usually are not high-profile contests, their countywide scope raises the cost.

The board’s stated goal is to have districts be as “compact, contiguous and cohesive” as possible, with goals of reflecting communities of interest and avoiding “racial gerrymandering.”

One of the board’s other goals of respecting trustees’ incumbency should be the least of the district’s priorities, but without introducing a level of independent community review, the perception will be that it is a guiding concern.

The district’s goal is to have the districts drawn and approved by the California Community Colleges Board of Governors in time for the board’s 2022 election cycle.

The issue of moving to district elections has been on and off its agenda for years.

Recent years’ push to convert at-large elections in Marin’s larger cities and governmental districts — most often prodded by lawsuits — have set the stage for COM to make this move.

The board deserves credit for making sure there are numerous public hearings devoted to this change. It needs to remember that the initial lines often become a template in place for years.

That’s why it makes sense to form a workable community task force — reflecting Marin’s demographics — to draft one or more options, without the political pressure of protecting incumbent board members.

Giving the panel a short deadline may help make it easier to convince people to serve.

Another possible option is joining forces with the county Office of Education which is going through the required redistricting process for its seven trustee seats.

Shouldn’t the lines of the two be concordant? Could both agencies save the taxpayers money, instead of conducting separate processes?

Do voters a favor and make drawing lines that are cohesive with other public boards one of the priorities. Making it easier to know who your representative is should be a primary objective.