As votes tallied in the Hartnell College Board of Trustees race, three candidates take the lead.

The Hartnell Board of Trustees is set to look quite different this upcoming year, as three new candidates are poised to take the seats representing part of Salinas and South County. 

In the lead for Area 5 representing East Salinas, Felicia Perez Kausin has received 52.4 percent of the vote as of the latest results posted on Thursday, Nov. 5. With about 1,875 votes, she's 174 ahead of opponent Patricia Coyt's 1,071. 

Perez Kausin raised $7,900: $1,000 from Salinas city councilmember Margaret D’Arrigo, $1,000 from Candice Depauw, a former Hartnell trustee, and $5,900 from the Salinas Valley Leadership Group. Coyt, on the other hand, did not report any donations to her campaign. 

Vying to represent Chualar, Gonzales and Soledad, Sofia Ramirez has received 2,500 votes, amounting to about 53.3 percent of votes. Behind her is Rosalie Sanchez, with 2,192 votes. 

Both expressed similar viewpoints in wanting to expand a satellite campus to Gonzales given the development of the Vista Lucia project, which would double the number of homes in the city over the next 30 years. Both were also endorsed by the Monterey County Democratic Party. 

Further south, Nancy Reyes leads former Greenfield mayor John Huerta Jr. with 2,257 votes to his 1,919. She has about 54 percent of the vote. Reyes is an elementary school secretary in the King City Union School District, and wants Hartnell programs to expand in South County. 

After the votes are fully tallied, if Ramirez and Reyes were to take the Area 6 and 7 seats respectively, they would both bring experience working in local school districts to the board.