Incumbent Rosalyn Green has been elected to represent Seaside and Sand City on the Monterey Peninsula College board for her third consecutive elected term.
The vote for Area 1 trustee came out to about 68.4 percent for Green, with 2,965 total votes, solidly defeating Ben Strickland, a Seaside Homeless Commissioner who ran for the seat for the first time. Strickland received 1,368 votes, amounting to about 35.6 percent of the total vote.
Green says she was at an election night watch party with Seaside Mayor Ian Oglesby and City Council candidate Annalisa Mitchell at Deja Blue in Seaside when the results came out. After announcing the mayor and city city council results, they refreshed the elections results page and announced the board of trustees results.
"The results came through and I can remember it was just screaming and doing a little dance,” Green says. “Because I really decided this election that we would let the people decide and so my campaign was very grassroots.”
She says she never got nervous during the campaign, and spent time talking to people to spread her candidacy via word of mouth.
Green was initially appointed to the board in 2019, which was the last time she had an opponent. She then ran unopposed in the 2020 and 2022 elections, making this year the first in which she faced a challenger in an election.
It was the only election for the MPC Board of Trustees, which will remain largely unchanged.
She says Strickland called her within thirty minutes of the first round of results coming out a little after 8pm, and that he congratulated her and invited her to stay in touch.