MPC incumbent Loren Steck is leading in close race against challenger Marlene Martin; Measure V passes easily.

Loren Steck has been holding onto his Area 5 seat representing Carmel, Carmel Valley and Big Sur on the Monterey Peninsula College Board of Trustees for a long time, 17 years to be exact. He may get to hang onto it for four more years; as of Wednesday, Nov. 4, he is up by 64 votes over challenger Marlene Martin.

Martin, a former MPC instructor and union representative, made a strong bid against Steck, who has long been criticized by the MPC Teachers Association for not communicating with faculty and supporting administrators during contract disputes. Steck blamed rules around not being able to discuss issues during negotiations in an interview with the Weekly in September.

The tense relations with faculty made him vulnerable politically. Union members were successful in 2018 getting out the vote for two candidates, one of whom, Yuri Anderson in Area 2, now serves as chair of the board. Steck made himself further vulnerable after that race, when he pushed an initiative that would require new trustees to go through a lengthy training before being able to serve in leadership roles. With both new members women of color, it had the appearance to some that he was singling them out, an accusation he denies.

“It was a very contentious time,” he told the Weekly in September. “Some thought it was aimed at people of color. It was not, it was aimed at everyone.” His only goal, he said was to ensure that board members were well trained. He called the accusations “misinterpreted and unfortunate.” Martin saw it as a reason to jump into the race, calling Steck racist and sexist, she said in an interview.

Steck is the only incumbent who ran this election—two of his longtime colleagues chose not to run again, Rick Johnson and Marilynn Gustafson.

The race for Johnson’s seat in Area 3, which covers Monterey and parts of Seaside, features two candidates separated by 224 votes. Libby Downey is ahead with 4,384 votes, 51 percent, to Colleen Courtney’s 4,161. Courtney, a field representative for State Sen. Bill Monning, D-Carmel, was perhaps not as well known in the community as Downey, who previously served on the Monterey City Council.

It’s no contest in Area 4, comprising Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach, currently represented by Gustafson. There, Debbie Anthony carries a lead of 6,161 votes to Celia Barberena’s 3,872. Anthony graduated from MPC and has 39 years of experience there as an instructor and counselor.

Perhaps the biggest winner of the night was the district itself, which asked voters to pass Measure V, a $230 million bond measure to update aging facilities and add new technology and other improvements. It needed 55 percent to pass but did better, with 63 percent based on early returns.

The board took a bit of a gamble on July 30 when they voted unanimously to add Measure V to the November ballot. The concern was that in the midst of a pandemic with people losing jobs and income voters would reject a measure that will assess property owners $18 per $100,000 of property value annually.

The board made the case that it's precisely because of tough economic times—with the rising cost of tuition at four-year institutions, and a need for job training opportunities during a downturn—that Measure V as crucial no. 

Yet MPC has a distinct advantage, generations of people who hold the community college in high esteem because they either started their higher education careers there or who have continued as lifelong learners through classes and lectures and the popular Gentrain interdisciplinary learning program.