The election for two seats on the Citrus College Board of Trustees was cancelled on Aug. 17 due to the candidates running unopposed.
Incumbents Dr. Barbara Dickerson and Dr. Edward Ortell will keep their positions on the board, extending their terms for four years.
Dickerson said the incumbents file to run, then opponents file, but no one filed against her.
This year is not the first board members ran unopposed.
“I didn’t have an opponent this time, and I didn’t have an opponent the time before, years ago,” Ortell said. “Even four years before that, when I had an opponent, the precincts came in at 70 to 80 percent voting for me.”
Ortell won the 2009 election with 72 percent of the vote against opponent David Hooper.
“I’m well known in the community, and I write a number of articles to keep in contact with my constituents, to keep them up to date,” Ortell said. “And I do a good job. I’ve written 54 articles, for example.”
This commitment to staying in contact with the constituents may also be the secret behind Dickerson’s success.
“I go to the school district and to the city council meetings and share with them the progress that we’re making in that area,” Dickerson said. “And so, I am hopeful that the constituents thought that I was doing the work that I was elected to do.”
In her candidate platform, Dickerson pushed for ensuring “students not only (were admitted) into Citrus, but (graduated) in a timely fashion.”
A former member of the K-12 school board of Azusa, Dickerson said she would talk with high school graduates excited to attend Citrus.
But later she said she would run into them “at Ross, or a grocery store, Jack in the Box or somewhere. And they would say, ‘oh, it didn’t work for me.’”
To remedy this, Dickerson and the Citrus board pushed for programs to ensure students stayed.
She said the Citrus’ Promise Program, which launched this semester does just that.
“Again, I’m the newbie,” Dickerson said. “I’m the only one who’s serving a second term. The rest of the board members have been on for more than one term.”
Ortell is the longest running board member at 39 years, having served since 1969.
“The whole family’s been involved in education,” Ortell said.
Ortell’s brother is a board member for Santa Ana College, his sister is a board member for the Duarte Unified School District.
Ortell’s father, Edward Sr., was a former U.S. Air Force navigator, and a taught at Citrus and El Camino College.
“My father, in fact, named things after him at El Camino College after he left Citrus College, because he ran the observatory there,” Ortell said.
“It’s been a part of my life, and a part of my community service,” Ortell said.
“The only thing we receive is the $400 a month.”
Like Dickerson, Ortell prides himself on supporting students through programs like “the TAG Program, which is the transfer agreement guarantee.”
“Our courses are all transferable to other colleges,” Ortell said.That’s a wonderful achievement this year,”
Dickerson and Ortell will be up for re-election again in November 2022.
