Long Beach election: Doug Otto, Vivian Malauulu win LBCC races

A new trustee appears headed to the Long Beach Community College District Board of Trustees after Tuesday’s election, with all precincts reporting, while a veteran trustee will retu for his fourth term on the goveing board.

In the District 2 race, Vivian Williams Malauulu, a part-time joualism professor at LBCC who also is a longshore worker at the Long Beach and Los Angeles ports, led Trustee Irma Archuleta with 59.3 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results posted by the City Clerk. The tally was 2,350 votes for Malauulu and 1,611 for Archuleta.

“I’m very excited, very positive about the results that have come in,” Malauulu said late Tuesday. “They’re very consistent with the response we got from voters (during the campaign).”

District 2 covers the west side of the city, stretching east to Signal Hill, from Anaheim Street to Wardlow Road.

Archuleta was appointed to the District 2 trustee seat in 2014 to fill the remaining term of Roberto Uranga, who was elected to the City Council.

“West Long Beach has really wanted to have a choice . . . people were receptive to the fact that they have not had a choice in a trustee for a very long time, and that resonated throughout the campaign,” Malauulu said.

Malauulu, who listed the endorsement of LBCC faculty unions, said during the campaign that her coection with LBCC drove her to vie for a seat on the Board of Trustees.

She said student achievement is her top priority and she wants to help students navigate community college and ea their degrees and certificates and transfer to a four-year school if they choose to do.

Malauulu said she supports Measure LB — an $850 million bond college officials say is needed to modeize classrooms and improve programs — that is on the June 7 ballot.

An election victory would mean Malauulu stepping away from her teaching job at LBCC to avoid a conflict of interest.

Doug Otto, the longtime trustee for District 4 and current president of the board, was ahead of challenger Davina Keiser with 72.1 percent of the vote. The vote tally was 5,866 for Otto and 2,275 for Keiser, a teacher in the Long Beach Unified School District since 1979.

“I’m honored by the support of the community we have to keep Long Beach City College going forward in the direction it’s been going, and I’m looking forward to doing that,” Otto said.

Advertisement

District 4 includes the southeast and easte sides of the city.

LBCC is in a season of transition, with trustees floating Measure LB, President Eloy Ortiz Oakley pushing to reduce the time to graduation, and faculty clashing with administration over programs and pay.