Vivian Malauulu looking ahead as Long Beach City College trustee-elect

Eighteen months after a failed bid for appointment to the Long Beach Community College District Board of Trustees, Vivian Williams Malauulu is headed to the dais.

Malauulu on Tuesday soundly defeated incumbent trustee Irma Archuleta — who emerged from the appointment process in 2014 as the District 2 representative for LBCCD — 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.

Facing an incumbent endorsed by Mayor Robert Garcia, Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe and Councilman Roberto Uranga — whose LBCCD District 2 seat Archuleta took over in 2014 — Malauulu went to battle with the backing of the community college’s faculty unions, the Los Angeles County Democratic Party and Assemblyman Patrick O’Doell, among a slew of key endorsements.

“Not only did I beat an incumbent, but I beat an incumbent appointed and supported by the establishment,” Malauulu said.

She will take her seat among veterans Doug Otto and Jeff Kellogg, both of whom Archuleta listed as having endorsed her, and relative newcomers Virginia Baxter and Suy Zia. Kellogg and Otto have clashed with Zia several times over policy since Zia was elected in 2014.

Malauulu ran on a platform of serving underrepresented students from West Long Beach and advocating for those who “fall through the cracks” at LBCC. How effective she will be on the board remains to be seen.

Malauulu is fresh off a campaign in which she blasted the Board of Trustees for what she considered a fixed appointment process.

In an April 5 Facebook post, Malauulu said her son didn’t make an all-star baseball team because the selection process was rigged.

“The exact same thing happened to me 18 months ago when I applied for the vacant trustee position. I came in second place to a candidate who had zero coection to the college and who only recently stepped foot on the (Pacific Coast Campus) for the first time,” Malauulu wrote, adding that “the integrity of the selection process was questioned and the mystery of the appointment became apparent. It was fixed.”

Malauulu has no regrets about the social media post.

“I absolutely stand by it because of everything that has happened since,” she said, referring to the Archuleta campaign, which Malauulu described, again on Facebook, as having desperate and dirty backers.

Kellogg, the board president and trustee for District 1, said he put the appointment process together in such a way as to be sensitive to public conces for transparency. He said that after Archuleta was appointed, he told Malauulu why he didn’t support her.

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“That includes how that person’s personality will mesh with other members of the board,” Kellogg said by phone. “And I felt that at the time, I caot have another trustee that is going to be similar to the one I’ve had with trustee Zia. And I don’t know that about you (he recalled telling Malauulu). There’s no fix in that.”

Malauulu offered that she met with LBCCD Superintendent-President Eloy Ortiz Oakley during the campaign and felt good about the discussions, until a report ran in the Long Beach Business Joual that quoted an Ortiz statement in support of Archuleta.

“I felt shell-shocked,” Malauulu said. “I felt so betrayed that I had this meeting with him, telling him how much I wanted to work with him, and then he tus around and supports Irma.”

For his part, Oakley said he was simply supporting a current board member.

“I certainly give her 100 percent of my support in terms of what she’s been able to accomplish,” Oakley said Wednesday about Archuleta. “Nonetheless, the campaign is over and I have a great deal of respect for Vivian.”

Malauulu said her expectation is to join a team of trustees committed to serving students who have chosen LBCC, compared with the K-12 population compelled by law to attend, or university students who are often bound by financial commitment to complete their education.

“The population at community college is different, and we’ve got adults who are transitioning between programs, adults who find themselves at a place in life they never expected to be,” said Malauulu, a part-time joualism professor at LBCC who also is a longshore worker at the Long Beach and Los Angeles ports. “For that reason, I think LBCC is more important than any other education system in the city. We cater to a population that represents everyday life.”

The Board of Trustees is urging Long Beach voters to approve Measure LB, an $850 million bond measure promised to upgrade facilities and develop new programs at the 89-year-old community college. Malauulu supports the measure.

Malauulu said part of her mission is to motivate and inspire LBCC to put students first, as well as identify why the time to graduation and certification is slow for so many.

“West Long Beach is a very unique place,” Malauulu said. “There’s a lot of people who are very dissatisfied with the way things are, and dissatisfied with the leadership we’ve had for the last few years.”

Otto, who was also up for re-election, trounced his challenger Davina M. Keiser on Tuesday and will serve a fourth term on the board.

Malauulu’s term begins July 18. A swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for July 26. She will have to step down from her teaching role at LBCC to avoid a conflict of interest.