Four CCSF board of trustees positions filled; but full reinstatement is still up in the air

Amy Bacharach
Thea Selby
Thea Selby
John Rizzo
John Rizzo
Brigitte Davila
Brigitte Davila
Amy Bacharach
Amy Bacharach

By Brian Churchwell

The Guardsman

The seven-member City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees will have three new members following the Nov. 4 election and current board president John Rizzo was reelected to a four-year term.

The new members are Dr. Amy Bacharach, elected to serve the two remaining years of a four-year term, and Thea Selby and Brigitte Davila, both elected to four-year terms.

The board remains stripped of its powers while Special Trustee Robert Agrella executes all trustee responsibilities.

No timetable has been set for the departure of the Special Trustee and reinstatement of the board.

“I’m cautiously optimistic that the elected board will be reinstated sooner rather than later and that we can start working again to support the students,” Bacharach said.

Bacharach ran on a platform of accessibility to all types of students, availability of classes for students with varying goals and affordability while highlighting her experience as a researcher and adjunct professor.

“Once we are reinstated, I think it’s important for the board to have a comprehensive training to discuss its role and purview, and perhaps an orientation or meet and greet with the faculty, staff and students,” Bacharach said.

According to the City and County of San Francisco Department of Elections website, Bacharach received 45.8 percent of the votes cast to fill the two-year term.

Selby will bring her experience as a community college student and service on a number of civic committees, boards and associations to the Board of Trustees. Selby graduated from UC Berkeley and has a master’s degree from the University of Oregon. Selby received the most votes in the race for the three four-year seats with 18.48 percent of ballots cast.

Davila currently teaches in the Latin American & Latino/a studies department at San Francisco State University. Davila attended community college prior to earning a B.A. in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley and a Juris Doctor from Berkeley Law. Davila received 17.34 percent of the vote in the race for the four-year seats.

John Rizzo was first elected to the Board of Trustees in 2006 and is the current president. In addition to his Board of Trustees experience, Rizzo was the former chair of the Sierra Club San Francisco Bay Chapter and a Commissioner on the Golden Gate Park Concourse Authority. Rizzo received 16.22 percent of the votes for the open four-year terms.