The Governmental and Community Relations office will begin taking candidate applications beginning Feb. 6 for the May ACC Board of Trustees elections. Board Place 3, Place 5, and Place 6 will all be up for election. These Trustees are elected at-large to oversee the entire ACC service area.
Potential candidates can already file an Appointment of Campaign Treasurer form that would allow them to legally begin raising funds for their campaign, but a candidate is not officially on the ballot until they fill out an application for a place on the ballot.
Linda Young, Special Secretary to the President for Governmental and Community Relations, will be accepting those forms from Feb. 6 to March 8 at her office at the Highland Business Center.
Young said potential candidates have already begun to show some interest in running.
“I’d say generally we have a couple of folks running for each position. Sometimes we have had as many as four. I mean it is not impossible to have as many five or six for one position or seat on the board,” said Young.
According to the Texas Education Code, “Any resident, qualified elector of the district may have his or her name placed as a candidate on the official ballot.” Candidates must also be 18, U.S. citizens and a reside in the district for six months according to the Texas Election Code.
ACC employees can run for a place on the Board, but employees are not allowed to serve as members of the Board, said Young.
“So let’s say that a person is employed as a full time professor of Austin Community College District and he or she decided that they want to run for the Board of Trustees, they would need to resign their position or at least make a plan so that if they are elected they would definitely serve and stay elected,” said Young. ACC employees are also not allowed to use their time at work to campaign, said Young.
Although ACC has centers and classes at many different locations throughout central Texas, only registered voters within the ACC taxing district can vote for Board members.
Of the three seats up for election, two have incumbents who are allowed to run again if they wish. Place 3 is currently held by Jeffrey Richard and Place 6 by Raul Alvarez. Veronica Rivera formally held Place 6. Rivera stepped down in September of 2009 and the seat is open until the 2010 election.
Young also said ACC students are eligible to run for a Board seat if they wish but she added jokingly, “If a student ran and they wanted to use running for office as their excuse for not going to class, it is highly unlikely that the professor would take that as an excuse.”
Editor’s Note
Candidates running for a seat on the ACC Board of Trustees can contact the Accent at editor3@austincc.edu or 223-3111 for an interview.
Follow the Accent for ongoing cover of the 2010 ACC Board of Trustees race
• Three seats are up for election. Place 3, currently held by Jeffrey Richard, place 5 held by Raul Alvarez, and place 6, which was formerly held by Veronica Rivera who resigned, will be up for election.
• Candidates wanting to run for one of those seats have to fill out a Secretary of State Application.
• Candidates should turn applications in to ACC’s Special Assistant to the President for External Affairs Linda Young’s office in the Highland Business Center between Feb. 5 and Mar. 8, 2010.
• Register to vote by Apr. 8, 2010
• Early voting starts Apr. 26, 2010 and the election is May 8, 2010
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