Richard, Sosa win board seats, Place 5 will go to runoff

Two of the three Austin Community College board of trustee races have been decided, but the third, Place 5, will go to a runoff between the top two candidates.

In the race for Place 5, Vic Villarreal, a business consultant and management instructor at ACC, and David S. Reiter, Vice President of biotech company Luminex, will participate in a runoff on June 12.

A candidate needs to win more than 50 percent of the vote to secure the spot on the board, but none of the four candidates vying for Place 5 were able to do that. The top two vote getters were Villarreal and Reiter.

Guadalupe "Lupe" Sosa won the Place 6 seat with 53.53 percent of the vote. This is Sosa's second time to run for a seat on the board. She ran in 2004 but lost to Veronica Rivera. Sosa is known for her work with her neighborhood association and for her role in getting an ACC campus in South Austin.

"I'm ready to work with the other board members to make ACC the best it can be," Sosa said. "I am eagerly waiting to get started."

Sosa said she ran on the premise of putting students first, keeping tuition affordable, keeping ACC campuses accessible and helping "more school districts join ACC so that those residents that can not afford to pay out of district tuition can afford to go to school."

Place 4 incumbent Jeffery Richard ran unopposed and was re-elected.

Election results

Place 4:

-Jeffery Richard                        9,332 votes      (100 percent)

Place 5:

-Vic Villarreal                             4,501 votes      (39.88 percent)

-David S. Reiter                         2,800 votes      (24.81 percent)

-Fred L. McGhee                        2,088 votes      (18.50 percent)

-Davis Jones                              1,896 votes      (16.80 percent)

Place 6:

-Guadalupe "Lupe" Sosa        6,096 votes      (53.53 percent)