In Los Angeles Community College races, Veres, Harris, Winston ahead in early returns

Incumbent Steve Veres took the lead in the race for Seat 2 on the Los Angeles Community College District board, while Darryn Harris was ahead for Seat 4 and Randall Winston was ahead for Seat 6, according to early returns.

In all, 16 candidates are vying for three at-large seats on the seven-member board of trustees. The district, which spans about 900 square miles, is the largest in the country, and the majority of its 200,000 students are low-income. It includes the city of Los Angeles and nearby cities including Culver City, Montebello and Burbank.

Those running for the board have diverse backgrounds and varying ideas, but they are in near-unanimous agreement that district leaders need to do more to meet the basic needs of students struggling to pursue their higher education goals.

Veres, who also serves as an advisor to state Sen. María Elena Durazo, has the support of many Democratic politicians and labor unions, including those representing community college faculty and staff. Educator Adriana Cabrera was in second in the early returns for Seat 2, while business owner Kristina Irwin was in third, ahead of two other candidates.

The race for Seat 4 was wide open after incumbent Sara Hernandez left to run for a state Senate seat.

Harris, a government and community affairs officer for St. John’s Community Health, gained the support of a wide swath of Democratic politicians, as well as labor unions and six of the seven trustees now on the board, including Hernandez. He was the most well-funded candidate for Seat 4. The early returns showed healthcare workforce specialist Elaine Alaniz and former board member Nancy Pearlman locked in a close race for second and third, in a seven-candidate field.

“We started this campaign with a simple message: Every student deserves opportunity, and their future should have NO DEAD ENDS,” Harris wrote in a social media post after early returns showed him with a commanding lead. “We’re one step closer to making that vision a reality.”

In the race for Seat 6, incumbent Gabriel Buelna was in second, followed by community college professor Roberto David LaCarra in third and Realtor Tonia Arey in fourth, according to the early returns.

Winston, a deputy mayor for L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, received a key endorsement from the community college district’s faculty union, which put significant financial resources behind his candidacy.

James McKeever, president of the faculty union, AFT Local 1521, declined to discuss many details of the union’s decision, but told The Times that the executive board wanted to go “in a different direction” and saw Winston as the best candidate.

Buelna and another candidate accused Winston of misleading the public by describing himself as an architect and an educator, when his full-time job is deputy mayor of infrastructure and climate resilience. Winston said his first professional degree is in architecture and he is licensed in the field. He said he’ll be teaching a leadership class at West L.A. College this fall.