James McGuffee and Allen Kaplan won seats on the Austin Community College board of trustees on Saturday, defeating Rodney Ahart and Ana Mejia-Dietche, respectively. Board chair Barbara Mink was unchallenged in Place 7 seat. Computer science professor McGuffee, who won 57% of the vote, says his most immediate priority when he takes the new position is working with AISD and the city of Austin to build a long-promised parking garage for the downtown Rio Grande campus. “I’m sure we can work together for the benefit of the community,” he said. Kaplan, a controversial 12-year veteran of the board, won 60% of the vote to take another six-year term. He also counts facilities among his top priorities, including starting now to build citizen input and support for a bond election in the next couple of years, as well as actively lobbying the legislature to up higher education appropriations to help ACC meet its charge to educate tens of thousands of new college-goers in the next five years. “The top priorities seem very clear to me: funding and facilities, and being able to educate the growth we’re going to see,” Kaplan said. “We know we’re going to see it, and we need the funds to meet it.”
This article appears in May 19 • 2006.