On Dec. 18, the Lane Community College Board of Education held a special meeting to address the vacancy for Member-at-Large Position Seven, which became open following the resignation of Lisa Fragala in November.
Fragala stepped down after being elected to the Oregon Legislature. Past board members have resigned to become Lane County commissioners or have sought other political office.
At Wednesday’s meeting, four candidates — Bob Brew, Dan Isaacson, Jesse Maldonado, and Jim Arnold — were interviewed. The plan, discussed at the Dec. 16 meeting two days earlier, was for the board to use a ranked-choice selection process to evaluate candidates based on their applications and interviews held at the meeting, ranking them from first to fourth place.
The ranking process faced significant challenges during the meeting. In the first round of voting, the results were three first-choice votes for Jesse Maldonado and two for Bob Brew.
Chair Zach Mulholland and board members Denise Diamond and Austin Folnagy cast their first-choice votes for Jesse Maldonado. However, board members Kevin Alltucker and Steve Mital refused to rank as second choice, insisting that Bob Brew was their sole candidate and declining to consider other options.
Julie Weismann opted not to participate in the voting process, explaining that she did not believe it was appropriate to appoint a new board member with only six months remaining in the three-year term.
Diamond, Mulholland, and Folnagy selected Dan Isaacson in the second-choice voting round.
Diamond, Mulholland, and Folnagy selected Jim Arnold in the third-choice voting round.
Their final choice was Bob Brew, ranked by Diamond, Mulholland, and Folnagy as their last preference.
With board member Weismann abstaining and Alltucker and Mital supporting only one candidate, the selection process resulted in a deadlock.
Folnagy criticized the outcome, saying that the failure to appoint someone to the vacant position was “exclusionary and inconsistent with the values of the equity lens.”
Mulholland voiced his disappointment, expressing that he had hoped for a decision to be made. During the final attempt to vote for an appointee, Weismann walked out of the meeting in visible frustration, and the motion failed again. The meeting concluded with an approved final motion to postpone the appointment of Position Seven indefinitely.
Click this link to watch the recording of the meeting.
