Doug Harris is the incumbent in this year’s race for Yuba Community College District’s Area 7 trustee.

I first met him in mid-2022. At that time, I had to confess that I had never voted in the trustee race because I didn’t follow them. I just didn’t feel informed. I think that’s probably the case with a lot of people.

Since then, I have learned a great deal about what a good trustee can accomplish, why Doug is a good trustee, and why we should pay attention to the race for trustee.

Doug taught human services and sociology classes for the Woodland Community College Lake County Campus for over 20 years. He retired in 2020.

Beginning in about 2015, he witnessed a noticeable downturn in resources and programs offered at the Lake County Campus. So, when he learned about the vacancy on the Yuba Community College Board of Trustees, he stepped up to fill it. In April 2022, he accepted the temporary appointment to serve until the November 2022 general election.

And that’s when I met him. I was running for my local school board. I had a son in eighth grade and college was becoming more of a focus for my family.

Within a few months of being on the board, Doug realized that there was a lot more work to be done and that April to December was not sufficient time to provide the new direction that was needed which was to end the reliance on interim appointees and stop the rapid turnover. Doug decided to run for the two-year seat. He was elected that November to finish his predecessor’s term.

In addition to never having followed the race for trustee, I had never heard of Trustee Area 7. I have since learned that the Yuba Community College District is made up of Woodland Community College (with campuses in Woodland, Lake County, and Colusa) and Yuba College (with campuses in Marysville and Yuba City).

More importantly, the Area 7 trustee represents those of us who live in Middletown, Anderson Springs, Hidden Valley, part of Cobb, Twin Lakes, Lower Lake, Clearlake, Clearlake Oaks, Spring Valley, and other Eastern parts of Lake County, as well as most of the northern half of Colusa County.

The district spans eight counties and covers quite a large geographic area. Having someone like Doug as our representative is important to make sure that smaller campuses like Lake and Colusa are getting equal consideration.

Doug has proven to be a great advocate for the Lake County Campus. He was instrumental in the formation of the Lake County Campus Advisory Group which has been recognized as an auxiliary of the Yuba Community College District Foundation.

He reached out to community leaders, urging them to voice the educational needs of the community and how the college could best support them. Those leaders invited others and there was a tremendous showing at the November 2023 trustees’ meeting. Many Lake County leaders came and spoke during the public comment to ask the administration to pay attention to the needs of the community.

Doug also convinced the board to meet more often in Lake County. They now meet twice a year at the Lake County Campus instead of just once, which provides a greater opportunity for the board to hear directly from our community.

During his tenure, the board has secured a permanent chancellor for the district and a permanent VP of Instruction, a permanent VP of student services, and a permanent president for the Woodland Community College. Here in Lake County, they’ve hired a permanent dean, restaffed the library, filled the vacant counselor position and filled the position of biology instructor. Anatomy is a prerequisite for nursing programs and without a biology instructor to teach anatomy, students cannot access nursing programs. There is a whole new attitude about the campus.

Doug has told me that as trustee he is duty-bound to advocate for the district as a whole, but he recognizes that the Lake County and Colusa campuses have been overlooked. He’d like to continue building upon what he’s already accomplished. He wants to continue to expand the contact between community leaders and the administration to better respond to the needs of our community.

He is proud of the board's decision to move in the direction of paying part-time faculty the same as full-time faculty for teaching activities. Part-time faculty who teach a certain number of classes are also now eligible for healthcare benefits.

His priorities are to complete the contract with full-time faculty, to implement fire mitigation measures, and to streamline enrollment. The current admissions and enrollment process is overly complex, and he’d like to make it easier district wide.

He wants to expand career and educational pathways at the Lake and Colusa campuses. One example would be to establish an ag program as there is a glaring absence of an agricultural program for both the Lake and Colusa campuses.

He’s served on numerous community boards and worked for multiple human services agencies. For 20 years he’s been a part of and has seen first-hand how lives are changed through educational opportunities. He understands both vocational and academic educational needs.

Doug’s proven he's an effective advocate. To me it just makes sense to re-elect him as trustee.

I hope you will join me in voting for Doug Harris for Area 7 trustee this Nov. 5. You can find out more about Doug at https://re-electdougharristrustee.com/.

Charise Reynolds lives in Middletown, California.