As Officeholder Retires, Daughter Aspires

FULLERTON —  After 13 years on the North Orange County Community College District, Trustee Chris Loumakis is retiring, but the family name still will be on the ballot.

Loumakis’ oldest daughter, Alysha, is one of four candidates seeking a two-year seat on the Board of Trustees in November. But she said their name is where the similarity ends.

“I’m a registered Democrat,” said 22-year-old Alysha Loumakis, who is studying to be a social worker at Cal State Long Beach. “He’s a Republican. . . . My father and I differ a lot on a lot of things. We’re very different.”

Chris Loumakis, 43, agreed.

“She’s not my surrogate,” he said. “She’s got an independent mind.”

The college student from Fullerton is running against Victoria L. Beatley, 37, a Buena Park resident who is a cash manager at CKE Restaurants Inc.; George A. Dibs, 66, a Fullerton resident and retired high school and college teacher and administrator, and Donna Miller, 47, a Buena Park resident and dean of liberal arts at Cerritos College.

*

Beatley, Dibs and Miller are stressing their experience.

“She’s 22 years old,” Dibs said about his youngest opponent. “She certainly has a right to run but I think that these college trustee positions require a good deal of experience and background.”

So far, the race has been a low-key, amicable contest. Each candidate talks of being fiscally responsible if elected to the board, which governs Cypress and Fullerton colleges and their Adult Continuing Education programs.

“The tax base in North Orange County is not growing and, as a result, funding is low,” Beatley said. “Something has to be done to get more income into the district.”

Said Dibs: “I propose to increase income by increasing the number of students from out of state or out of country who pay tuition that exceed the local costs of education.”

Miller and Alysha Loumakis are critical of the district’s move to invest money in the Orange County Investment Pool, which collapsed in 1994 and led to the county’s bankruptcy. The district had $86 million in the pool. About $50 million of that total had been borrowed by the district strictly for investment purposes.

The board “essentially put up as collateral 50% of the district budget,” Miller said. “I propose being more cautious and not putting the district at such great risk.”

The four candidates applauded Chris Loumakis for casting the lone dissenting vote against borrowing money to invest in the county pool.

*

Alysha Loumakis said that if she is elected she plans to scrutinize the district budget and propose ways to improve the way it is managed. She stressed she is no proxy for her father and her opponents agree that she should be judged on her own merit.

“I’m proud of her and I think she would be an excellent community servant,” Chris Loumakis said of his daughter. “I don’t think the voters should diminish Alysha’s intellect and opportunity to make the same contributions to the district that I had to make.”

The four candidates are seeking election to the two-year term that Nilane A. Lee left unfinished because of health problems last year. Lee died soon after stepping down and Trustee Molly McClanahan was appointed to fill the vacancy until November.

Instead of running to keep that post, McClanahan, a former Fullerton mayor, is on the ballot for the four-year seat Chris Loumakis is vacating. She has no challengers.

Three other four-year seats on the board also are being contested.

Incumbents Cynthia P. Coad and Leonard L. Lahtinen, who both represent the same area, are being challenged by J. Carolan Smyth, a marketing broker from Anaheim.

Incumbent Nancy M. Rice faces challengers Judith A. Harrison, an attorney from Placentia, and Craig H. Miller, a teacher from Placentia.