Longtime education leader Joan F. Sparkman has filed her candidacy papers seeking re-election on Nov. 6 to her Mt. San Jacinto College Board seat, according to Riverside County elections officials.
Sparkman served for more than 20 years as a trustee for Temecula Valley Unified School District before she was elected in 1999 to the community college Board of Trustees District 5 post serving the Temecula area. She currently is that board's president.
So far no one has pulled candidacy papers to oppose Sparkman, according to the county Voter Registrar. The deadline for filing candidacy papers is Aug. 10.
Sparkman's four-year term originally was set to expire in 2011 but the Board of Trustees realigned the election cycles to coincide with the state general elections, to save money. This move will defer about $500,000 to 2011-12 and save about $50,000 per election in future years, according to college officials, although it also cost the District more than $160,000 to mail notices informing registered voters in the 1,700-square-mile area of the change.
The terms for trustees Eugene Kadow, Dorothy McGargill and Joan Sparkman, which would have expired in 2011, were extended to 2012. Terms for Trustees Ann Motte and Gwendolyn Schlange were extended by a year to 2014.
