Candidate Name: Thea Selby
Phone Number: 415 309 9410
Web site: theaselby.org
E-mail:thea@theaselby.org
Name of Campaign Manager: Theo Ellington
How much do you expect to spend in this contest: $30-$40K
Major Endorsements: Lieutenant Governor Kounalakis, Senator Wiener, Assemblymembers Ting and Haney, Supervisors Gordon Mar, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Hillary Ronen, all the sitting Trustees, Sierra Club, NUHW. See theaselby.org/endorsements for full list
Incumbent Board Member whose votes most reflect your values: Aliya Chisti
Incumbent whose votes least reflect your values: Seems like a divisive question since I work with all of them.
1. What is your stance on COVID safety at CCSF? Under what
circumstances might you support instating a mask or vaccine
mandate, or canceling in-person classes? What would be the main
basis on which you make this decision? (e.g., would it be based on
your gut feelings, or whose advice would you listen to?)
We have a mandate now. We instated it during Covid. We also have a mask mandate. We followed the public health officials' guidance.
We also created a Back to Class process so that we could safely get people back in the classroom as we lost almost 30% of our enrollment during Covid.
2. Why are you running for College Board?
I am part of the team that got CCSF accredited seven years ago. It is time to get re-accredited, and I want to make sure we get re-accredited next year. With this board, we have the best likelihood of getting re-accredited. We must keep a balanced budget and growing reserves. I am committed to staying the course there. We must grow enrollment. As a marketing, communications, and outreach expert, I will bring my “day job” expertise to City College. We MUST grow enrollment back if we are to grow the college. Finally, I've been working with the students over the past years to create a free transit pass for our students. We have made great progress this year (AB1919, a pilot program for free transit for ALL students, passed the Assembly and Senate and is in front of Governor Newsom for signature) and I would hope to get it, paid for at the state level for ALL community colleges, in the next year or so.
3. How are you currently involved in the Community College -- or how
were you involved in the past:
I'm a Trustee, having served since 2015. I've also been a student over the years, taking Chemistry, San Andreas Fault, Swing Dance, American Sign Language, and Introduction to Masculinity (online, during the pandemic)
4. What is your stance on public and private partnerships within the college?
I'm not sure how that works. We have grants that sometimes come from private funding. That is known as categorical funding, and, while it's good to have funding, comes with many strings attached. I cannot think of a “public/private partnership” existing today at City College, except perhaps 33 Gough (see below) .
5. What is your position on Free City College? How should it
be changed, if at all?
When the memo of understanding was signed with the City and County, they left very little room for what we can use the money for, and every change must be OK'ed by the Supervisors.
We are working right now on expanding the uses of the funds ($15M) to include recruiting for students and paying off student debt incurred during the pandemic. I think that we should potentially also be able to use the funds at OUR discretion rather than the Board of Supes, who don't know anything about City College. I would like to eventually change that as well. The transfer tax that pays for City College mostly goes elsewhere. We should be able to govern the 30% of the tax revenue that comes to City College.
6. If elected to the Board, how would you ensure that you and the
public would receive the college's draft budget with sufficient
time to review it thoroughly before adopting it?
Have you been talking to me and to Alan Wong? Frankly, I would continue to talk with the Chancellor about what we expect out of his Vice Chancellors so that he is aware that his employment depends upon getting his employees to support us properly in that regard. We hire and fire only one employee: the Chancellor.
7. What is your position on selling campus properties?
It is a last resort. I'd rather do what we did with Gough Street, where we leased it to a builder so that we could build 1500 units of housing, 33% of which are affordable.
8. Do you feel there is enough transparency or public disclosure of the Board and the college? How would you change things?
Closed session happens in every governmental position so that the legal battles and labor negotiations are not tainted by the public finding out about them in the middle of the battle/negotiation. This is a continuous problem b/c the public does not feel they know about things until too late. We have a litigious society-can we change that? In the meantime, this board does its utmost to have every discussion in public, following the Brown Act.
9. Have you attended the Community College Board meeting? Would you change public comment policy at the meetings? If so, how?
I attend each month, and I'm the Chair of the Student Success and Policy committee, which I lead each month. Public comment happens before each item. I wish we were in person. It's different hearing a disembodied voice that breaks up b/c of internet issues vs. seeing a human being in front of you. Hopefully this will begin again next month.
10. How will you increase quality child care at ALL campuses?
I will lobby for funding. It is appalling how little child care we have at City College. Childcare was a HUGE issue for me when I ran for Assembly during the Special Election. The other candidates were not discussing it, but women I talked with across SF were struggling with it. Not being able to find people to do the childcare, not getting paid enough to do childcare, not being able to afford to pay for childcare. My line then was “Childcare developers should be paid the same as software developers.” And, it should be subsidized. If it were, we would save oodles of money down the line, and we would get more productive people.
11. How will you work to counter and prevent profiling and police
harassment on campus? What is your position on police firearms on
campus?
I am on record as being against arming the police. Our police are excellent and should be teaching de-escalation to the SFPD, as they know how to do it.
12. What is your position on allowing noncitizens the right to vote for
College Board and other local elections? Did you take a public
position on previous ballot initiatives on the subject?
I am fine with having noncitizens vote, but the CA Supreme Court just struck it down for the Board of Ed elections, so I'm not sure that's going anywhere soon.
13. What are your views of transportation and pedestrian safety to,
from and around City College campuses? What, if anything, would
you change, and how would you go about making those changes?
I'm a big transit advocate (Happy transit Month!). I support upgrading our public transit to all our campuses. I support free transit for community colleges (see above). I created and support a student-led Transit Team. We are working on the free transit pass, funded at the state level. So many things to change, including implementing the suggestions in the TDM study completed a few years ago at Ocean campus.
Pedestrian safety needs to be improved as well. Since the 1950s in America, we've designed first for cars, and then for walkers and public transit and bikes. I've worked consistently as the Chair and now the Co-Chair of the San Francisco Transit Riders over the past 10 years to make a difference on this front.
14. What is your position of military recruiting on campus?
I do not have a strong position. Our students are some of the most disadvantaged students in the higher education system. Some of them may want to go into the military. Having said that, I have never seen military recruitment on campus. It's not like JROTC, super obvious.
Due Date: Sat, Sep 3, 11:59 pm.
Please submit by email to cc@sfgreens.org. For more information, call
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