Challenger ekes out upset win in Fresno-area college school board race by nine votes
Final election results from Fresno County are in as of Thursday, and with that came an eleventh-hour victory in one tight school board race.
Trailing by five votes as of the second-to-last vote tally, challenger Destiny Rodriguez ultimately pulled out a nine-vote win over incumbent Bobby Kahn for his Area 1 seat on the State Center Community College District board.
The only votes that remained to be counted between Fresno County’s penultimate tally and Thursday’s were those that required the “cure” process, meaning the ballots had a missing or incorrect signature that voters had an opportunity to remedy with the county clerk’s office.
“I’m just feeling overwhelmingly ecstatic,” Rodriguez said in an interview with The Bee’s Education Lab Friday morning. “My team and I ran a very successful campaign, and I’m just so grateful to my voters.”
With this win, Rodriguez puts an end to Kahn’s eight years on the SCCCD board. He has worked as executive director for the Madera County Economic Development Commission and as a former chairman of the California Central Valley Economic Development Corporation, where he has since taken a role as treasurer.
He didn’t didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment from the Ed Lab.
Rodriguez is a Fresno State alum, where she studied mass communications and Chicano and Latin American studies. Since then, she’s worked for various environmental justice nonprofits and now serves as a consultant to board member Gideon Kracov on the California Air Resources Board.
She was the first in her family to attend college, and started at Fresno City College — one of several community colleges the State Center governs.
“I really believe that our community colleges are a first step,” she said. “I think it’s very important because my first college experience was at a community college, and here I am full circle, now, as a trustee-elect.”
Trustee Area 1 includes portions of Madera County, where Kahn had an 816-vote advantage over Rodriguez. Rodriguez’s lead over Kahn in Fresno County was 5,417 votes to his 4,592.
“I know that I will have to have a different approach with Madera, which I already do, than ... with Fresno,” she said. “I have a lot of support within the Madera community, so I’m looking to listen and learn from those that live in the area.”
Rodriguez will be sworn in at the SCCCD meeting next Tuesday, Dec. 13.
In the only other SCCCD race on the ballot this November, Rob Fuentes defeated Gilbert Felix. Fuentes will replace Fresno City Councilmember-elect Annalisa Perea in the Area 5 seat.
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