Santa Barbara City College to Host 2026 SBCC Trustee Candidate Forum

Santa Barbara City College is giving voters an early, direct look at the candidates vying for two open seats on its Board of Trustees. The college announced it will host the 2026 SBCC Trustee Candidate Forum on Wednesday, October 21, from 4 to 6 p.m., bringing together the five candidates running in Trustee Areas 5 and 7 ahead of the November election.

The event, first reported by the Santa Barbara Independent, will be held in Room A211 of the MacDougall Administration Building on SBCC's East Cliff Campus at 721 Cliff Drive. It is open to the public — including students, faculty, media representatives, and any community members who want to hear directly from the people seeking to govern one of the Central Coast's most consequential public institutions.

Who Is Running

The forum will feature two contested races. In Trustee Area 5, voters will choose between E. Howard Green and Dominique Luján. In Trustee Area 7, three candidates are competing: Heather McGinnis, Andrea Varon, and Oscar Zavala.

Both seats are open in this cycle, meaning the winners will join a seven-member board that sets policy, approves budgets, and hires the chancellor for a college district serving tens of thousands of students each year across Santa Barbara, Goleta, and the broader South Coast. The college published trustee area maps alongside its announcement so voters can confirm which district they live in — a useful step, since area-based elections determine which race appears on each voter's ballot.

For residents who can't make it to the Westside campus, SBCC plans to livestream the forum. According to the announcement, the livestream link will be posted on Friday, October 16 — five days before the event.

Why the Board of Trustees Matters Locally

For many Santa Barbarans, SBCC is more than a college — it's an economic and civic anchor. The college's East Cliff Campus sits prominently on the waterfront, its adult education programs draw lifelong learners from throughout the county, and its transfer pathways feed students into the UC and CSU systems. Decisions made by the Board of Trustees ripple outward into housing policy for students, workforce training for local employers, and the tax burden on area property owners when the district puts bond measures on the ballot.

Trustee elections also tend to draw far less attention than city council or supervisor races, even though the board oversees a budget in the hundreds of millions of dollars and sets direction on issues that have been contentious locally in recent years — from enrollment recovery following the pandemic to how the district manages its real estate and facilities. Forums like this one are often the only structured opportunity for voters to see all the candidates in a room together, answering the same questions, before ballots are due.

This year's forum comes with Election Day roughly two weeks later. California mails ballots to all registered voters, which means many Santa Barbara residents will begin voting — and in some cases finish voting — within days of the October 21 event. For undecided voters in Areas 5 and 7, the forum may be the last high-visibility chance to compare candidates side by side.

Practical Details for Attendees

The college has made attendance straightforward. Parking on the Cliff Campus will be open to the public beginning at 3 p.m. and will remain open for the duration of the event — one hour before the forum's 4 p.m. start. That's a meaningful accommodation on a campus where waterfront-adjacent parking is normally at a premium, particularly on a weekday afternoon.

The venue, Room A211 in the MacDougall Administration Building, is the college's standard setting for board and governance functions. Attendees expecting a formal, structured forum rather than a rally-style event will likely find the format familiar: candidates for each area are expected to present their vision and engage with questions from the community, though the college's announcement did not specify a moderator or question-submission process.

Remote viewers should watch for the livestream link, which SBCC said would be made available Friday, October 16.

What Comes Next

Between now and Election Day on November 3, Santa Barbara voters in Areas 5 and 7 will see these names on their ballots: E. Howard Green and Dominique Luján in Area 5; Heather McGinnis, Andrea Varon, and Oscar Zavala in Area 7. The Area 7 race, with three candidates splitting the field, could turn on narrow margins — another reason the October 21 forum may matter more than typical midterm school-board debates.

Winners will take their seats on a board responsible for steering SBCC through ongoing questions familiar to community college districts across California: enrollment and enrollment-based funding, student housing and affordability in one of the state's most expensive regions, and continued investment in career technical education programs that feed the local workforce.

Voters who want to do their homework before the forum can review the trustee area maps published with the announcement, and can check their registration and sample ballot through the Santa Barbara County elections office.

The forum runs Wednesday, October 21, 2026, 4–6 p.m., MacDougall Administration Building, Room A211, SBCC East Cliff Campus, 721 Cliff Drive, Santa Barbara. Admission is free and open to the public.