Quick Take
Cabrillo College’s governing board unanimously voted to appoint Manuel Bersamin to finish Martha Vega’s term through the end of this year after she resigned in July. Separately, Bersamin is running unopposed for the seat in this November’s election and will be sworn in for the full four-year term in December.
The Cabrillo College board of trustees voted unanimously Monday to appoint Manuel Bersamin to fill the remaining term of trustee Martha Vega, who resigned in July.
Bersamin, a Watsonville resident, Cabrillo College graduate and the director of a student retention program at Hartnell College in Salinas, will be sworn in at the next meeting in October to serve as trustee of Area 5, representing Watsonville.
Cabrillo’s board appointed Vega in February 2023 to fill the remainder of Felipe Hernandez’s term through November 2024 after he was elected to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors. Bersamin and another candidate had also applied for the appointment and were interviewed by the board at the time.
Bersamin had planned to run for the seat this November even before Vega’s resignation, and so he applied to fill Vega’s role through the end of her current appointment as well. Bersamin’s appointment approved Monday will expire this fall. However, because he is also on the November ballot for the seat and ran unopposed, he’ll be sworn in for a full four-year term in December.
Bersamin initially competed for the temporary seat against Aloke Mukherjee, a senior analyst at Stanford Health Care and a Watsonville resident. Cabrillo College spokesperson Kristin Fabos told Lookout that Mukherjee withdrew from the race shortly before the Monday meeting.
“We’re really pleased to welcome Manuel to the community,” she said.
Cabrillo College governing board chair Dan Rothwell said, in a statement, that he’s “grateful” to have Bersamin join the board.
“As a Community College administrator and the second former faculty member to serve on our Board, Manuel knows firsthand what it means to really serve students, and I’m looking forward to working with him to steward the College through transformational and challenging times, while advancing the success of Cabrillo’s students,” he said.
Bersamin, according to research by Cabrillo officials, will be the first Asian American and Filipino American to serve on the board in the college’s history.
“I think that was very important, because Asian Americans have contributed a lot to Santa Cruz County, the Chinese that came to help build agricultural canals that first made, at least the area around Watsonville, an area that we could cultivate,” Bersamin said. “Filipinos came and they were manual laborers, like my father. Amongst us Asian Americans in the area, it’s really important to acknowledge advances of our community.”
Bersamin said historian Sandy Lydon and Cabrillo College President Matt Westein verified he is the first. He was also the first Asian American elected to the Watsonville City Council, where he served from 2003 to 2011. He served as mayor in 2006.
In addition to Bersamin’s unopposed race this November, candidates for three additional Cabrillo College governing board seats are also running unopposed.
In December, incumbents Christina Cuevas and Steve Trujillo will be sworn in for trustee Areas 3 and 7 respectively, and newcomer Ken Wagman will be sworn in for trustee Area 4, after trustee Rachael Spencer said she would step down at the end of her term.
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