For college board, vote for Owens

Voters sometimes skip down-ballot races when they don’t know the candidates or just get tired of big ballots. But if you live in West Valley-Mission Community College District Area 2, which includes parts of Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, don’t even think about skipping it.

Vote for Robert “Bob” Owens and do the board, the district and its 20,000 students a great service by re-electing him. And by preventing his opponent, Chris Stampolis, from returning to the board.

Owens has degrees in law and engineering and uses his expertise in legal, personnel and finance issues effectively on the board. Highly respected, he is endorsed by his fellow trustees.

As to Stampolis — here’s all you need to know:

While he was on the Santa Clara Unified board, a court banned him from a middle school campus and ordered him to stay away from its principal. The superintendent sought a court order to keep him away. Stampolis’ general conduct made fellow trustees so nervous they hired two security officers to stand by at board meetings. Quite the role model. Still, Stampolis has supporters, which is why it’s so important for voters who might otherwise skip this race to weigh in. There’s a segment of voters who think disruption of any kind is good. Stampolis’ reputation was known when he ran for Santa Clara Unified, and he still won.

Don’t let it happen again. Vote for Bob Owens.