Zárate narrowly wins ACCD runoff

By a margin of just seven votes, incumbent Roberto Zárate held on to his seat Saturday on the Alamo Colleges board of trustees, a post he has held since 2003.

Zárate garnered 637 votes to challenger James Hernandez’s 630 votes in the hotly contested race.

Hernandez said he will seek a recount.

“I’ve never had an election that close,” Zárate said Saturday night. “The turnout was extremely light due in part, I think, to election fatigue in Bexar County, and also, who has an election in June? I met many people who had no idea there was a runoff today.”

With 105,281 residents registered to vote in the district, only 1,282 decided the runoff election. The Bexar County Elections Department, which conducted the election, reported an “under vote” of 15, meaning 15 people turned in their ballots without voting for either candidate.

Zárate, 70, is a retired principal of Mary Hull Elementary School in the Northside Independent School District.

Hernandez, 26, is a case manager for Roy Maas Youth Alternatives. He said he planned to seek a recount “just for my peace of mind.”

“If the decision is the same, I will look to other elections,” he said. “I live in the Edgewood School District, so I may run for that board. I’m glad the race is over, but I will stay involved in San Antonio politics.”

Details on how a recount would be conducted weren’t immediately available.

The vast majority of votes were cast during the early voting period; there were 1,107 early votes and only 175 votes on Election Day. Hernandez won the early vote, 551-542, but lost the Election Day vote, 79-95.

District 5 covers western and southwestern parts of San Antonio.

Hernandez won 44 percent of the votes to Zárate’s 36 percent in last month’s general election, forcing the runoff. A third candidate, Ramiro Nava, won 20 percent.

Zárate is one of a group of longtime incumbents who have occasionally drawn criticism for their support of Bruce Leslie, the polarizing chancellor of the community college district who is set to retire in September, and for now-lifted accreditation warnings attributed to board policies that eroded the colleges’ autonomy.

“There is a faction of the faculty that is not happy with me,” said Zárate. “They’re a small, but activist segment that does not like my staunch support for the chancellor. We are completely focused on student success. The community college student is more at risk than any other student.”

But the board also has received praise for the Alamo Colleges’ increased student success metrics, which many attribute to Leslie’s changes, and for choosing Mike Flores, the popular president of Palo Alto College, to replace Leslie.

Trustees recently ramped up advising to help students pick courses that transfer to their programs of study at fouryear universities, and last year voters approved a $450 million bond for the district.

Zárate