S.F. City College chancellor takes job in Placer County
City College of San Francisco’s embattled chancellor — embraced by the fiscal pragmatists who hired him but opposed by a newer, union-backed majority — will take a job at Sierra College in Placer County, the Chronicle has learned.
David Martin’s departure this summer ends speculation about whether his supporters could persuade him to stay, and it leaves a leadership vacuum at the financially troubled college that is under scrutiny by accreditors and by the California Community College Board of Governors.
“This is a great loss for City College,” said Shanell Williams, the longestserving trustee on the seven-member board. “Chancellor David Martin worked tirelessly to keep us on the path to fiscal stability. I am honored to have hired him, and wish him the best in his new role.”
Sierra College has about 18,000 students and is in Rocklin, some 25 miles northeast of Sacramento. It announced Wednesday that Martin will become its chief business officer on July 1.
The City College board hired Martin in 2021 amid state warnings that the college needed to cut spending significantly or face insolvency.
Martin was the ninth chancellor in eight years, and the first to financially stabilize the school since college accreditors nearly forced it to shut down during an epic five-year battle during 2012-17. But as Martin balanced the budget by laying off faculty and reducing expenditures to match shrinking enrollment,
the faculty union launched a backlash and secured a board majority in 2022.
The new members have a different vision for City College. They want to expand the school rather than shrink it, saying that the more classes and faculty the college has, the more attractive it can be to students. City College has lost 59% of its students since 2011, far more than the net 17% drop across all 116 California community colleges during that period. Just 39,532 full- and part-time students signed up last year, even though classes have been free to San Francisco residents since 2017.
City College trustee Susan Solomon, who was elected in that recent wave, told the Chronicle last week that she expected the trustees to hire an interim chancellor to take Martin’s place.
John Rizzo, one of the ousted trustees who hired Martin, said it appeared to him that City College “is in serious trouble. We always hired a recruiter, even for interim heads, and that can take six months.”
Meanwhile, the college is entering a critical period.
In January, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges sanctioned the college and placed it on “warning” status after finding that the trustees’ actions neglected the longterm fiscal health of CCSF.
The accreditors said the board failed to follow its own policies and ignored the chancellor’s authority. They gave the college until next March to show how it will fix the problems before a final deadline in January 2027.
Also, under a new state funding formula, City College appears poised to have its state funding frozen at its 2024-25 level for years to come, threatening its fiscal stability, unless it can suddenly attract thousands of new students.
Solomon said she is “not cavalier” about that looming problem but said she has long heard such warnings about the city’s public schools, for example, and “they are often exaggerated. They never materialized.”
Martin did not respond to a request for comment.