Citizens of the San Mateo County Community College District (SMCCCD) voted for one new board member and reelected two incumbents for the three empty board of trustees chairs on Nov. 3.

New blood comes into the board with Maurice D. Goodman, who is also the first African American to be elected to the board of trustees. Goodman went to Skyline and completed degrees in administration of justice and paralegal studies. He then went on to attend CSU East Bay where he received a bachelor’s of science in criminal justice. His goals are to focus on and to improve the district.

“What I would like to achieve is to be able to improve on the student achievement at all three colleges, and improving quality as well as access and affordability for under-served communities,” he said. “That includes supporting the president’s push to make community college free, and I support that.”

Goodman won by 34,412 votes.

Karen Schwarz, one of the incumbents, has been on the Board of Trustees for five terms. Schwarz hopes to help keep the district in order.

“I hope to just keep everything moving forward, expanding our funds, classes, and retaining students,” Schwarz said.

As for Dave Mandelkern, the other incumbent who won the election: he had gotten 49,657 votes versus Schwarz who had 46,430. Based on his official website, his goals as part of the board of trustees is to help the students.

“We must still focus on the most effective ways to train tens of thousands of students for good jobs and continue to enhance our already impressive student transfer and graduation success rates,” he said.

This year the San Mateo district has chosen to try an all-mail ballot as well as in-person ballots. County Clerk Mark Church told the San Francisco Chronicle that the mail-in vote ran efficiently. The usual polling places were able to be cut from 209 to about 150. According to county elections officials, this year’s voter turnout was 29 percent.