The third annual Presidential and Trustee Debate and Forum took place on Thursday in BK 111 and 112 at Cerritos College, hosted by Talon Marks.
The candidates running include positions for Associated Students of Cerritos College president, vice president or student trustee.
The trustee candidates running are as follows: Venessa Vega, Daniel Flores, Joseph Nino and Lance Makinano.
The first candidate running for ASCC president is Miles Aiello and along side him is his running mate Charles Caguioa for vice president.
The second candidate is Aldemar Sanchez and his running mate is Dennis Garcia.
Lastly, Hector Arellano sat alongside his running mate Charlie Zuniga as they debated to win over the audience for the President and Vice president chairs.
The debate was opened by ASCC president Juan Ramirez and questions being asked to the candidates were directed by Talon Marks editors Sebastian Echeverry, Alan Leyva and Carlos Holguin.
Student trustee candidates were the first to be asked a series of questions that ranged from student welfare to improvement measures that each would take to help make Cerritos College a better campus.
Vega emphasized the idea that she would help students have a voice and make sure that everyone’s ideas would be heard and considered, while her opponent Nino stressed relating to students on a deeper level in order to be a successful trustee.
“I feel the debate went well. It was a mass improvement from the past two that I have participated in and I’m really happy that there was solid student involvement,” Makinano said.
“Even if I don’t win, I will still advocate for students because that’s what I do,” he added.
After the student trustee debate concluded, the questions were redirected to the vice president candidates and each candidate had a chance to stand out against their running opponents.
Garcia stood out when he concluded his arguments by saying that there is no secret to success because the only way to achieve success is through hard work.
“I feel [the debate] went great. I had my goals and experience in mind but I also added more as I was speaking. I added some opinions and brought up issues that are currently happening at school,” said Garcia.
During the final stretch of the debate questions were directed toward the presidential candidates and each had an interesting approach at winning over the audience.
Aiello stressed having hydration stations and making recycling a bigger deal on campus.
Sanchez also focused on recycling and bringing equality to all students by stressing the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender community.
Arellano, alongside his opponents addressed recycling as well while also addressing having more ideas on campus safety to make sure all students at Cerritos College feel safe coming and leaving school.
“I was trying to be short and simple, but make sure that it was enough information to say what I wanted to say and I did get my point across,” said Arellano.
Questions from the public were accepted from the crowd that attended the event and via Twitter.
Voting will take place on April 16 and 17 in front of the Health, Science and Food Court walkways.
