The race for a seat on the Alamo Colleges District board is headed for a high-stakes runoff between accountant Robert Garcia, who drew support from a long list of local political leaders, and Carolyn DeLecour, who led the faculty senate and has the backing of some deep-pocketed teachers’ unions.
In a four-way race, Garcia took 29.2% to DeLecour’s 28.9% — cutting out trustee Leslie Sachanowicz, who has held the seat since 2020 but took just 26.3% of the vote.
A fourth candidate, former trustee Joe Jesse Sanchez, took 15.6%.
Since no candidate reached the 50% threshold required to win outright, Garcia and DeLecour will face off in a June 13 runoff with likely nothing else on the ballot.
Sachanowicz, a 68-year-old attorney, ran a fairly quiet campaign, refusing to raise donations and instead lending himself $7,500 to cover campaign expenses. His reelection bid in District 9 was endorsed by the Republican Party of Bexar County.
The unusually hard-fought reelection race with three challengers came as Texas has placed tough restrictions on higher education, including doing away with elected faculty senates, placing restrictions on which types of courses public universities can offer and rooting out campus diversity efforts.
Garcia, 45, is a certified public accountant who far outpaced the other candidates in campaign donations, and weathered a late-breaking attack over his teen arrest record, which he said was a response to the momentum behind his campaign.
“Coming out on top is awesome,” Garcia said after the final results were in. “We all sort of split in different ways in terms of community support, we knew that. But we are grateful that we came out on top. I think in terms of the runoff, it was an expectation. We have our strategy ready and we go to work on Monday.”
On election night, Garcia said he’s never attempted to hide the arrest, but the thought of it being brought up so publicly did make him uncomfortable.
The report was brought forward by an anonymous Alamo Colleges employee who said voters needed to know about it before putting Garcia in a fiduciary role. In the aftermath of the news, however, Garcia said he’s received nothing but support.
“It was very pleasant to see that. It was almost like a eulogy,” Garcia said about the response on social media. “Seeing that all of these folks are sharing and just saying, ‘Hey, I absolutely support him. We need people with lived experience. We don’t need ‘flawless people’ or those that expunged it. We need people that, you know, have had those challenges.’”
He reported more than $26,000 raised in the first round of the race.
DeLecour, 77, a lifelong educator who taught at Palo Alto College for 27 years, earned the support of faculty members and associations. In her campaign she said she aimed to better represent the otherwise silenced voices of the more than 900 full-time faculty members and more than 6,000 faculty and staff members combined.
She’s ready to hit the ground running ahead of the runoff, she said on election night.
“I’m committed to doing this and I have the best group of people in the world working with me,” DeLecour said. “But we still have work to do and it means that it’s every vote matters and then every voice matters and so I’m ready to do whatever it is that that that I’m asked to do.”
Higher-ed political woes rock sleepy Alamo Colleges board race
At a recent campaign event, she also stressed the need for the board to have more faculty representation in this current political environment.
“I’m all about respect and trust for faculty, and I don’t see a lot of that happening these days,” DeLecour told a gathering of the North East Bexar County Democrats. “A lot of [community college] boards are saying, ‘Well, it’s law, we can’t do anything about it’ … I’ve talked to some other college districts, and I think there are some things that we can do.”
The 9-member Alamo Colleges District Board oversees policy direction for five independently accredited community colleges in San Antonio — San Antonio College, Palo Alto College, St. Philip’s College, Northwest Vista College and Northeast Lakeview College — which serve nearly 86,000 students.
Trustees serve staggered six-year terms.
In 2025, the voters approved a $987 million bond, the largest in the district’s history, meant to build new facilities that will expand some of their most sought-after programs including those in healthcare, engineering and automotive technology.
On election night, Sachanowicz said he was pleased with how far his strategy of not relying on campaign donations or owing any favors took him.
“It is what it is,” Sachanowicz said. “One interesting thing to note is not the percentage differences between me and [Garcia], it is to look at the number of votes. And you think about how much you spent to get those votes?”
