Clatsop Community College has chosen a former Oregon legislator as its next president.

Larry Galizio was selected by the college board at a meeting Tuesday night – amid protestations from one board member.

The vote was 6-1 in favor of the choice, with Larry Sparks as the sole vote against. Moments before the meeting ended, Sparks turned in his resignation to Board Chairman Dirk Rohne, and called the president selection process “politicized” and “corrupted.”

Soon afterward, Rohne called the decision “agonizing” especially because of the difficult economic time community colleges are experiencing. But he and the other six board members who chose Galizio over the other finalist, Sara Burns, felt they’d picked the right person from a field of highly-qualified candidates. Burns is the vice president of instruction at Lake Washington Technical College in Kirkland, Wash.

“We believe Dr. Galizio will do an outstanding job of serving the college and the community. We look forward to working with him,” Rohne said.

Today, Galizio said he was thrilled at the prospect of moving to the area and getting to work.

“I feel honored to have been selected,” he said. Over the six weeks of the search, he’s been able to get a good feel for what defines the college, he said.

“It’s become pretty evident to me that the college is about two things – creating opportunity and building community,” Galizio said. He’s ready to work with faculty, staff, the board and the college foundation board to strengthen the college and the area.

Galizio, 46, lives in Tigard and works with the Oregon University System as the director of strategic planning. He has held the positions of instructor and director of Forensics (speech and debate) at Portland Community College. He attended Santa Barbara City College in the early 1980s, which he credits for leading him to teach for 16 years at PCC.

In 2004, after disabling budget cuts hit Oregon community colleges and the debate programs he’d directed for 10 years were eliminated, Galizio ran for Oregon Legislature to advocate for public post secondary education. He served for three terms as an Oregon state representative and from 2004 to 2009, was chairman of the Joint Ways and Means Education subcommittee as well as other committee appointments.

Sparks, a semi-retired aerospace consultant, lives in Cannon Beach. He was appointed in September 2006 and later elected to his position in May 2007. He said he thought the selection process had been rigged from the beginning, starting with Galizio’s introduction to the board by state Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, in early April at the start of the process. He said he believes the board reached a consensus long before the finalists were selected.

“I think he’s the least qualified for the job,” Sparks said, adding that the other candidates all had significantly more experience running colleges. Galizio was chosen because of his political contacts, he said. Sparks said he resigned because of a work schedule that is too demanding to be able to serve the citizens of Clatsop County.

Sparks was absent from the community meet-and-greet June 1 and a check of the attendance roster for all of the private meetings the board held related to the search revealed that he was not present at the final interviews with Galizio and Burns, June 1 and June 2. The last private conversation the group had about the hiring was on June 3 and all board members participated, though Sparks did so by conference call.

“The public process portion and the interviews were critically important in the decision-making process,” said Rohne. All the other board members attended all meetings about the hiring process.

Frank Satterwhite, a board member for 12 years and an instructor at CCC from 1980 to 1997, said the board’s decision-making was solid.

“The process we used for this was as good and as fair as any I have seen,” he said. Satterwhite was on the board when Greg Hamann was chosen as president. A search firm helped a board-appointed committee – made up of faculty, staff, and community members – review about 40 applications and whittle the pool down to six semi-finalists in mid-April.

Final paperwork must still be completed, said CCC Human Resource Director Leslie Lipe. Galizio is scheduled to start work on July 1.