The Contra Costa Community College District is poised to be under new leadership for the fourth time in the past decade, with Chancellor Mojdeh Mehdizadeh set to depart at the end of December after more than four years at the helm.
Mehdizadeh’s retirement was approved by the Governing Board at its Sept. 9 meeting, along with an interim chancellor appointment and contract with Micaela Ochoa, the district’s executive vice chancellor of administrative services and a former Pleasanton Unified School District administrator who served as its interim superintendent briefly in 2017.
“We have absolute confidence in Dr. Ochoa and our leadership team to maintain the momentum on our strategic goals and ongoing initiatives,” CCCCD Board President and Ward 2 Trustee Diana Honig said at this month’s meeting.
“Dr. Ochoa has extensive experience in financial stewardship, administrative leadership, and institutional operations, which uniquely positioned her to provide stability, continuity and strong leadership during this transition period while ensuring that the district continues to remain focused on serving our students and advancing our mission,” she continued.
The district does not appear to have issued a press release or an announcement to the general public about its chancellor transition, although the move has been shared with the staff and college communities. The news was first reported Tuesday by the LMC Experience, Los Medanos College’s student newspaper.
Ochoa’s interim contract begins Dec. 1 and includes a one-month overlap with Mehdizadeh before she officially departs at the end of the calendar year.
Honig said that the board will be working during the current semester to put together a search committee for a permanent chancellor, with the recruitment set to kick into gear this spring.
“Chancellor Mehdizadeh, as you can imagine, has earned considerable vacation time and will be taking some time off prior to her retirement,” Honig said.
Ochoa’s contract is valid through the middle of next summer, “unless extended by mutual agreement”, providing a $393,432 total salary for the eight-month term along with other benefits including a car allowance, covered travel expenses and a necessary expense stipend.
Mehdizadeh’s retirement from the district more than 30 years after she was first hired was among the resignations formally accepted by the board as part of its consent agenda that night.
A Diablo Valley College alumna and longtime administrator, Mehdizadeh became the district’s 10th permanent chancellor when she was selected for the role after serving as interim following the departure of Bryan Reece spurred by an internal investigation into an unusually high contract award that was later rescinded by the board.
Mehdizadeh was named as the district’s permanent chancellor in late 2023, after more than a year in the interim role starting in early 2022, when Reece formally resigned from the district after being out on paid administrative leave for several months amid investigations into mishandling finances.
In addition to leading the district amid Reece’s leave, Mehdizadeh was thrown directly into the fallout of the scandal and other controversies between its administration and the board in the years prior.
One of her first major acts in her early months as interim chancellor releasing the findings and full report of an independent investigation into allegations of a retaliatory and “quid pro quo” work culture during his brief tenure that included attempting to award a contract well outside the district’s budget that investigators found he was overly close with.
The fallout also included litigation from a handful of district administrators – including Eugene Huff, Ochoa’s predecessor as vice chancellor of administrative services, and interim chancellor in 2020 prior to Reece’s selection – alleging retaliation and wrongful termination after Reece took office. The board approved a $1.5 million settlement in March 2022, one month after Mehdizadeh took on the interim chancellor role.
Mehdizadeh’s four-plus years leading the district are set to mark the culmination of a nearly 33-year career there, having first been hired as an hourly employee in 1994. Her final day on the job is Dec. 30.
Ochoa joined the district as vice chancellor of administrative services amid a flurry of turnovers in the chancellor’s office in 2022, having served as an administrator with the San Mateo County Community College District prior to that.
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