Private investigator and security expert Avito Miranda is set to be Shoreline Unified School District’s newest member on the board of trustees. He will be the third Latino board member in the district’s history—and the only sitting one—at a time when Latino students comprise a majority of the district’s 521 students.

The official election is more than two months away. But Mr. Avito—along with incumbents Clarette McDonald, who represents Dillon Beach and Bodega Bay, and Jill Manning-Sartori, who represents Tomales and Marshall—is running unopposed. A fourth seat up for election this year on the seven-member board remains open, as trustee Monique Moretti, who occupies one of the seats representing Dillon Beach and Bodega Bay, is not running. Per Marin County code, the board must appoint someone to fill the slot before December.

Mr. Miranda, who lives in Point Reyes Station, will take the seat occupied by trustee Kegan Stedwell. 

Although he will be the board’s lone Latino member, and the first in over a decade, Mr. Miranda does not see himself just as a voice for West Marin’s Latino community.

“I don’t want to be on the board like I’m just there for the Latino families,” said Mr. Miranda, who is the current president of the West Marin School’s Parent-Teacher-Student Association. “I’m there for all the families in the district.”

Yet he recognizes that his position might inspire other Latinos to take on more leadership roles. That’s one reason he challenged two longtime incumbents, Tim Kehoe and Jim Lino, in 2013, though he fell short of capturing a seat by a narrow margin. 

Now that his election is guaranteed, Mr. Miranda succeeds former Latino trustees Carlos Porrata and Augusto Conde.

An Inverness resident for over a decade, Mr. Conde has known Mr. Miranda for many years: their sons attended West Marin School together in the early 2000s. He said that Mr. Miranda’s biggest challenge would be to reach out to the district’s northernmost areas. 

“I’m sure he’ll be able to do it, though,” said Mr. Conde, who is originally from Yucatan, Mexico. “I’m glad there’s another Latino on the board. It’s about time.”

Mr. Porrata, from Puerto Rico, was the first Latino trustee of the Marin Community Foundation and now serves on the Marin Workforce Housing Trust’s board of directors. He seconded Mr. Conde’s enthusiasm.

“I’m glad that Avito is in there,” said Mr. Porrata, who lives in Inverness and worked as a Tomales Bay State Park ranger until 2004. “I think it’s important to have representation. Having him there, he brings in some of the thinking of the culture.”

Born in Puerto Rico, Mr. Miranda grew up in Spain and completed two years of college before returning to his home country. In 1992, he graduated from Puerto Rico’s police academy and worked his way from patrolman to detective and, eventually, was assigned to protect the head of Puerto Rico’s police force.

About 20 years ago, Mr. Miranda moved to Florida when his thirteen-year-old stepson suffered a severe head injury that caused amnesia. His stepson spent eight-hours a day in a rehabilitation program that helped him regain much of his memory.

After almost two years in Florida, Mr. Miranda moved to Napa to be closer to his sister in Fairfax. Four years later, he arrived in Inverness Park. His two eldest sons, Joseph and Tito, graduated from Tomales High School, and both now attend Santa Rosa Junior College and College of Marin, respectively. His third son, Paul, will be a seventh grader this year at West Marin School.

In December, Mr. Avito will join a board that spent the past year reeling from the district’s million-dollar structural budget deficit and the threat of a possible county takeover. A set of retirement packages closed the district’s deficit for the upcoming school year, but deficits between $100,000 and $150,000 are still projected through 2018. The board has faced some strained community relations due to the continued refusal of a handful of trustees to voluntarily give up their district-funded health benefits.

Mr. Miranda told the Light that he needs to do “a little catch-up” to nail down the specifics of the budget, but stated that he has every intention of doing so before he joins the board in December. Moreover, he hopes the board will do a better job going forward of explaining budget details to the larger Shoreline community, so that general confusion does not spur public suspicion. 

“The board is not explaining to the district the budget in a way that the people can understand it,” Mr. Miranda said.