Our Board of Directors

Linda Ziegahn has been on the Board of Directors of YCRC since 2018. She brings to the board her interests and experience in conflict resolution, intercultural communication, and community engagement. Linda has also served recently on the boards of Opening Doors, a refugee resettlement agency, and the UC Davis Retirees’ Association. In 2016 Linda retired from the Community Engagement and Research Program for the Clinical and Translational Science Center at UC Davis. In this position she developed and conducted community-engaged research training programs for clinical and health researchers, residents, and community-based organizations. She holds a doctorate in Adult Education from Michigan State University. Prior experience includes teaching and administration at Antioch University and Syracuse University, and international development consulting in several African countries and Bangladesh.

Lentice Sanders-Carter is honored to serve as a YCRC Board Member. With over 25 years in Human Resource Management working in the housing industry, she brings both practical knowledge and real-world experience in facilitation, mediation, and conflict resolution in the workplace and community at-large.  She believes wholeheartedly in the work that YCRC is doing both locally and nationally to provide alternative ways of resolving conflicts, restoring relationships, and healing harms. Lentice also has a passion for community building and performs volunteer-work supporting the upliftment and empowerment of women and their families. 

After receiving my B.A. from UCD in 1968 and my J.D. from UCD’s King Hall in 1972, I spent five years in the Central Valley with California Rural Legal Assistance, returning to Davis in 1976 to take a position with the state’s new Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Later, after a couple of years with the State Public Defender’s Office, I joined the staff of the Attorney General’s Office in 1984, serving in a number of positions, and retiring in 2012. Following retirement, I wanted to explore the use of restorative practices as an alternative to the criminal justice system. To that end, I joined with others and the Yolo County District Attorney to develop the Neighborhood Court Program and to train its earliest volunteers. My work with Neighborhood Court led to an invitation to join the YCRC Board of Directors. I believe that YCRC performs an important, restorative and communicative, function in our community. I enjoy working with the other board members, our Executive Director, and with our committed staff and corps of volunteers, in expanding the organization’s scope of services, our capacity to perform those services, and our geographical reach. I presently serve as the Board’s Treasurer.

Elena is excited to join the YCRC Board in 2024 and contribute to its growth. Elena trained as a Community Mediator in 2002 with the City of Davis program that would later become YCRC.  Several years later she trained as a Youth Restorative Justice Facilitator.  Elena sees these “non-legal” methods to resolve conflict as a much kinder, more effective method to resolving conflicts.  

Elena brings a wealth of experience to YCRC. She earned her law degree in 1978. She opened a private legal practice serving marginalized women and children in divorce and domestic violence cases.  Later, as a State Attorney, Elena developed AIDS education programs for adults with developmental disabilities, represented clients in benefits hearings, helped close socioeconomic gaps in low-income communities, presented workshops on a variety of insurance issues and supported legislative initiatives for fair insurance practices to protect the elderly. Driven by a passion for social justice, she has spent decades working in the nonprofit world–helping create, develop and expand several community organizations. 

Elena knows the services that YCRC offers are invaluable, especially today as strife and discord have grown throughout our communities.