Yavapai College President Penny Wills faced a Sedona City Council on Oct. 27 that voiced the city’s frustration with the community college and the lack of trust residents have in the honesty of the college’s administration.
We commend the Sedona City Council members who did not hold back with hard questions taking Wills and her administrators to task for their failure to prove Sedona receives a fair return on tax revenue.
In her opening remarks, Wills said Yavapai College had secured a permanent solution to street access and parking at Yavapai College’s Sedona Center. While Wills said this process took years, the truth is that after the college proposed selling the site, public backlash prompted a scramble of meetings with the property owner to secure a land swap in a matter of months after years of failing to do anything to secure the property.
With the exterior secure, Wills said the college would turn its focus to interior renovations, but did not know what potential students from Sedona wanted.
Wills’ statement is odd considering the Verde Valley Board Advisory Committee — which reports to the Yavapai College Governing Board — held the first of two public Town Halls just six days earlier, gathering hours of comments and dozens of suggestions from residents and local leaders. Why did Wills not mention a single suggestion?
When repeatedly asked about whether she would support the recommendations of the VVBAC or even support the committee’s existence, Wills declined to offer any opinion. That does not bode well for the committee nor Sedona taxpayers who believe it serves our interests because Wills has failed to do so as president.
Wills’ statement is also odd considering the Sedona Lodging Council published its 25-page Lodging Sector Compensation Report in September.
Why should Wills have read that report, or least mentioned its existence when she spoke to council to prove the college does provide a service to Sedona? Because it was co-written by the Yavapai College Regional Economic Development Center. In fact, the report is dripping in Yavapai College REDC logos on the bottom left corner of every page, which concludes by listing the sole contact as “Alexandria M. Wright, Director YC Regional Economic Development Center, Yavapai College Sedona Center.”
So either Wills is completely ignorant of what her own staff is doing, in which case the board should fire her for gross incompetence, or she was not honest with Sedona City Council, in which case the board should fire her for deceiving a constituent government body in a public forum while representing her bosses.
Wills clearly wants the VVBAC to go away and for Sedona taxpayers to shut up and keep paying for services in Prescott. After all, the committee exists solely because of Wills’ lethargy and failure to listen to Sedona and the Verde Valley.
The board, which follows her direction, may vote to sunset the VVBAC at its meeting in Chino Valley on Monday, Nov. 9. If the board foolishly listens to Wills instead of the taxpayers and constituents they are sworn to serve, committee members have intimated they won’t go away, but instead work to litigate secession. Either we make this marriage work or we must seek representation from a divorce law firm and take our tax money with us. A Maryland family law attorney may also be consulted in cases where marriage don’t work anymore.
