Big Park Community School campus is included, but not the sole focus

Yavapai County has hired the architecture firm Gensler to conduct a county-wide study to evaluate all of its building space needs. The decision was made during the Wednesday, June 21 Yavapai County Board of Supervisors meeting, with District 4 Supervisor Craig Brown casting the sole dissenting vote.

The $481,749 study will include the former Big Park Community School in the Village of Oak Creek, which the county is considering purchasing from the Sedona-Oak Creek School District under a lease-to-purchase agreement. The push for county use of the deteriorating BPCS property has been led by Yavapai County District 3 Supervisor Donna Michaels. Michaels said she sees the site as a potential location for telemedicine and she also said the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office is interested in a permanent substation on the property.

However, the only formal action that has been taken so far is the issuance of a nonbinding letter of intent by Yavapai County, leaving the county and SOCSD free to walk away from the discussions at any time.

District 2 Supervisor and Board of Supervisors Chairman James Gregory refused to comment on the proposed lease. “Gregory doesn’t want to make a decision one way or the other on that school until that space study is done,” county public information officer David McAtee said, adding that the proposed lease is Michaels’ project until the matter comes before the board.

McAtee said that a potential YCSO substation on the property would also require board approval and is within the scope of the space study.

An additional condition of a YCSO substation is the completion of roof and building repairs of the property, which the county’s letter of intent states “shall be completed by applicant at applicant’s expense and shall constitute a credit against monthly rent payments otherwise due until such time as the credit for initial repairs is exhausted.”

The study contract includes surveying all county agencies to gather data about what services and staff should be at all of its owned or leased facilities and “will also identify existing or potential partnering relationships with other government agencies and or community organizations.”

Michaels has suggested possible partnerships at the Big Park campus with the Community Health Center of Yavapai, the Arizona Commerce Authority and the Northern Arizona Council of Governments.

The board’s discussion of the contract was brief. Brown was concerned with the price tag. Michaels raised the issue of the vendor not providing the contracted services.

“I would be open to the consideration of phasing the funding to this entity, so that we see their performance as it unfolds, and can be assured that the quality we are expecting is being delivered along the way,” Michaels said. “So we do not have yet another vendor that we’ve engaged for nearly half a million dollars that doesn’t perform.”

She was referring to the county’s recent experiences with CSC Holdings, which received a $13 million contract to provide broadband infrastructure to underserved areas in Yavapai County. The board unanimously voted to terminate the agreement at its April 4 meeting, citing CSC’s “failure to provide an adequate response to the deficiencies notice issued by the county,” in the words of Vice Chairman and District 1 Supervisor Harry Oberg.

Yavapai County Facilities Director Ken VanKeuren addressed that concern by pointing out the wording of the contract.

“In the contract, we have a stop-work order,” VanKeuren said. “Any time if we feel that we’re heading in the wrong direction, or that we maybe want to eliminate something, we can issue that order and then we can renegotiate what we may want to eliminate.”

A major goal of the space study is to get an objective view of administrative needs across Yavapai County and how to prioritize space.

“I know my district pretty well,” Michaels said. “I’m not sure I need the planner to tell me where a particular service needs to be where it is self-evident by the communities’ request. On the other hand, I think we have to plan long-term and I think we have to know how that works with the entire county, not just a particular area.”

“We need to make an aerial view of the entire county and evaluate what needs are for the next five to 10 years, so we have a good game plan,” Gregory said. “Then every one of us needs to decide what’s the most important need, prioritize those needs and go forward with it.”

Verde Valley Caregivers Coalition

Michaels has been pushing the purchase as a way of developing additional telehealth options for residents.

“We have a formal agreement with the Verde Valley Caregivers,” Michaels told the nonprofit Big Park Regional Coordinating Council on Thursday, July 13. “We have a real need. There’s about 1,800 to 2,000 clients at any given time that the Verde Valley Caregivers serve. They might be driving them down … to a doctor down in the valley because they don’t have one here. We’re going to offer telehealth services with trained volunteers.”

Michaels went on to claim that two board members of the Verde Valley Caregivers will be managing HIPAA requirements for telehealth offerings at BPCS.

However, VVCC said there is no such agreement in place.

“We have absolutely no plans, not even tentative plans,” VVCC Executive Director Kent Ellsworth said. “But I think the discussion is a good one that’s going on. I think it’s a good alternative to explore for the school buildings in that site. To turn it into something that benefits the whole community.”

Ellsworth declined to speak about how he sees his group using space at BPCS.

“We’ll develop that [vision] in conjunction with our board of directors, and just have it as an organizational vision for that potential. But we haven’t gotten that far with it yet,” Ellsworth said.

Michaels is scheduled to hold a town hall meeting on Thursday, Aug. 24, from 3 to 4 p.m. at the Sedona Public Library in the Village of Oak Creek.