The Governing Board of Yavapai College, the community college of Yavapai County, is back to streaming its meetings but is looking at changing the physical locations where meetings are held after a decision made during the board meeting on Jan. 16.

The meeting has not been uploaded to the board’s website as previous meetings have been, and was only made available to the Sedona Red Rock News following a formal information request under Arizona public records laws. The meeting was only available for download for a week. Members of the public could only obtain the video by filing a public records request with Yavapai College.

“The attorney recommended it, and it was [because] something that had gotten said,” District 3 board member Toby Payne said. District 3 encompasses Sedona and the Verde Valley.

“But the attorneys who recommended that [the January meeting] … not be posted with the streaming … There were some comments made by a couple of the board members and it wasn’t part of the meeting.” Former governing board member Bob Oliphant — who runs the Eye on Yavapai College newsletter and website — and the NEWS drew criticism from District 1 board member Ray Sigafoos.

“There are at least two trumpets in the Verde Valley, who make it their object to whip up controversy about this college,” Sigafoos said at the meeting. “One of them’s a newspaper, the other is a blog. [The] Blog’s was run by Bob Oliphant, who is a friend of mine, not a friend of mine, an acquaintance of mine. He served with me on the board for one year. … But he’s been a thorn in our side ever since he left the board. I have a quotation from a recent blog post and I’d like to read it for the record: ‘The District Governing Board Meeting distinguishes itself from nearly all significant governmental bodies in the county by refusing to livestream its proceedings. This decision seems like another attempt to withhold information about its activities, discussions and debates from county residents.’”

Sigafoos agreed with Oliphant ‘criticism stating, “We do have an obligation to make certain that taxpayers have the opportunity to understand our decision-making process.”

The meeting has since been streamed on YouTube and uploaded to the board’s website, however, the Jan. 16 meeting, at which Sigafoos made his comments, has not been uploaded.

Sigafoos did not return requests for comment.

“Credit is due to District Governing Board member Ray Sigafoos for raising this matter and persuading the board to vote in favor of making the videos accessible to the public they serve,” Oliphant said on his blog in response to the return of live streaming.

“They’re not only streaming,” Oliphant later said. “But they actually posted their full agenda which they had stopped doing, so they almost returned to what they were doing four years ago.” 

The move to commence livestreaming meetings again passed by a 4-1 vote, opposed by Payne, who supported the idea of livestreaming but had concern about how it would incorporate the open call to the public.

“I support livestreaming and said so in the meeting,” Payne wrote in an email. “But I was concerned about whether the public would be able to properly request — say 15 minutes before the meeting starts — to allow open public comment. Especially as the college is asking for the requests for open public comment to be submitted hours prior to the meeting start.”

The Governing Board unanimously voted to direct college staff to research looking at “two potential designated board meeting rooms, one in Prescott and one in the Verde Valley, for meeting held [starting in] the next fiscal year,” according to the January meeting minutes that have been posted.

Sigafoos’ view is that its not worth staff time and “wear and tear” on video equipment to have meetings outside of the Rock House on the Prescott campus.

Yavapai College leaders said meetings involve three days of staff time is required to move livestreaming equipment. “I do want to add that for the IT staff,” Yavapai College President Lisa Rhine, Ph.D., said. “If we go somewhere else other than the Rock House, it is three days. It’s a day of setup. It’s a day of delivery, they come back the third day and break down. So it’s three days of staff time and wear and tear on equipment because we’re moving that technology back and forth back and forth.”

Yavapai College owns the Sedona Center campus in West Sedona, which was formerly the home to the nationally-accredited Zaki Gordon Institute for Independent Filmmaking.

“So all those in favor of [Sigafoos’] motion,” Chairwoman Deb McCasland said to start the vote. “That was seconded by [District 4 representative Chris Kuknyo], to allow the staff to look at possibilities for limiting where we’re going, and the number of times that we move,” starting by Monday, July 1. McCasland’s District 4 includes Camp Verde.

“There’s still a direction to continue the meetings on the dates that are posted now, but in the future after these are posted, to possibly move all the meetings to the Rock House,” Payne said. Payne siad the board does not have a timeline to approve changes to meeting locations and also discussed potential increases to Yavapai College tax rate.

“They’re going for 4% more tax increase over the 5% last time, so it’ll be 9% over two years, and then they’re doing a bunch of renewal of the bonds. Even though the bonds have been paid off they’re intending to continue them and at some point what they’re using that money for will come out, I’m sure,” Payne said.