Surprising nearly no one who has paid any attention to Yavapai Community College’s behavior toward the Verde Valley for, well, the last 50 years, the college’s executive staff declined an offer to appear before the Sedona City Council last month to explain declining enrollment in programs based in Sedona, a lack of capital investment in Sedona and Clarkdale and an overall shortchanging of Verde Valley taxpayers by college officials and administrators.
The questions that were proffered by council members in advance for college officials to answer were the sort of run-of-the-mill inquiries any legislative body would have for another government entity that serves their constituents, requesting some minimum amount of accountability for our tax dollars.
But such simple and straightforward questions, apparently, were too intimidating and terrifying for college officials to answer.
College administrators, who earn well over $100,000 a year, apparently also had their feelings hurt by council members asking similarly pointed questions last fall, which left them insufficiently able to explain why YCC has systematically shortchanged and undercut programs in the Verde Valley, investing its time, effort and our tax dollars overwhelmingly in Prescott, which does little good for students on this side of Mingus Mountain.
As an independent government body, YCC has no legal obligation to meet with any government on this side of the mountain. However, as a representative of its constituents, who are YCC taxpayers, Sedona City Council does have an ethical obligation to call college officials to Sedona to answer such questions, and college officials in past have responded, even if the meetings can get prickly.
Of course, such meetings would not be adversarial in the first place if the college served its Sedona and Verde Valley taxpayers fairly. But college officials have long understood that if they simply ignore Sedona, governments here have little recourse to compel the county’s community college to do anything for our students. The college’s taxing power is derived from state law and our dollars will continue to flow, no matter the abuse or neglect with which the college may treat taxpayers, potential students and residents. Teaching the uppity Sedona City Council a lesson for being meanies really means our students are the ones who suffer.
YCC really only has one voice on this side of the mountain: Toby Payne, who represents District 3, which covers Sedona, Cottonwood, Clarkdale, Jerome, the Village of Oak Creek and parts of Cornville.
The supposed representative for District 2, Deb McCasland, lives somewhere between Prescott and Prescott Valley and is a former 34-year YCC administrator who clearly sees no legal, moral or ethical obligation to serve her constituents, but rather slavishly serves the college as though she were still a full-time employee.
We had hopes that Yavapai Community College President Lisa Rhine would be different from former Yavapai Community College President Penny Wills, but it appears they are cut from the same cloth and have no interest in serving the one-third of their taxpayers living in eastern Yavapai County, cutting off all communications not just with us, but with potential students. YCC stopped sending press releases to us for publication during the COVID-19 pandemic response and refuses to respond to basic inquires except those submitted as formal public information requests they are required by state law to answer. If no residents are aware of college programs, then administrators can claim they have been abandoned by those residents and low Verde Valley engagement is justified.
When the Higher Learning Commission revoked the designation of YCC’s Clarkdale campus as a “branch campus” under federal definitions, Rhine just refused to explain why, and one of Rhine’s lackeys — sorry, “college administrators” — told us she would not respond. The same staffer then accidently sent us an internal email that showed staff were scrambling to figure out how we learned that the HLC had revoked the college’s status.
Perhaps things will turn a corner with the results of the latest election. Chris Kuknyo, representing Chino Valley, departed the college board after winning a seat on the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors.
Ray Sigafoos was handily defeated by William Kiel. Sigafoos has been on the board longer than many YCC students have been alive, referred to Verde Valley advocate Bob Oliphant as an “enemy” and once called this newspaper “a burr under the saddle.”
We hope that the Sigafoos-dominated era ends with his defeat and the new college board will take a fairer view of tax dollars and work for all residents in the county.
