The Sedona City Council had scheduled a presentation by officials from Yavapai Community College on the state of higher education in Sedona for a special meeting on Oct. 9, but college officials declined to show up for the meeting, so council members then spent half an hour discussing the institution’s problems with two empty chairs.

“Nobody decided to come from the college today,” Mayor Scott Jablow said at the beginning of the meeting. “They decided they didn’t want to.”

City staff had invited college President Lisa Rhine, Ph.D., to present to council several months ago.

After Rhine refused the invitation, staff subsequently arranged a visit by Irina del Genio, dean of the Verde Valley campus in Clarkdale, and Richard Hernadez, executive director of government relations.

College staff later reassigned the meeting to Marylou Mercado, vice president of Workforce Development, and Provost Doug Berry. None of these five officials put in an appearance on the appointed day.

In the absence of the YCC representatives, Jablow proceeded to read a series of emails he had exchanged with Hernandez prior to the meeting, in which he had given Hernandez advance notice of some of the questions he planned to ask college officials. These dealt with topics including declining enrollment in culinary courses in Sedona — from 169 students in 2018 to 49 students in 2021; the number of students attending in-person classes; the number of online students from Sedona and the Verde Valley; total in-person enrollment at the Verde Valley campus for fall 2024; the proportion of the $49 million the college receive in property taxes that comes from Sedona and the Village of Oak Creek taxpayers; why the president’s salary is not public; and what plans the college has for Sedona in the next three to five years.

“Very simple questions, I thought,” Jablow said.

He then read Hernandez’s Sept. 27 reply.

“The college is not interested in a repeat of how we were treated the last time we presented to the council,” Hernandez had written to Jablow. “That meeting was inappropriate, and the line of questioning was not respectful for a public forum. Based on your questions, we are declining to present to the council on Oct. 9, 2024. The college will instead share the many investments and positive activities directly with Verde Valley and Sedona residents. Senior college leadership is willing to consider a smaller, more intimate meeting with you and key council and staff to discuss ways we could positively collaborate.”

Jablow added that when he had asked Hernandez why the public couldn’t hear the answers to those questions, Hernandez had declined to answer.

Outgoing Councilwoman Jessica Williamson commented that the college had previously planned to build housing for 60 Verde Valley students at a cost of $9.25 million. “That’s what they told everybody they were going to do,” Williamson said.

The council then screened a promotional video for a 42-acre property in Prescott that the college plans to develop for housing.

“I was shocked to compare that beautiful $11 million housing facility compared to the knocked-together $500,000 housing that they’re going to do here,” Jablow said. “They don’t want to build anything here … they refused to build tiny homes here.”

“They’re not doing anything for Sedona or our neighbors. And Yavapai College knows it’s wrong. That’s why they don’t want to meet this council in public,” Williamson said. “They offered to meet in private, where residents won’t find out what they’re doing … They can continue to raise our taxes and spend it developing facilities wherever they want. They can and do ignore our requests … I don’t expect the Verde Valley to get all the tax money back for higher education, but it is reasonable to expect some investment here … It’s simply not right that Sedona and Verde Valley needs are ignored year after year.”

“They created a 10-year plan in 2012 that proposed selling the Sedona campus and spending 90% of their capital funds on projects on the Prescott side of the mountain,” Williamson continued. “As a result, the Clarkdale campus appears to have steadily declined. Attendance at the Clarkdale campus has steadily declined, and programming at the Sedona campus is all but nonexistent. Sedona and the Verde Valley effectively have no representation and no way to get the college to do what’s right.”

“My sense is that the college is just waiting for the moment when it can sell the campus and be done with it up here in Sedona,” Williamson finished. She added that the Verde Valley provides approximately 30% of YCC’s funding.

“There’s nothing in there that says there has to be a proportionate spend of money back into any particular area in the county,” Councilman Brian Fultz said of his examination of the college’s website and mission statement, and added that the county seemed to him to be too big for one entity to be responsible for managing higher education. “Maybe everything should be in Prescott in the first place and not dilute any of the spend by having anything in Chino [Valley] or in Clarkdale or Sedona. I don’t know that that’s the right answer.”

He suggested hitting the reset button and starting over to find areas where the city could collaborate with the college.

“That was tried a number of years ago,” Jablow said.

“I believe that your view represents the college’s view, that money not put in Prescott is a waste,” Williamson said. “Their mandate is to serve the entire Verde Valley, and their mandate also says it has to be in an accessible and affordable way.”

“What’s our alternative at this point, just to send each other nasty emails?” Fultz said.

“I’m not expecting 30% of the money to come back here. How about 20%?” Jablow said. “We need to be more in their face.” He then expressed his intention of attending YCC’s board meetings more frequently in the future.

The college board previously voted on Jan. 16 to hold all future board meetings in Prescott so that college officials did not have to drive to the Verde Valley.

Hernandez did not state how Yavapai Community College intends to communicate with Sedona taxpayers; the college has not sent a press release to Larson Newspapers for publication since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.