Objected to YC terminating a staffer; president says members met improperly
Four board members of the Yavapai College Foundation have resigned, through emails addressed to the college’s leadership, alleging “improper actions” by the Yavapai College administration.
Chairman Raymond Sigafoos, Secretary Howard Meyers, Karen Rizk and Michael Klein sent the separate emails, three of which are nearly identical, addressed to interim President Douglas Berry, Ph.D. and Jack Smith, vice president of community relations and legislative affairs, and others on Monday, Oct. 5.
The Yavapai College Foundation operates independently from the college as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. It was established in 1969 to raise, manage and distribute resources and funding to better support the college’s mission.
Sigafoos was a college Governing Board member for 20 years betore being ousted by voters in 2024. The email comes after the college terminated Chief Development Officer Nicole Kennedy, according to the college. This came as the foundation has seen an operational decline in the last 18 months to two years, which included losing what was originally a 24-member board and losing ties to community organizations such as the Friends of the Southwest Wine Center.
In addition, the foundation saw a turnover of nine staff members, and the former CDO’s continued contact with staff after her termination “created a sense of … fear and angst from those [Yavapai College] employees, which we can’t allow,” Berry said. Regarding the college’s separation from the former CDO, Berry said “some, not all, but some of the board of directors felt like they needed more of a say in that process.”
In her resignation, Rizk alleged that “the college leadership has undertaken with regards to the Yavapai College Foundation has become incompatible with the Foundation’s … Memorandum of Understanding.”
“Due to some issues with our foundation, our athletic department has not seen any support … in addition, we’ve lost some donors, and that’s impacting our ability to give student aid and scholarships and support some of our academic programs,” Berry said.
In an Oct. 5 email Sigafoos sent to the Yavapai College email address of Lisa Rhine. Ph.D. — the former president of the college who the board placed on paid administrative leave in July — Meyers outlined how the resignation letters should be written as well as instructing other foundation members to cite allegations of “improper actions” from Berry and Smith “which have destroyed the Yavapai College Foundation” and violated the MOU. Meyers wrote the email from his work account at Rose Law Group.
The other two recipients in the original email included Rizk and Klein, who appear to have followed Meyers’ instructions and also resigned on Oct. 5. Meyers’ letter alleges that the college wrongfully terminated Kennedy as well as Bohdanna Dudich, an administrative staff member, and barred their access to the foundation premises. It also claims that Kennedy received a cease-and-desist letter banning her from contacting any one affiliated with the college and foundation. Berry acknowledged that college had released a “cease and desist” because an unnamed individual was continuing to contact foundation staff. Minnick said the cease-and-desist was issued to the former CDO after she was released from the college. Berry said it followed her continued contact with foundation staff. Because of an ongoing criminal investigation, he declined to share the timeline, but this came after Kennedy was let go. The letters also accuse the college of ignoring the foundation’s independent nonprofit corporate status, illegally froze $525,000 in funds, cut off access to the foundation’s data and IT services and interfered with the board’s governance. Berry said the college did not freeze the accounts.
The foundation treasurer was alerted to an attempted withdrawal, and the foundation board added extra safeguards. In response to the issues raised in the letter, the college said the MOU, which was last updated in 2022, gives the president authority to hire, compensate and evaluate “all YC employees, including those employees who provide services to the Foundation.” The resigners argue the foundation board controls its employees despite the plain language of §4.2.4.C in the MOU granting that authority to the college.
In addition, the MOU acknowledges the foundation’s status as a nonprofit, but that the funds should be used to support the college, which has not been the case in the last 18 months. “We did not have any clear documentation from meetings or votes that occurred after May 13,” Berry said, until September that year. In that four-month span, the former board chair was pushed out as Sigafoos was named as a replacement. However, Berry said that out of the 12 members of the board, only three email votes were accounted for and there were no minutes recorded of those other meetings.
“That group of four, in addition to some others, have tried to call board meetings outside of the scheduled meeting times,” he said. “They’ve not followed the bylaws in notifying all the board members of those meetings. They’ve met off-campus, they’ve met in homes, they’ve met in restaurants and they’ve deliberately not involved college staff who are members of the [foundation].”
When Berry tried to arrange for meetings on campus, with an agenda and documentation of what occurred and verified, “Mr. Sigafoos and the other three members on that letter never attended any of those meetings.”
Following the resignations, the college is planning on hiring a chief development officer, but not until there is a new full-time college president who can “have a say in how that process works.”
“We are still accepting new board members from all over the county who might want to participate in supporting our students, supporting our programs and supporting our community through the Yavapai College Foundation,” Berry said. This will include electing a new board chair to replace Sigafoos.
“We’re really looking forward to mending some of the relationships that maybe went south in the last 18 months,” Berry said. “There are some key people in the community who I think we can bring back into the fold and really support our programs, our students.”
Klein, Meyers, Rizk and Sigafoos did not respond to separate requests asking for comments on this story.
