In early 2014, Yavapai College released its controversial 10-year plan, which promised the Prescott side of Mingus Mountain $103 million in capital projects over the next decade while the Verde Valley side only gets a little more than $2 million over 10 years, despite the fact Verde Valley taxpayers contribute about $12.2 million per year in property taxes.
Municipalities and residents in the Verde Valley caused an uproar over the imbalance, which led the college to form an advisory council to address local concerns.
Despite meetings and seeming steps toward equanimity, the college has yet to listen as it has not made any changes to its 10-year plan, which dumps most of that capital project money into Prescott Valley to build a campus based on projections of new residents to the area who have not yet moved in nor built homes. The 77,000 people who call Verde Valley home are left to wonder why we are being excluded from capital projects for the existing students while also having many college programs moved to the Prescott side of the mountain. It would seem the college’s Governing Board still believes a vaporous cloud of non-existent “maybe” bodies in Prescott Valley are worth more to the college than real, flesh-and-blood taxpayers in the Verde Valley.
We don’t permit elected officials to live outside their jurisdictions, yet the Clarkdale campus’ dean still lives in Chino Valley, meaning the supposed best advocate for the Verde Valley has no real community connection to his students other than having an occasionally-used office on this side of the mountain. That fact alone is indicative of the college’s culture of disregarding the value of our valley’s residents: “Thanks for the check, but I’m not going to live near y’all.”
We deserve a dean who lives and shops in the same community of his students, and the Governing Board should have at least required the dean to move or hired a new one who would live here.
The college already raised tuition and fees on students and now, to add insult to injury, the college is asking for as much as a 2 percent property tax increase to help pay for the misguidance in shifting programs and construction projects away from Verde Valley taxpayers who are asked to foot the increased bill.
The college is planning a meeting on the matter on Tuesday, June 9, in Prescott, but has no plans as yet to discuss the tax increase in the Verde Valley. Considering our taxpayers are being asked for more money with no discernible benefit, common courtesy would dictate at least one public meeting or forum in Clarkdale, Sedona, Camp Verde or Cottonwood. Now only those who have the time to drive over the mountain on a Tuesday afternoon will be heard and their voices will fall on deaf ears.
Yavapai College recently got the opportunity to acquire the 45-acre DK Ranch in a donation from the Steele Foundation, a parcel worth $4.5 million, offered for free by the charity on the contingency that it not be “flipped” for resale. The college has until Monday, June 1, to file a proposal. It would be insane for the college to decline such a major land gift, but because the college can’t sell it nor steal physical land and move it to Prescott Valley, who knows if the college will opt in to the deal.
A county community college is supposed to serve all county residents equally. Yavapai College hasn’t and it appears that short of a lawsuit or secession from the taxing district or even the county, college officials will continue to ignore us but be happy to steal our cash.
