Meeting to be held at the Rock House on the Prescott Campus | Starting at 9:00 a.m. and ending at 4 p.m.
District Governing Board
The Yavapai Community College District Governing Board will hold its February Budget Workshop and General meeting on Tuesday, February 22 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Rock House on the Prescott Campus.
Under Arizona law, the public has a right to attend, listen, tape record or videotape these meetings. The public may not disrupt, but may speak if the Community College places a call to the public on its agenda. See Ariz. Att’y Gen. Op. No. I78-001. It does not appear from the Sunday posting of the agendas that there will be a call to the public. But, the agendas could change. The meeting as posted Sunday, February 20, can be viewed by clicking here for the morning budget workshop meeting and here for the afternoon general meeting.
The Community College has changed its decade-long policy of providing the attachments to the agenda when it posts an agenda for a Governing Board meeting on its web site. While there are a handful of attachments to the February Agenda, most attachments were not posted. This reduces the amount of information relevant to the agenda that the citizens of Yavapai County might find useful prior to deciding whether to make a 150-200 mile round-trip drive to attend a meeting. Or, useful in deciding whether to speak when a call to the public is allowed.
This process also does not treat internet viewers equally with those citizens who attend in person. If you attend in person the Community College has a number of bound booklets containing the Agenda attachments on a table available for citizens to pick-up. However, those persons with disabilities, in particular, who are interested in the Community College but cannot attend a meeting in person and will view it on the internet, are not treated fairly when it comes to the Agenda because the attachments are not posted.
Moreover, the Community College likes to boast about being open and transparent. That is hardly the case when it comes to attachments to the Agenda when posted on the Governing Board website.
Note that The Yavapai Community College District covers all of Yavapai County consisting of 8,125 square miles. The size of the County is comparable to states such as Connecticut (5,543 sq. miles — 12 community colleges and universities), Delaware (1,982 sq. miles — three community colleges and universities), Rhode Island (1,214 sq. miles— one public and two private community colleges) and New Jersey (8,723 sq. miles — 19 community colleges and universities). The state of Israel encompasses 8,550 square miles (ten universities and 53 colleges). Moreover, there is no public transportation from the east and west sides of Mingus Mountain and the roads from the east to the west are few.